Arizona State shows fight but can’t overcome Baylor in 78-59 loss

(Photo: Aishling Cavanaugh/WCSN)

TEMPE – With around 3:30 left to go in the second quarter, Baylor center Aaronette Vonleh tried to end an 8-0 Arizona State run with a fadeaway one-handed shot off the glass. Vonleh’s shot was wild and led to ASU junior guard Kennedy Fauntleroy and Baylor junior forward Darianna Littlepage-Buggs fighting for the rebound.

Neither player came away with the ball, that would be Baylor senior guard Yaya Felder, but Fauntleroy and Littlepage-Buggs continued to scrap. The two seemed to exchange bumps and hands before being separated by officials.

Both Fauntleroy and Littlepage-Buggs were disqualified from the game for fighting. Arizona State’s sophomore guard Jyah LoVett and senior forward Heavenly Greer were also both disqualified for coming onto the court from the bench, leaving head coach Natasha Adair down three players with over a half of basketball still to be played.

“Emotions have consequences,” Adair said. “But you learn from it.”

Arizona State (8-9, 2-3 Big 12 Conference) showed a different kind of fight throughout the game. At times in the second and fourth quarters, the Sun Devils were able to go on extended scoring runs as they attempted to claw back into contention. But Baylor (14-3, 4-1) always managed to stay ahead of ASU’s blows en route to a 78-59 victory at Desert Financial Arena in Tempe Saturday evening.

Even after a three from ASU graduate guard Tyi Skinner cut the Lady Bears’ lead to 40-33 shortly after the three Sun Devils were ejected, Baylor finished the second quarter strong and outscored Arizona State 19-10 in the third quarter. Key Sun Devils being ejected didn’t make the second half easy for ASU.

“You had some players playing out of position,” Adair said. “They gutted it up where Kennedy Fauntleroy could have come in and given relief, (sophomore guard) Jyah LoVett could have come in and given relief, (senior forward) Heavenly Greer could have come in in the second half and helped us, for sure, on the boards.”

The loss can’t all be attributed to the Sun Devils being shorthanded in the second half; Arizona State struggled to match Baylor’s intensity in the first quarter. The Lady Bears dropped 29 points in the first quarter on an impressive 60% from the field.

The Sun Devils on the other hand scored 18 points, which is a respectable figure, but were limited by shooting 41.2% from the field. Skinner, who entered the game as ASU’s leading scorer with 16.9 points per game, only went 1-for-2 from the field in a slow first quarter.

“We just got to come out with a type of intensity, the same intensity we have towards the end of the game instead of trying to fight back,” Skinner said. “We should just come out of the gate with that energy.”

The slow start ruined Arizona State’s night as they could never quite reach Baylor. Part of what led to the gap in the first place was Baylor scoring seven points off of turnovers in the first quarter compared to Arizona State’s none and Baylor’s 13 second chance points compared to ASU’s five. Baylor would continue to grow the gap as the game progressed.

“In the prep, we talked about Baylor’s ability to rebound the ball, and that was a key stat,” Adair said. “You stop them with second chance opportunities and they had 21 second chance points. I think that that was a momentum drive for them.”

In the fourth quarter, the Sun Devils scored 16 points on 43.8% shooting from the field. It was their best quarter from an efficiency standpoint and they even managed a 10-2 run in the middle of the quarter, which briefly cut the Lady Bears lead to 13. It wasn’t enough in the end but the Sun Devils showed fight.

If the Sun Devils didn’t struggle in the third quarter (to the tune of 10 points 23.1% from the field) like they did in the first quarter the fourth quarter run might’ve impacted the end of the game. Instead, starting the halves off slowly gave the Sun Devils an insurmountable task as they progressed.

Still, The Sun Devils fought hard until the final buzzer, playing aggressive defense and looking to score even with less than a minute left on the clock. Even with important players ejected from the game the remaining Sun Devils fought as hard as they could.

“They could have hung their head, but they didn’t, if anything it ignited them even more,” Adair said. “As a coach, you look at that fire and we look at that fight, bottle that up and start with it. Start and lead with that and then you can sustain it”