These are must-win games for the ASU women’s basketball team.
The Sun Devils (17-9, 9-7 Pac-10) are third in the conference and poised to make a return to the NCAA Tournament after missing out last season. But they have to get through this weekend first, starting with Oregon on Thursday.
“We have to win these games,” ASU redshirt senior Dymond Simon said. “We can’t go in there lackadaisical, because we play really bad when we do, that’s obvious. We definitely just have to approach it like we’re playing a UCLA or a Stanford.”
With two wins in Oregon, ASU will also lock up the third spot in the conference and hold a No. 3 seed going into the Pac-10 Tournament next week.
It seems, then, that it’s a stroke of luck that the Sun Devils get to face UO and Oregon State in the final two games of the regular season. The teams are ninth and 10th in the Pac-10, respectively, and the Sun Devils beat both teams earlier this season at home.
In a stacked conference, however, no team can be written off, and the team has to be careful this weekend, Simon said.
“Their records may not show it, but they are talented teams,” she said. “We just can’t play to their level. We have to go in and do what we need to do to get these two wins and head into the Pac-10 Tournament.”
The Ducks (13-14, 4-12) are one of the highest scoring teams in the Pac-10, despite their poor conference record. Junior guard Nia Jackson leads the Pac-10 in scoring, averaging 17 points a game, and junior forward Amanda Johnson is third with 15.9 a game.
When the two teams met on Jan. 2, ASU managed to slow down the potent UO offense, which is something they’ll have to do again, ASU senior forward Becca Tobin said.
“We have to stop their transition, and that’s what we did in the first game,” Tobin said. “That’s where they get most of their offense.”
ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne is confident heading into Thursday’s game, but also stressed defense against Oregon.
“You’ve got to guard them and you’ve got to have great transition defense,” Turner Thorne said. “You have to take away their threes and just keep them in front of you, because they’re so aggressive trying to get to the rim.”
UO also managed to pull off a solid victory at Cal last week, although the Ducks couldn’t pull off the upset on Saturday against Stanford.
When they’re not attacking, however, the Ducks are terrible. They rank dead last in the Pac-10 in points allowed, and in their first meeting, the Sun Devils racked up 86 points against UO, their highest point total of the season. Four different Sun Devils finished in double figures.
On Saturday, ASU faces an entirely different team in Oregon State. The Beavers are last in the conference in scoring but third in defense, behind only Stanford and UCLA.
With the wide difference between the teams, Turner Thorne said the focus this week has been on playing to the Sun Devils’ strengths.
“The bottom line is, I think it’s really more about us,” Turner Thorne said. “It’s outwork teams, play together, take care of the basketball, play your defense for 40 minutes, and outrebound teams.”
Reach the reporter at egrasser@asu.edu
