A good defense will lead to a good offense.
That’s the philosophy of the ASU women’s basketball team as it heads into a tough matchup against No. 11 UCLA on Thursday.
The Sun Devils (12-5, 4-3 Pac-10) relied on defending to pull off a win against UW last Saturday, with 26 points scored off turnovers, and are looking for much of the same against the Bruins (16-2, 6-1) on the road.
“We have to set the tone on defense,” redshirt senior guard Dymond Simon said. “That’s what we’re known for. As long as we’re getting after the guards, especially because they’re going to push the ball, we already know that. We know UCLA and what they do.”
This weekend the Sun Devils will also be looking for consistency and better focus on both sides of the ball, ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said.
“We’ve seen how good we can be and how bad we can be,” Turner Thorne said. “It’s hard that our team isn’t consistently just locked in and working their butts off and doing the things that they’re capable of doing. But we’ve truly seen with this group that when we’re locked in … we can beat anybody.”
UCLA is currently sitting comfortably at second place in the conference standings and has been excellent all season, even picking up a win against No. 9 Notre Dame earlier in the season.
The Bruins have two players averaging over 10 points a game in senior guard Darxia Morris and junior forward Jasmine Dixon.
Dixon and sophomore guard/forward Markel Walker are both averaging over five rebounds a game and will provide a quick, athletic element down low.
All this means that the Bruins will be one of the tougher matchups the Sun Devils will see all season, Turner Thorne said.
“I think this is the best UCLA team since I’ve been at ASU,” Turner Thorne said. “They’ve always had great offensive talent every year I’ve been in the Pac-10, and they play hard and they’ve usually been a great rebounding team. But this might be the best defensive team that UCLA’s had in my tenure, and that makes them, I think, so much more formidable.”
ASU will try to make their post play more of a factor this weekend, especially against the zone defense they expect to see against UCLA on Thursday and USC on Saturday, sophomore guard Deja Mann said.
“We were successful against the UA zone, but with the Washington State zone we weren’t,” Mann said. “Post play is going to be huge, and we’re definitely up for it.”
Mann also said that driving inside and forcing the UCLA defense to over-shift would be important.
“We can move the ball more freely, we can get closer shots, and when we don’t, we settle for threes,” Mann said.
The Bruins lost their first conference game of the season against Stanford last week but bounced back on Saturday against Cal.
“I’m glad we’re not playing them right after that loss,” Turner Thorne said. “They get pretty fired up to play us.”
With the Pac-10 schedule nearing the halfway point, each game is important for ASU’s postseason chances. But the postseason is something the Sun Devils are trying not to focus on, Simon said.
“We want to not go into the game with so much pressure on ourselves, and just let loose a little bit,” Simon said.
The WSU game, which ASU lost 70-65, was a perfect example of the team being too compact. If the Sun Devils can play as relaxed as the Cougars did during that game, they should be fine, Simon said.
Reach the reporter at egrasser@asu.edu
