There are a few words that are generally regarded as off limits to be uttered around any sports team.
“Rebuilding” is one of them.
Call the 2009-10 ASU women’s basketball season what you want — a down year, a transition year, a disappointing year. The Sun Devils were ultimately rebuilding after losing six seniors, including a top-10 WNBA draft pick in guard Briann January, from the 2008-09 squad that made a run to the Elite Eight for the second time in three seasons.
Not to mention, ASU also knew it would be without the services of point guard Dymond Simon, who led the Sun Devils in scoring (13.8 points per game) during 2008-09 before she re-tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in the regular-season finale, which forced her to sit out ASU’s NCAA Tournament run and use her redshirt year in 2009-10.
But coach Charli Turner Thorne has built ASU into one of the nation’s most-respected programs, and with that comes high expectations regardless of who’s on the roster.
And many of those expectations were not met, as the Sun Devils missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2004 and made an early second-round exit in the WNIT after losing to BYU last week to finish the season 18-14.
But even though the Sun Devils did not sustain the same success as recent years, a young roster gained valuable game experience, and there are plenty of pieces to build on for next season. The season
It was a rocky road, to say the least.
ASU began the season ranked No. 16 in the preseason Associated Press poll, and the 2009-10 campaign started well enough when the Sun Devils beat South Dakota State, an NCAA Tournament team the year before, in the season-opener by a score of 73-64.
But the very next week, the Sun Devils were thumped by then-No. 9 Xavier 59-46 in their first big road test of the year, which also first exposed the offensive deficiencies that would haunt the Sun Devils for the entire season.
An alarmingly-close 65-56 win against lowly Idaho State in early December also caused some concern, but that quickly turned to optimism when a young Sun Devil squad narrowly lost to a pair of top-10 teams in Texas A&M (72-62) and Baylor (70-66) in the Holiday Hoops Classic in Las Vegas later that month.
But the season went through another sharp dip at the start of the Pac-10 season. ASU blew a nine-point lead with under five minutes to go against USC to lose 60-56, then was humbled by UCLA 74-56 and then fell to Washington 62-56 in Seattle.
The Sun Devils had come into the 2009-10 campaign without a regular-season loss to any Pac-10 team other than Stanford or California since 2006. But right then, the Sun Devils were staring at three straight defeats to teams they simply weren’t used to losing to, and that simultaneously dropped ASU out of the rankings for good.
The season took an upward swing when ASU won five of its next six games, highlighted by a 63-61 comeback victory over Cal in Berkley that featured a game-winning jumper by senior guard Danielle Orsillo with less than a second remaining, to get the Sun Devils back into the Pac-10 mix.
But things hit rock bottom the next week.
After the Sun Devils needed overtime to defeat UW 67-61 at home, ASU was stunned by a Washington State team that had not won a conference game all season by a score of 66-62 — its first loss to the Cougars at Wells Fargo Arena since 1997 in a game where the Sun Devils committed a season-high 29 turnovers.
Orsillo then set new career-highs in scoring in back-to-back games at Oregon State (26 points) and Oregon (29 points), but the Sun Devils lost to the Ducks 82-81 despite shooting a season-high 64.6 percent in the game. ASU then recorded its 10th striaght win over UA and its eighth straight loss to Stanford before pulling out another come-from-behind victory against Cal that was fueled by its seniors — Orsillo and forward Kayli Murph y— in their final regular-season home game.
Yeah, it was a roller-coaster ride.
That stretch set the stage for a critical road trip to Los Angeles, but prolonged scoring droughts doomed the Sun Devils in a 63-59 defeat at the hands of UCLA and a lack of execution down the stretch led to a 62-52 loss to USC.
That gave ASU one last chance to make a good impression on the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee in the Pac-10 Tournament, but the Sun Devils once again fell short, this time in a 60-50 loss to Cal in their third meeting of the season.
So instead of punching their tickets to their sixth straight Big Dance, the Sun Devils had to settle for a berth in the WNIT.
Turner Thorne started five freshmen in ASU’s 84-61 dismantling of New Mexico State in the first round, but the unconventional lineup switch didn’t work in the second round against BYU, as the Sun Devils fell behind early and were ultimately defeated 61-53.
It was a season full of ups and downs, one that lacked a real statement win, and one that almost always seemed to take a wrong turn whenever it looked like the Sun Devils were ready to get over the hump. The players
ASU was very inexperienced in the backcourt this season, and it showed, as many of the Sun Devils’ troubles stemmed from a lack of production on the perimeter.
The Sun Devils were often visibly out of synch on offense, and much of comes back to the point guard, where junior Tenaya Watson was playing out of position and freshman Sabrina McKinney frequently showed her youth.
Orsillo closed out her career as one of ASU’s most prolific offensive weapons, as she finished third on ASU’s all-time scoring list with 1,383 points. She made the transition to the Sun Devils’ go-to scorer in 2009-10, which led to a season where she ranked 10th in the Pac-10 in scoring with 14.1 points per game and earned a spot on the All-Pac-10 Team — all while playing with a dislocated shoulder for most of the season.
There were times where Orsillo put the Sun Devils on her back — most noticeably in both regular-season Cal games and on the road trip to the Oregon schools.
But Orsillo was often relied upon so heavily that opposing teams could key in on her, and she didn’t always get a lot of help, as no other Sun Devil finished the season averaging in double figures.
Sophomore Alex Earl and freshman Deja Mann never developed into the consistent outside shooting threats that the Sun Devils needed (ASU shot just 29 percent from 3-point range), and while sophomore Kimberly Brandon was often praised for locking down opposing perimeter players on defense, she also had trouble contributing on the offensive end of the floor.
While junior forward Becca Tobin (9.7 points, 6.4 rebounds per game) was ASU’s best inside player statistically, the anchor of the ASU post game was Murphy, who posted career-highs in points (7.3 per game) and rebounds (6.1 per game) while also doing plenty of the “little things” that don’t always show up in the box score.
Off the bench, redshirt freshmen forward Janae Fulcher displayed flashes of potential and scored a career-high 18 points against NMSU in the first round of the WNIT, while sophomore Kali Bennett had a team-high 39 blocks and also showed an ability to rebound but had numerous problems finishing easy shots around the basket.
Freshman center Joy Burke was used sparingly until the stretch run because of a preseason injury that slowed her development, but she’s another young post that has good upside.
The future
It’s unfair to put too much emphasis on one person, especially in Turner Thorne’s system that constantly rotates players in and out of the game, but how much the return of Simon should help the Sun Devils cannot be understated.
If she can get back to last season’s form and stay healthy, she’s bound to have a big year. And the Sun Devils need it — not just her scoring, but her decision-making, passing ability, perimeter defense and overall floor leadership.
ASU will lose Orsillo on the perimeter but will return every other guard that played significant minutes this season.
Watson will slide over to her natural off-guard position, while McKinney should serve as Simon’s primary backup at the point during her sophomore season.
Earl and Mann will need to contribute more as outside shooters, while the Sun Devils should also benefit from the arrival of freshman Adrianne Thomas and the debut of Markisha Patterson, who like Simon, missed the entire 2009-10 season because of an ACL tear.
In the post, Tobin will have to become the Sun Devils’ core player because of the departure of their most reliable inside presence in Murphy.
Burke and Fulcher will likely battle for the other starting spot on the block during their sophomore seasons, while Bennett will also be in the mix but will need to get better at connecting on scoring chances in order to see heavy minutes.
Brandon is expected to swing between the three and her natural position at the four during her junior season.
ASU could also add one or two more players during the spring signing period.
Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu
