When the ASU women’s basketball team held No. 2 Stanford to almost 25 points below their season average, the Sun Devils had a good chance to upset the Cardinal.
However, ASU (20-11, 10-8 Pac-12) also had problems on the offensive side of the court. Stanford (31-1, 18-0 Pac-12) went on to beat ASU 52–43 in a defensive struggle Friday and took home the Pac-12 tournament title on Saturday.
Stanford scored a season-low 52 points and only scored four fields goals in the second half.
ASU coach Joseph Anders said the Sun Devils did a good job pressuring the Stanford guards, making it difficult for them to pass the ball to the Ogwumike sisters in the post.
“Our identity has always been wrapped into our defensive side of the ball,” Anders said. “This year, we’ve been able to hold seven teams 20 points below what they have averaged through the course of this year.”
The Cardinal finished the game shooting only 29.4 percent from the field.
Yet Stanford was able to hold on to about a 10-point lead for most of the game because ASU also had a tough time finding the basket.
The Sun Devils shot a similar 29.8 percent.
ASU only had two players, redshirt senior forward Kali Bennett and junior guard Micaela Pickens, score in the double digits. They both recorded 10 points.
The Sun Devils also did not have the help of their leading scorer, senior forward Kimberly Brandon. She finished with zero points and had only one field goal attempt.
Anders said Stanford used their size to try and shut Brandon down.
“Kimberly, being slight of build, whenever we’ve had a physical ball game, then it’s been difficult for her to match up just with the physicality of the game,” Anders said. “They were able to get into her head in terms of just a mentality, and it kind of took us out of what we wanted to do.”
Despite the offensive struggles for Stanford, one player for the Cardinal showed why she is the Pac-12 Player of the Year.
Senior forward Nnemkadi Ogwumike had 24 points and 12 rebounds to help the Cardinal secure the game.
Ogwumike started off the game with a hot hand to push the Stanford lead. Every time the Sun Devils would battle back and close the gap, she had a clutch shot to stave off the ASU attack.
Even after scoring 24 points, Ogwumike gave credit to the ASU defense.
“The frenetic defense that ASU has might create a ‘shoot it, shoot it, shoot it’ atmosphere when you do get the ball,” she said. “Their defense definitely caused us to really figure out what we needed to do on offense.”
Before the game, both Anders and Bennett said rebounding would be the key to the game.
The Cardinal out-rebounded the Sun Devils 48–28. Stanford also had 20 offensive rebounds that led to some second chance points that were the difference in the close ball game.
Stanford moves on to the NCAA tournament and is a No. 1 seed.
Despite high hopes from its players, the ASU women’s basketball team did not make the 2012 NCAA tournament.
The Sun Devils started the season with adversity when longtime coach Charli Turner Thorne took a year off from the team.
Anders took over the team in an interim role with high expectations.
Under Anders, the Sun Devils finished the season with 20 wins, which was not good enough for a bid to the NCAA tournament, but are likely to gain a berth in the WNIT.
After the Stanford game, Anders thanked his team for competing for him the entire season.
“I could not be more proud of a group of young ladies for the way in which they embraced me in an interim capacity and allowed us to go for our dreams,” Anders said.
Redshirt junior forward Janae Fulcher said since Anders has been in the program so long, it was not a hard transition for the team when he was named interim coach.
She also believes the team can easily transition again when Turner Thorne returns.
Reach the reporter at ehubbard@asu.edu
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