(Photo: Travis Whittaker/WCSN)
Arizona State’s Pac-12 Tournament appearance came to an abrupt ending Thursday afternoon after falling to Cal, the No.12 seed in the conference, 71-67.
The loss comes as a surprise after ASU dominated the Golden Bears 77-54 on Feb. 28.
“We just wanted to be the tougher team,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said about her team’s performance in the rematch. “We can’t let them want it more than us, we can’t let them be tougher than us. And, I think we showed up in that department.”
Cal had to outlast ASU’s toughness in the first half. The Sun Devils led by 11 at halftime. Behind Reili Richardson’s nine first-half points and a stout defense that held Cal to 7-19 (36.8 percent) from the field, the Sun Devils were in the driver’s seat.
It seemed like ASU was going to repeat the storyline from the game on Feb. 28, but Cal had other plans.
Cal, who was held scoreless for the first five minutes of the second quarter, came out in the third frame and outscored ASU 27-14. Freshman guard Cailyn Crocker fueled the third quarter come back. She was held scoreless in the first half. But finished the game with 20 points, 12 of them came in the third period.
The high-powered offense of Crocker combined with senior forward Jaelyn Brown’s 22-point performance led to a 20-0 run that didn’t end until the fourth quarter.
“As a team we weren’t playing the way we wanted to play in the first half,” Crocker said. “We knew that we could play better, so as a team we rallied and took off.”
Crocker’s performance was only one factor of Cal’s astonishing second-half performance. Cal adjusted their full-court press coming out of the break, and it changed the game.
Arizona State usually understands how to use the press. In fact, head coach Charli Turner Thorne said her team “thrives” off it. But today just wasn’t the same. The absence of senior guard Kiara Russell, who left the game against Stanford on March 1 with a knee injury, was felt as ASU struggled to break the press. The Sun Devils turned the ball over 21 times and 12 in the second half alone. This performance was their third-worst all season.
“I put our freshman in there, and they played a little bit sideways and didn’t step to the pass,” Turner Thorne said. “It was mainly our young players just weren’t on page with what we wanted to do.”
There is one stat that stands out like a sore thumb in the final box score. Cal attempted 30 free throws compared to ASU’s 16. 22 of those 30 free throw attempts came in the second half, and it helped them pull away at different moments in the last 20 minutes.
“They called a lot of fouls on us today, and they shot 30 free throws. That was the difference,” Turner Thorne said.
ASU will get some time off before the start of the NCAA Tournament. The Sun Devils will find out their seed on March 16, and won’t play until either March 20 or 21.
This could be a blessing in disguise for the Sun Devils. Russell will be able to return from her knee injury and allow other players to refresh their bodies with the time off. ASU can also sharpen up their offensive and defensive sets for the tournament.
“I love this window right now,” Turner Thorne said. “You get great rest and you get some great practice time, and we usually do really well with it.”
