ASU women’s basketball: Defense generates tons of offense

(Photo: Nicole Hernandez/WCSN)

ASU women’s basketball captured its fourth victory, as they defeated Boston University 71-42, with the help of its stifling defense.

Prior to the Sun Devils kicking off their 2016-2017 campaign, head coach Charli Tuner Thorne mentioned how the scoring was going to be by committee.

The season has echoed that theme and today’s performance was the epitome of Tuner Thornes’s statement, as 11 payers recorded at least one basket.

By the end of the first quarter, six Sun Devils had scored.

“It was a balanced scoring attack,” coach Tuner Thorne said. “We obviously want to continue building on our inside game that we established against St. Johns last week. We really read the defense.”

Although the Sun Devils bench scored 31 points, Tuner Thorne still mentioned her team can improve.

“I didn’t feel our bench played as well as maybe they had been,” Tuner Thorne said. “It was just great to be able to balance the minutes out. I mean practically if we play Florida tomorrow… the fact that nobody played over 23 minutes today was definitely a good thing.”

ASU forwards laid the scoring foundation early in the contest. The Sun Devil guards made it a priority to feed the ball into the post. In return they had 38 points in the paint.

Senior center Quinn Dornstauder had 11 points and snagged four rebounds. As the Terriers played a tough zone defense, Dornstauder help loosen it up by flashing at the high post making and making open jumpers. She also was finishing around the basketball at a high level.

The senior center went 5-5 from the field.

“It’s an advantage to be bigger than people and I think we did a really good job using it tonight,” Dornstauder said.

Senior forward Sophie Brunner also played well for the Sun Devils as she record 10 points, 3 steals and went 4-5 from the field.

The two post players combined for 21 points and 9-10 shooting.

Sophomore guard Sabrina Haines finds joy in dishing the ball to the post players.

“It makes everything so much easier,” Haines said. “ When you have such dominant presences in the paint, the guards love it. Personally I love it because it’s easy to feed them and they do a really good job getting open. It’s a lot of fun.”

The sophomore guard led all scorers with 12 points and she dished out five assists.

In the midst of a 71 point scoring night the team didn’t shoot well from behind the arc. The team only went 2-13 from deep, however Haines mentioned there are highs and lows from downtown.

“Shooting is always iffy,” Haines said. “We focus on our defense and our defense creates our offense. Unfortunately our shots were not falling today but tomorrow is a new day so we are going to work on it and hopefully it goes well.”

The Sun Devils also really struggled against the zone defense. ASU found it selves flinging up desperation shots nearly missing shot clock violations.

“ I don’t think we learned anything,” Tuner Thorne said. “I think we knew exactly what we were going to play against and I think we didn’t execute as well as we wanted to. That’s kind of the story of our team right now; we are just really young. We prepare and know what to expect and they know what they are suppose to do, but we are just not doing it at the level of consistency that we want to do it right now. Especially our offensive execution.”

The Terriers, like the Sun Devils, played intense defense making ASU turn the ball over 18 times.

The Sun Devils continually turned their offense into defense. ASU caused Boston University to make 22 errors and scored 30 points off those miscues.

“I think in the first half we generated offense off our defense,” Tuner Thorne said.

The Sun Devils will battle in the ASU Classic championship game Sunday at 2 p.m. MST against No.19 Florida.

Use Facebook to Comment on this Post