For the first 23 minutes of Saturday’s game, it looked as though an upset win over No. 11 UCLA was a definite possibility.
And then in one swift 17-0 run, the Bruins blew away any hope of a Sun Devil victory in their last home game of the season.
It was also Senior Night for ASU (17-9, 9-7 Pac-10) and the magnitude of the game took its toll on the Sun Devils, ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said.
“We’ve got to be able to handle a little pressure and get tougher and step up in situations, because we definitely didn’t do that tonight,” Turner Thorne said.
UCLA junior forward Jasmine Dixon had a double-double with 17 points and 13 rebounds, and redshirt sophomore forward Atonye Nyingifa and senior guard Darxia Morris both scored in double figures for the Bruins (24-3, 14-2).
After a strong rebounding performance against USC on Thursday, ASU had a miserable night on the boards and was outrebounded by the Bruins 45-30 on the night.
“It was our whole team that was responsible for that,” ASU senior forward Becca Tobin said. “We knew they were a good rebounding team, and we needed to put a body on someone, and we didn’t do that.”
Tobin finished with 10 points and six rebounds to lead the Sun Devils.
The Bruins also brought out a full-court defensive press for most of the game, which was something ASU didn’t see when they played the Bruins earlier in the season. It took ASU 10 to 15 seconds each possession to get the ball down the court and set up a play, which wasn’t necessarily a problem, Turner Thorne said.
But by the time the Sun Devils got the offense running they looked uncomfortable and rushed.
“We just didn’t execute,” Turner Thorne said. “It was just our focus. Maybe it was the emotion, but we just weren’t as locked in as we’ve been.”
Until the offensive outburst three minutes into the second half, UCLA was strangely out of sync. The Bruins turned the ball over 12 times in the first half, and although ASU shot just 32.1 percent in the first half, the Sun Devils only trailed by three at the half.
At the start of the second half ASU grabbed the lead, and the score was tied at 28 before the Bruins rattled off 17 straight points. After that, the Sun Devils couldn’t get closer than 11 points.
The biggest contributing factor to the UCLA run was the turnovers ASU committed, Turner Thorne said.
“We have gone three straight games not doing that, and that’s been a pattern of ours in our less successful games,” Turner Thorne said.
But the Sun Devils’ overall performance ran deeper than that, she said.
“Thursday night took a lot out of us,” Turner Thorne said. “I thought we were a little tired, we really needed our bench to step up. We needed everybody to step up today to beat a team of this caliber, and we didn’t.”
The Sun Devils now have to look ahead to the final two games of the season, and make sure they get a high seed in the Pac-10 tournament.
“Looking on the brighter side, we might see them again,” redshirt senior guard Dymond Simon said. “We definitely have to learn from this experience.”
Reach the reporter at egrasser@asu.edu
