Playing the No. 2 team in the nation on the road during the second week of the season can be a daunting task for any squad.
Or it can be used as a measuring stick.
So instead of hanging its head after a 70-57 loss at Oklahoma Friday night, the ASU women’s basketball team plans to use it to its advantage.
The No. 18 Sun Devils (2-1) saw first hand that there is still work to be done in order to reach the Sooners’ level, and now those exposed weaknesses need to be fixed.
“Now our team has to take what we’ve learned and what we’ve experienced, and we have to grow from it,” ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “If we do that, then I absolutely consider [the loss] a blessing.”
The Sun Devils will face at least three more quality opponents on the road this season, including No. 14 Texas on Dec. 18 and Pac-10 Conference rivals No. 8 Stanford and No. 7 Cal in March.
Sunday, No. 4 North Carolina beat OU 80-79 to win the preseason WNIT.
Friday, a 3-pointer by ASU senior guard Briann January tied the game at 12 early in the first half and an old-fashioned 3-point play by junior guard Dymond Simon cut the Sooners’ lead to 24-22, but the Sun Devils would never get closer than seven points the rest of the way.
ASU shot just 33.8 percent from the floor, and Turner Thorne attributed a lot of those offensive struggles to both poor shot selection and the inability to capitalize on good looks at the basket.
“We were working too much individually and not enough together,” she said.
Part of the inconsistency on offense may have been due to players trying to do too much, as Turner Thorne admitted the Sun Devils need to work on handling those hostile environments better.
“The hard thing in charged atmospheres on the road like that is just really staying connected as a team,” she said. “We’ve got to look at our mental preparation and our focus, and our team has to be able to go into environments like that and play relaxed and stay focused for 40 minutes.”
The Sun Devils were also outrebounded for the first time this season (47-35), which is an area that Turner Thorne said will continue to be the “No. 1 priority on [the] team for the entire season.”
The ASU defense held OU to 42.2 percent shooting, but the Sun Devils also allowed runs of 10-0 and 6-0 that helped the Sooners gain comfortable leads.
“If we can get more consistent and play 40 minutes of team defense and pressure people, [then] we can beat anybody in the country,” Turner Thorne said. “The problem was that we got tired in spurts, and we relaxed in spurts.”
The Sun Devil defense also held OU senior All-American center Courtney Paris without a shot for the majority of the first half, but she finished the game with 19 points, 20 rebounds and six blocks.
“She’s certainly one of the most dominant [post players] that I’ve coached against,” Turner Thorne said. “Her physical presence, it’s like [Suns center Shaquille O’Neal].”
Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu.
