ASU Women’s Basketball: Late effort falls short under Cal defensive pressure

(Photo: Travis David Whittaker/WCSN)

As they have many times before, Arizona State women’s basketball seniors Ja’Tavia Tapley, Reili Richardson and Robbi Ryan all had chances to rescue their team from the jaws of defeat.

Instead, the overwhelmingly partisan crowd for the Sun Devils on Thursday morning at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center watched helplessly as Tapley was called for a charge while attempting what would have been the go-ahead layup, Richardson missed back-to-back three-pointers for the lead, and Ryan clanked her own triple attempt to slice into a four-point deficit off front iron with seconds remaining.

Perhaps it is the best testament to the consistency of the clutch performances from the veteran trio that the failure to succeed today comes as such a surprise. But this was an uncharacteristic game in general for the Sun Devils.

The Devils had entered the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas as the No. 5 seed, coming off a commanding 23-point victory over the 12th-seeded California Golden Bears the previous weekend. Entering Thursday, ASU carried a season-long resumé chalk-full of marquee victories.

One week later, those same Golden Bears deployed the full-court press to storm back from down 11 points late in the third quarter to rip away control of the game from the Sun Devils. By the time their 20-0 run had concluded with 8:26 left in the fourth quarter, the Bears owned a seven-point advantage. While the seniors tried their best to battle through the stifling press, they received little help from their younger and less-experienced teammates.

“I put my freshman in there, and they just played a little bit sideways,” head coach Charlie Turner Thorne said after the game. “It was mainly our young players who weren’t on page with what we were trying to do.”

ASU had seven turnovers alone in a disastrous third quarter. Five of those turnovers came in within a one-minute span where a victory for ASU could be measured in just managing to get the ball past half-court. With Richardson to the bench — taking a rare break for the guard on a day where she played all but six minutes — Cal head coach Charmin Smith and her staff smelled blood in the water. They immediately went to work on ASU freshman guard Sara Bejedi, who had two turnovers of her own in an eight-second span.

“There was a time where Reili wasn’t in, and Wendale (Farrow) my assistant said, ‘Hey, let’s try pressing them,’” Smith said. “We saw there was a lack of ball handlers from our viewpoint. I think they got a little bit rattled and so we stayed with it, and we stayed with it, no matter who was in the game.”

Aided by the flurry of turnovers from ASU, the Golden Bears were able to shoot 50% from 3-point range. Cal also was awarded a lot of free points, scoring 25 points at the free-throw line. The 30 free-throw attempts by Cal were the most allowed by the Sun Devils this season. ASU also had its third-worst game in terms of turnovers with 21. Many of those turnovers can be attributed to the success of the press from Cal.

“We don’t foul,” Richardson said. “We are a team that doesn’t foul. We play position defense without fouling. We usually don’t turn the ball over as much. I know we have been having some trouble breaking the press recently, so we need to get back to breaking the press and practicing those things.”

Down by eight with just under four minutes to play, Tapley drove into the paint and lost control of the ball, one of her five turnovers on the day.

Afterwards, she looked despondently over to the ASU bench as the Golden Bears broke out on yet another fast break. At that point, the Sun Devil’s prospects for a comeback seemed to be gone. Tapley finished the day with 13 points.

Seconds later, as she has done many times over the course of her decorated Sun Devil career, Ryan came up with a steal and converted it into two of her 15 points at the other end. That steal helped fuel a 9-2 Sun Devil run to cut the Cal lead down to one. To little surprise, all nine points came from Tapley, Richardson, and Ryan.

But that would be as close as the seniors would get the Devils. Richardson’s 20 points led the team, but she and Tapley also led the team in turnovers with five apiece. In the end, the loose play with the basketball was the undoing of the Devils and one of the reasons they will be leaving Las Vegas earlier than originally anticipated.

The season is not over for the Devils, the team still has the NCAA Tournament coming up and will attempt to reach the Sweet 16 for the second-straight year.

Turner Thorne acknowledged after the game, this team is very banged up. They were down one of their key rotational players today in senior guard Kiara Russell and will look to have her back for the NCAA Tournament. Still, this Sun Devil team will have to understand how this game got away from them if they want to avoid a similar outcome in a few weeks.

“The little things really caught up to us today,” Ryan said. “I guess just bringing that sense of urgency for my team and making sure that the underclassmen know what it’s like to play in these big games.”