It took most of the game to do, but once the ASU women’s basketball team found its offense, it was game over for Washington State.
Stout defending kept the Sun Devils (16-8, 8-6 Pac-10) from falling too far behind WSU. But an 8-0 run in the last 1:45 allowed ASU to close out their road trip with a 55-47 victory over the Cougars (8-19, 6-9) on Saturday afternoon in Pullman, Wash.
ASU junior forward Kimberly Brandon grabbed her fifth double-double of the season with a career-high 21 points and 10 rebounds.
“I just wanted to win, so I gave it my all,” Brandon said.
But Brandon was also quick to give credit to the defense.
“We weren’t really doing that good on offense, so we really stepped it up on defense,” she said. “We made it up with that.”
The Sun Devils pulled off the win despite shooting just 26.7 percent from the floor. Brandon was the only ASU player to score more than eight points.
As in Thursday’s game against Washington, it was rebounding that proved to be the difference, senior forward Becca Tobin said.
“That’s what we’ve been focusing on for the last week,” Tobin said. “We knew that if we could control the boards then we would control the game, and that showed at the end.”
The Sun Devils outrebounded WSU 46-37. Both totals are high because of the high number of missed shots.
ASU also came out on top in turnover margin, 12-20, a sign of the team’s maturity on the road, ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said during a radio interview.
“We controlled the boards, we forced turnovers, we did the things it takes to win,” Turner Thorne said. “[On] offense, we just have to score enough, and I thought we stayed aggressive.”
Junior point guard Rosetta Adzasu led the Cougars with 11 points and was the only WSU player to reach double figures.
The ASU defense also kept the Cougars from hitting shots from behind the arc, which has been a strength for WSU all season.
“We took away the three today,” Turner Thorne said. “It was just about handing them off the dribble, because we weren’t going to let them just come around off their screens and shoot, and I thought we did a good job of that.”
The game got off to a slow start, and after seven minutes the score was 8-4, WSU. From there the lead went back and forth between the teams, but it was the Cougars who held a five-point advantage at halftime.
The Sun Devils had a poor shooting half despite only trailing by five, and ASU’s leading scorer, redshirt senior guard Dymond Simon, had just two points at the break.
It was all WSU for most of the second half, and the Cougars would build up a seven-point lead less than a minute into the half, and still led by that margin with 8:20 left.
That was when the Sun Devils began to pull the Cougars back, and layups by Brandon and redshirt junior forward Kali Bennett put ASU within four.
With two minutes left, the score was tied at 47. But WSU completely melted down, fouling three times in the last 1:45, which led to six ASU points.
With a Brandon steal followed closely by a missed WSU layup from junior guard April Cook, the game was out of reach for the Cougars.
Turner Thorne said she was very proud of the way her team gutted out the win. However, she also said she would have liked to see more offense.
“Our defense has continued to get better and better this season,” Turner Thorne said. “We’re living off of it a little too much for my taste. Then again, I just told the team when you get to this point in the season, you start preparing for postseason, and that’s what wins.”
The Sun Devils return to action at home against USC on Thursday.
Reach the reporter at egrasser@asu.edu
