Photo: Elijah Longoria/WCSN
TEMPE – Festive Christmas sweaters weren’t the only thing on display tonight as ASU achieved a school record with its tenth straight victory to start the season on Saturday afternoon.
A record that has held for over 30 straight seasons, set back in 1991-92, was finally broken as the Sun Devils started 10-0 for the first time in program history.
“That’s not about me,” head coach Molly Miller said. “There’s a lot of moving parts that go into making it a good start like this. One is the belief in a bunch of people, a bunch of strangers from the get-go. So for everyone to buy into the vision and now the mission, that’s the most special part about this.”
The Sun Devils took home a 67-44 victory over San Francisco in a different setting than normal, with both games they played this weekend being in Mullet Arena, home of ASU hockey, instead of Desert Financial Arena.
“A little cold in there, a little bit,” junior forward McKinna Brackens said. “I mean, it felt good, a home away from home, we enjoyed it. It felt like kind of an away game, but we liked it.”
The Sun Devils combated the cold air with a hot shooting performance, going 5-13 from beyond the arc, their second-best mark of the season.
ASU’s offense has struggled to convert from long distance all year, but coach Miller insists that her team can shoot the long ball and that the numbers will eventually even out.
Brackens was named the MVP of the Briann January Classic, which pays homage to the former Sun Devil guard who is one of, if not the greatest, basketball players to ever put on an ASU jersey.
“Well well deserved,” Miller said. “She’s a special one because she was one of the first players when she got in the portal. I knew, I’m like, she’s mine. I got to go after her. She’s so multi-dimensional, you can do anything with her.”
As far as Brackens’ performance tonight was concerned, she was tied for the lead in scoring for the Sun Devils, putting up 15 points on a very efficient 6-8 from the field while also tacking on four rebounds and two assists on top of that.
She was helped along the way by two other Sun Devils who racked up double-digit points today in junior guard Jyah Lovett and senior guard Gabby Elliot, who scored 15 and 10, respectively, while shooting a combined 11-23 on the night.
Once again, however, the identity of this team is not on the offensive side of the ball, but the non-stop swarming defense that coach Miller employs game in and game out.
ASU turned the Dons over 31 different times in the contest, including 18 steals, with eight by Elliot herself, and 26 points off of that large number of turnovers.
“This is a team that’s scoring in the upper 70s, lower 80s, so keeping a 44, that’s pretty impressive,” Miller said. “There’s nowhere to go. We really swarmed the basketball, especially when they weren’t looking on turns and rotations.”
However, despite the record-setting start for the Sun Devils, one could argue that their schedule has not challenged this team on most nights. That is all soon to change with conference play fast approaching and the Sun Devils’ first power conference opponent on deck.
ASU’s last three non-conference games will be against Penn State, Oregon State, and Gonzaga, all of which rank inside the top 110 of the NET Rankings, something that can only be said about three of the Sun Devils’ first 10 opponents.
ASU has played zero Quad 1 opponents to date, and only one of the first ten games was even considered a Quad 2 contest. That will change with conference play right around the corner, 11 other teams inside the Big 12 rank inside the top 100 in the NET Rankings, along with six in the top 30.
“You want to learn in non-conference, headed into conference,” said Miller. “So when we look back and see the different ways we win, we shouldn’t be able to say, well, we haven’t faced this. You know you faced it before, you faced pressure, you faced three-point slinging teams, you faced transition teams, you faced physical teams. So hopefully that’s the build.”
The Sun Devils next game will be against Penn State (6-2) at Bryce Jordan Center in State College next Tuesday, Dec. 9.
