(Photo: Tyler Rittenhouse/WCSN)
Entering the season ranked No. 23 in the Associated Press’ preseason poll, voters have already shown their belief that Charli Turner Thorne’s squad is a good team. After returning everyone from a year ago, when the Sun Devils went 22-13 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament, expectations are high for this team.
So high, that after an 81-43 win over Incarnate Word, head coach Charli Turner Thorne said the locker room was not happy with their performance in the 38-point win.
“Our locker room was very somber,” Turner Thorne said. “We took this as kind of a loss. We didn’t feel like we worked hard enough.”
Those high expectations from Turner Thorne and the Sun Devils show a new standard for the Sun Devils. This Arizona State squad wants to go from being a good team to a great team this season. Tuesday night’s performance from beyond the arc showed where the Sun Devils improvement must materialize.
The 2017-18 Sun Devil squad was the 122nd ranked team in the nation based on three-point percentage, shooting 32.9 percent from deep. Against the Cardinals, ASU’s shooting could best be described as streaky. The Sun Devils opened the game going 0-7 on three-point attempts in the first quarter and wound up shooting 35.7 percent from deep in the game.
Arizona State’s streaky shooting was most evident in the play of Courtney Ekmark. The redshirt senior began the game by missing her first four attempts before knocking down three in a row. Ekmark finished the game shooting 3-9 on three-pointers.
“The couple that I missed before [her first make] felt really good and I missed one in-and-out,” Ekmark said. “I just kept shooting and then finally hit one of them and felt really good and then hit a couple more, so that’s always a good sign.”
In contrast, Jamie Ruden was a bright spot offensively for the Sun Devils from behind the arc. Ruden and freshman Taya Hanson combined for seven of ASU’s ten made three-point shots in the game.
“Just gotta keep shooting,” junior Jamie Ruden, who went 3-3 from deep and led the Sun Devils with 15 points, said of Ekmark’s struggles.
After averaging 14.4 three-point attempts per game last season, the Sun Devils doubled that statistic against Incarnate Word. In the season-opener against the Cardinals, the Sun Devils attempted 28 three-pointers, a volume of shots that Turner Thorne said she’s expecting this season.
“I would like us to be around 25 [three-point attempts per game],” Turner Thorne said. “I don’t really want us shooting more than 25, and I want us making at least 10… We’ve talked all offseason that we do have a much better, improved shooting team than we had last year.”
Taya Hanson could be part of Turner Thorne’s vision, as the freshman scored 14 points off the bench in her first collegiate action, with four three-point makes on nine attempts. In their season-opener, the Sun Devil offense shot 44.6 percent from the field and had four different Sun Devils scoring in double-figures. Still, if the Sun Devils want to compete with teams like No. 4 Baylor and No. 5 Louisville in the coming weeks and over the course of the year, they know they’ll have to shoot better from deep.
