Ashamed by the worst three-year stretch in ASU football history since World War II?
Embarrassed by the recent sanctions levied against one of the most proud and storied programs in college baseball?
Disappointed in the down year from Herb Sendek’s boys?
Spare the heartache, Charli Turner Thorne’s ladies once again find themselves hovering near the top of the Pac-10 standings.
The ASU women’s basketball team (in case you didn’t know): the most stable athletic program at the biggest school in the country.
Despite a couple of recent slip-ups against conference foes (including a loss to Stanford, the team that temporarily dethroned the greatest sports dynasty of all time), the Sun Devils have bounced back from a slightly below-average 2009 campaign in which they failed to make the NCAA tournament for the first time in five years, and for just the third time in the last nine campaigns.
No, it’s not a fall from heights, not when Turner Thorne discovered the mountaintops in the first place.
In 2011 Turner Thorne has once again reinvented her team, engaging in a practice many other “great” coaches fail to fully embrace: coaching.
Sure, Turner Thorne’s teams always retain their defensive substance, a prickly exterior, occupying opponent ball-handlers like a Cholla cactus across the 94-foot desert.
Coming into this season however, with the graduation of leading scorer Danielle Orsillo, and the unknowns of who would/could replace her production, Turner Thorne introduced the triangle offense, and even consulted with Lakers assistant Jim Cleamons in installing it, according to Jeff Metcalfe of The Arizona Republic.
While Turner Thorne’s offense has yet to fully blossom, lacking the consistent perimeter shooting to get opponents out of zone defensive looks, Turner Thorne has overseen the comeback of redshirt senior point guard Dymond Simon, who has returned from a knee injury to lead the team in scoring.
But Turner Thorne is used to discovering new points of attack. Since 1999, her team led in scoring by the same player in consecutive seasons only twice. In fact, Turner Thorne’s teams are often the most balanced in the country.
Turner Thorne, who rarely has an unquestioned rotation pattern, often feels the game out before setting a substitution pattern. Turner Thorne is not afraid to make changes, small or large, one player or five, at any point in the game.
She knows how to use her bench.
In the Sun Devils’ most recent game against Washington, the Huskies featured a particularly physical center in redshirt junior Regina Rogers, who was giving ASU’s slightly undersized interior a heap of problems. Turner Thorne, who experimented with every conceivable defensive matchup in the first half, did not hesitate to replace starting center Becca Tobin for the more physical Kali Bennett down the stretch.
Naturally, the tactic worked to perfection, as ASU was able to get control of the paint, leading to a narrow victory.
Looking to get behind a coach with an untarnished image, a team capable of making and advancing in the postseason, and better yet, a program that consistently plucks the living claws out of the Wildcats?
Charli is her name.
Reach the reporter at nick.ruland@asu.edu
