After second half woes proved costly during last week’s Bay Area road-swing, the Sun Devils flipped the script on Friday night, opening up the second half on a 13-0 run against No. 9 Oregon State (23-6, 13-4 Pac-12). With that run and a 20-point, eight-rebound performance from senior forward Kianna Ibis, No. 21 Arizona State (19-8, 10-6 Pac-12) defeated the Beavers 66-54 on Friday night in Tempe.
“Last weekend was rough,” head coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “We weren’t ourselves and we didn’t play with our usual toughness and teamwork… I just thought we got back to being who we were.”
While the first matchup between the Sun Devils and Beavers required two overtimes, the second failed to require the same dramatics. In both the Jan. 20 win in Corvallis and Friday in Tempe, Ibis dominated the second halves of both contests, shooting 9-9 and 6-7, respectively from the floor in the second half and overtimes of both games.
“Kianna tends to get better as the game goes on and kind of adjusts to the way everybody is always keying on her,” Turner Thorne said. “It’s just the mark of a great player that she stays poised and adjusts.
“I was a little mad at our team for not getting her the ball at times during the first half, but we got it to her in the second half.”
During the third quarter in which the Sun Devils scored 25 points—the most in a quarter during conference play this season—ASU shot 68.8 percent from the field. The Sun Devils controlled the contest throughout the night, leading for 33:20 of game action.
After leading 28-25 at the half, the Sun Devils put away the Beavers in the second half. ASU picked up its second Top 10 win of the season, both of which have come against Oregon State.
It was a frustrating night for Oregon State, as star guard Destiny Slocum was marred by foul trouble all night. The Beavers junior guard picked up two fouls in the first four minutes of the game, scored three points on 0-5 shooting and fouled out with 3:28 to play, only registering 19 minutes on the stat sheet.
“She’s a very great player,” Ibis said. “She’s definitely a key player on their team, so when it comes to having her sit out the first half, we tried to take that to our advantage.”
Oregon State head coach Scott Rueck also departed the contest early, as he was ejected after tallying two technical fouls with 2:19 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Arizona State welcomes No. 6 Oregon to town Sunday at 1 p.m. for the last home game of the season. Turner Thorne said defeating the Ducks would be a huge boost for their tournament resumé.
“It’s nice to win [against a Top 10 team],” Turner Thorne said. “It’s great in terms of building our resumé for NCAA tournament, and this team does know that if they show up like they did today they can beat anybody.
“That’s the great part about scheduling tough. Not only do we have great strength of schedule, great RPI for committee to look at, but there’s nothing that this team hasn’t seen.”
