When ASU redshirt senior point guard Dymond Simon was cleared to practice before this season, she was ready to jump back into the swing of things after missing a year due to a knee injury.
There was just one problem: The ASU women’s basketball team looked completely different.
At the end of the 2008-2009 regular season, the Sun Devil starting lineup included Simon, Kayli Murphy, Sybil Dosty, Danielle Orsillo, and Briann January. In ASU’s victory against New Mexico on Saturday, the lineup consisted of Simon, redshirt junior guard Markisha Patterson, junior guard/forward Kimberly Brandon, senior forward Becca Tobin, and senior guard Tenaya Watson.
And with Simon coming off more than a year without playing, it was a team that looked experienced on paper, but had never really played together.
“The team is young right now, and I definitely have to learn to accept that,” Simon said. “It’s kind of hard, but I’m working with what I have.”
The offense itself has also undergone some changes, with the new triangle offense playing a large role so far this season. But Simon said it’s not so much learning the offense as it is learning to play with each other.
“They need to know where I’m going, and I need to know where they’re going to be at the same time,” Simon said. “It’s just going to take some time for us — constantly keep working together in practice and in games.”
Simon tore her anterior cruciate ligament in 2009 in the final regular season game against Stanford, missing the Sun Devils’ run to the Elite Eight and then the entire 2009-2010 season, which Simon said was an extremely tough thing to do.
This season, Simon is already averaging over 14 points per game and has led ASU in scoring almost every contest.
“I’ll admit it was hard in the first couple of games,” Simon said. “Up to this point, I’ve only been playing basketball for about three months. That’s pretty amazing for where I’m at right now.”
Against UNM,, Simon hit a few of her signature pull-up jumpers and a few clutch threes to help the Sun Devils pull away in the first half — a good sign that ASU’s leading scorer from two years ago is on her way back, ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said.
“She just did a great job of finding her opportunities and she’s just deadly,” Turner Thorne said. “Her pull-up shot is deadly. We’ve got to make sure that we’re coaching her to look for that and making calls and finding her opportunities for it.”
Simon was also very happy with the way her shots started to fall against UNM.
“It’s starting to come all together, and I’m very happy about that,” Simon said. “A lot of it’s on me to try to get in the gym extra, watch some extra film on my shot and everything I need to do and the places I need to be.”
The only area where Simon is lagging a bit is assists, where she is only averaging 2.1 per game. However, Turner Thorne said after Saturday’s game that the low assists is something the whole team needs to work on.
“I think as we get more time together with this team, her assists are going to go up a lot,” Turner Thorne said after Saturday’s game. “But we’re still kind of feeling all that out.”
Six games into the season, however, and there are signs that the team is coming together. Tobin and Simon are fast establishing themselves as the leaders of the team.
A breakout game for Brandon on Friday (she secured her first career double-double) had Turner Thorne talking about Brandon’s role as a solid power forward. And the Sun Devils have a whole host of defensive-minded guards who aren’t afraid to shoot the ball.
In addition to the stifling defensive effort last weekend, ASU showed flashes of their offensive ability, going on several runs of 10 points or more against both teams, led by Simon.
“We can definitely keep this up,” Simon said. “I think you’ll see a different type of player for the next few games.”
Reach the reporter at egrasser@asu.edu
