LOS ANGELES — As the calendar turned to March last week, ASU women’s basketball coach Charli Turner Thorne said she started preaching the “win or go home” mentality to her team.
Now, the Sun Devils’ backs are really against the wall.
ASU will have one final opportunity to show it deserves a sixth straight berth in the NCAA Tournament this weekend when it starts the Pac-10 Tournament play against California in Friday’s quarterfinals at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.
“It’s now or never,” said ASU senior guard Danielle Orsillo, who was named to the All-Pac-10 team this week and currently ranks 10th in the conference in scoring with 15.4 points per game. “Are we going to change or are we not? This is our last chance.”
After getting swept by UCLA and USC last weekend, the Sun Devils (17-12, 9-9 Pac-10) are in a virtual must-win situation to have any sort of consideration for an at-large bid for the Big Dance. But two wins are probably necessary to avoid sweating things out on Selection Monday.
“I’m not even thinking about that right now — it’s just wasted energy,” Orsillo said of the possible tournament scenarios. “I just want the 2009-2010 team to go out with people remembering us. That’s it. I want to make a difference and help leave a legacy behind.”
Of course, ASU could override the NCAA Selection Committee completely and punch its own ticket to March Madness if it wins the tournament and earns the Pac-10’s automatic bid.
“If we can put 40 minutes together, people are going to be pretty impressed,” Orsillo said. “I think if every single person finally gets it, we will surprise people. I’ve been saying that since the beginning of the season. Don’t count us out yet.”
Turner Thorne also said the Sun Devils still haven’t lost hope at making a last-second push to the postseason.
“You have some kids that have had some really good postseason success, so I think they bring that confidence in,” Turner Thorne said. “And then we have a roster full of just clueless, resilient young’uns who are like ‘OK, another day. Let’s try this again.’ Maybe we’ll figure it out this time.”
The team held a meeting on Monday, and Turner Thorne, Orsillo and senior forward Kayli Murphy all noted that the energy at Tuesday’s practice was a positive one.
“The culture of the atmosphere around this place has changed a little bit [this week],” Orsillo said. “I’m excited to see what that means; what the result of that would be.”
Cal (17-12, 11-7 Pac-10) is virtually in the same boat as ASU, as the two programs are in a similar general state. Both have been staples in the NCAA Tournament in recent years. Both are young teams after losing key seniors from last season. And now both are fighting for their postseason lives.
But ASU has one key advantage — it swept the Golden Bears in the regular season.
Two of ASU’s most exciting games of the season, and arguably its two most impressive wins, have come against Cal.
In January, the Sun Devils came back from 10 points down in the final four minutes to notch a 63-61 victory when a baseline jumper by Orsillo found the bottom of the net with less than a second remaining. ASU then staged another come-from-behind win against Cal two weeks ago when it ended the game on a 13-0 run to grab a 57-50 win on Senior Day.
There certainly won’t be any secrets in their third meeting in six weeks.
“Confidence-wise, I think we couldn’t have a better matchup,” Murphy said. “We know we can beat this team — we’ve done it twice. We’ve been down, [and] we’ve come back up.”
The heart and soul of Cal’s team is senior guard Alexis Gray-Lawson, who was named to the All-Pac-10 team for the third time in her career this week after finishing the regular season ranking second in the conference in scoring (18 points per game).
Turner Thorne also emphasized the ability of Cal’s perimeter players to have an effect on the boards will be a key factor of Friday’s game, as Gray-Lawson (5.5 rebounds) and freshman Layshia Clarendon (4.6 per game) are among the conference’s best rebounding guards.
“Rebounding [will be] huge,” Turner Thorne said. “They live off their second shots, and their posts and their guards rebound. [Their guards] really hurt us last time we played.”
On the inside, Cal is paced by a pair of freshmen in DeNesha Stallworth (12.4 points, 6.1 rebounds per game) Gennifer Brandon (seven points, 7.7 rebounds per game), while ASU will rely heavily on two veterans in junior Becca Tobin (9.8 points, 6.3 rebounds per game) and Murphy (7.4 points, 5.6 rebounds per game).
Should the Sun Devils beat the Bears for a third straight time, they will more than likely face Stanford in the semifinals on Saturday.
“It would be incredible to get another shot at them,” Turner Thorne said.
Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu
