ASU Women’s Basketball: Cold shooting sinks Sun Devils in first round of WNIT

(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)

The Arizona State Women’s Basketball team had an ice-cold shooting performance leading to its 48-36 defeat against Rice in the first round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday morning.

The Sun Devils shot an abysmal 2-20 from the field in the fourth quarter and could muster only five points in the ten minute period. Rice took advantage and scored 18 points to blow the game open in the final minutes.

“We just didn’t make shots and lost too many possessions,” ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne said postgame. “At times I did think we got the shots we wanted but we didn’t knock them down and that’s basketball.”

It was a rough offensive start on both sides. The Sun Devils did not score until 3:23 left in the first quarter and they tied the game at two. Freshman Maggie Besselink scored the only other Sun Devil points of the period just 26 seconds later. ASU would go 2-14 from the field in the opening quarter.

The offense picked up on both sides but the Sun Devils faced a tall order in Rice’s 6’9 center Nancy Mulkey. Her scoring and rebounding abilities created problems for the young Devils.

“You figured she was going to get hers,” Turner Thorne said. “But we had some breakdowns on defense and gave her some wide-open layups.”

Freshman forward Katelyn Levings was up to the challenge scoring four points in the period. ASU would get into foul trouble as freshman guard Jaddan Simmons, sophomore guard Sydnei Caldwell, sophomore forward Eboni Walker and senior forward Bre’yanna Sanders each had two fouls heading into the half.

It was a typical third quarter for this year’s Sun Devils as they got off to a 7-1 start behind baskets from Walker and junior guard Taya Hanson to give them a 19-16 lead.

ASU had no answer for Mulkey as she would score six points the rest of the period from that point on and the teams battled throughout the quarter. Besselink was spectacular in the third, scoring seven points and Simmons drained a jumper at the end of the period that gave the Sun Devils a 31-30 lead and some momentum heading into the fourth quarter.

The Sun Devils forced 20 Owl turnovers to Turner Thorne’s delight.

“I thought our defense was much better coming off of the USC game,” Turner Thorne said. “We came back, got more hard-nosed but still fouled a bit too much.”

ASU shot just 24% from the field and were 3-22 from three point range. Besselink finished with a team-leading nine points with Hanson right behind her with eight points.

The Sun Devils are eliminated from championship play but with two straight wins can come away as consolation champions. They will tip off against Missouri at 9 a.m. MST Saturday.

“We want to get this group to understand who they are,” Turner Thorne said. “It has to be a total team effort and they have to know that they feed off each other and stay more positive and help each other more.”