(Photo: Travis David V Whitaker/WCSN)
A couple of days removed from routing No. 9 Oregon State, the No. 21 Arizona State Sun Devils failed to pick up a second upset on Sunday, losing 66-59 to the No. 6 Oregon Ducks in Tempe.
Until the fourth quarter, a win for Arizona State (19-9, 10-7 in Pac-12) was well within reach. The Devils entered the third up 50-46. The death knell was an 11-0 run starting at the 8:07 mark, driven by Satou Sabally and Sabrina Ionescu. Oregon also outrebounded ASU 10-5 in the closing 10 minutes.
“We knew it was going to come down to rebounding, and we did not get the job done on the boards, especially in the fourth quarter” ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “That was the difference in the game.” The Ducks won the overall rebound battle 37-33.
Trailing by three, the Sun Devils thought they got a break. Sabally collided with ASU center Charnea Johnson-Chapman in the paint, making a shot but being whistled for a charge that negated it. Upon official review, the decision was overturned, awarding the basket to the Ducks and giving them a five-point cushion with under two minutes to play.
“I’m actually curious to watch that,” Turner Throne. “I really thought from my vantage point she was outside the circle.”
Arizona State shot the ball efficiently from the inside, putting up 43.9 field goal percentage or Oregon’s 41.7. However, as has been the case for the Devils at various points throughout the season, the three-point balance tilted toward the opposition. Oregon hit seven threes to ASU’s five, nearly the scoring margin when the final buzzer sounded.
A meeting between the Devils and Ducks meant a duel between two of the Pac-12’s elite scorers, Ionescu and Kianna Ibis. In their previous meeting on Jan. 18, a 77-71 win for the Ducks, Ionescu tallied 31 points while Ibis had 22.
Ionescu helped the Ducks with a strong fourth quarter, but did not have her most efficient game. She finished with 19 points, shooting 7-of-22 and 0-of-5 from deep. Ibis, in her final game at Wells Fargo Arena, led the Devils with 23 points and eight rebounds.
The problem for ASU is in how much the team leaned on her scoring. Robbi Ryan was second on the team with 12 points, the only other Devil in double figures. Turner Thorne said she wanted to see other players be aggressive and take advantage of chances to put up points.
“Charli always tells everybody to look to score,” Ibis said. “We knew they were going to sometimes double in the post, so that gives opportunities to my other teammates. We always run a lot of plays to my benefit.”
Ibis joins Johnson-Chapman, Courtney Ekmark and Sophia Elenga as seniors who leave The Bank for the final time in their playing careers. The four are among the top six in points per game for ASU. All four have played every game this season and Ibis, Johnson-Chapman and Ekmark have started all 28 contests.
Turner Thorne, who is seeing her 22nd graduating class at the helm of the ASU program, said every class that goes by “are your daughters” and described the 2019 class as “eclectic.”
“You have two transfers, you have two four-year players,” Turner Thorne said. “You’ve got one kid from the LA area, you’ve got one from Omaha, you’ve got one from France and one from right here in Arizona. They are very different in their experiences and what they add.”
The Sun Devils now look ahead to the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas. Locked into the No. 5 seed with Sunday’s loss, they will face the last-seeded Colorado Buffalos. ASU has two wins over Colorado this season, including a 66-49 shellacking in Tempe on Feb. 15.
For the senior class, it’s a chance to cap off their time at ASU with a Pac-12 championship, an award which has eluded the program since 2002. After beating one top 10 program and playing even with another, the Sun Devils have a reason to be confident as the postseason gets going.
