That's about as close to 40 minutes of perfect basketball a team can get.
It was pretty smooth sailing for the ASU women's basketball team, as it blew Oregon State out of Wells Fargo Arena Thursday night, 66-42.
"This is what we've been working towards — playing two halves of basketball," ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said. "I really felt that we did that, and we didn't let up even when we built up a pretty sizable lead. We stayed focused and pretty much got good shots on offense [and] worked hard on defense."
The Sun Devils (14-7, 8-2 Pac-10) started the game on a 14-4 run, sparked mostly by their pressure defense. OSU (10-11, 3-7 Pac-10) missed six of its first eight shots, and ASU forced nine Beaver turnovers in the first nine minutes of the game.
"We had great energy [to start the game]," Turner Thorne said. "We went after them, and we cranked it up and we did a very good job of basically not allowing them to run their sets."
The Beavers then went on a 10-2 run of their own to make the score 16-14 with eight minutes left before the break.
"They came back at us," Turner Thorne said. "We had some defensive lapses in that stretch where we let them get the ball inside [and] gave them a few easy post feeds."
Then the onslaught began.
The Sun Devils closed out the first half on a 17-5 run, going into the locker room up 33-19.
"When teams make runs at us, we want to stop the run as soon as possible," junior center Sybil Dosty said. "Tonight, that was a good chance to work on it. We responded really well."
The second half was more of the same as ASU pushed its lead to 20 on a free throw by Dosty, just over three minutes into the period. ASU led by as many as 29 late in the game.
The Sun Devils were clicking on both sides of the ball as they shot 57 percent from the field, while forcing 24 Beaver turnovers.
"Our guards' on-ball defense was amazing tonight," junior forward Lauren Lacey said. "Everyone was in the passing lanes. That's how we're supposed to be playing our defense, and that's how we should have been playing this entire season."
The high shooting percentage was primarily due to the dominance of the Sun Devil post players on the inside. Of ASU's 66 points, 34 were scored in the paint.
"Kudos to the guards because [they] got [the post players] the ball at the right place at the right time, and really set them up," Turner Thorne said. "A lot of those were one-footers. That's beautiful offense to me. I'm all about the high percentage shot."
Lacey, who was back in the starting lineup after coming off the bench against both Washington schools last week, scored 21 points to lead the Sun Devil scoring. Dosty added 11 points and five rebounds off the bench.
OSU freshman guard Talisa Rhea was the only Beaver in double figures, scoring 14 points.
However, the dangerous three-point shooter was only 1-of-6 from behind the arc and she scored most of her points when the game was all but decided.
Reach the reporter at: gina.mizell@asu.edu.
