For the ASU women’s basketball team, Sunday’s disappointing loss to UA is already behind them.
The Sun Devils (14-8, 6-6 Pac-10) will need complete focus going into tonight’s game against Washington (10-12, 5-8), and even though every game will be important from here on out, the team is trying not to think about the postseason, sophomore guard Deja Mann said.
“That’s a reality, but we’re really trying to stay in the present,” Mann said. “We can’t get ahead of ourselves or we’ll miss what’s going on right in front of us.”
ASU will need every bit of that concentration against the Huskies, and while the Sun Devils beat UW by three points back on Jan. 22, Washington is far more dangerous than they appear on paper.
The Huskies are coming off a weekend where they beat Cal by 11 points and forced No. 3 Stanford to play until the final whistle.
UW eventually lost by 10 points, the smallest margin of victory in a conference game for Stanford this season.
“There’s just no easy game in the Pac-10,” ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “If you have a letdown, you’re going to lose. I’ve said it in the beginning of the year, and I’ve said it in midseason, that this the strongest the Pac-10’s been since I’ve coached here.”
The Huskies have the ability to be very physical inside thanks to the services of redshirt junior forward Regina Rogers.
Rogers is averaging more than 10 points and five rebounds a game, and ASU will look to its own forwards to try and contain her, Turner Thorne said.
“It’s going to be Kali (Bennett) and Joy (Burke) on Rogers,” Turner Thorne said. “Obviously Kali played great last time, and has been playing better and better, and those two are going to need to really step up.”
UW junior guard Kristi Kingma is currently fourth in the Pac-10 in scoring with 16.3 points a game, and is the driving force behind UW’s perimeter game.
ASU redshirt senior Dymond Simon was quick to give the Huskies’ guards credit as well.
“We have to pressure their guards,” Simon said. “It’s just us being the more aggressive team out there. They do have really good guards.”
The Sun Devils know that their offense is going to come down to execution, like it has all season.
Most of that will be sticking to what they know and making sure not to over think anything, Simon said.
“We just need to play the game,” Simon said. “If we have our shots, we’re going to take them, if we can get it to the post, we’ll do that too. But I definitely think it’s a flow thing.”
But perhaps most important for the Sun Devils is which team shows up on defense. Two weekends ago ASU’s defending was stellar, keeping the Cardinal within striking distance until the last five minutes and holding Cal to just 44 points.
Last weekend, against a UA team in the bottom half of the Pac-10, the Sun Devils fell apart against the Wildcats offense, giving up 36 points in the paint and losing to their southerly rivals for the first time in six years.
This weekend is the Sun Devils’ chance to prove that they belong near the top of the Pac-10.
Reach the reporter at egrasser@asu.edu
