Categories: Arizona StateArticleWomen's Basketball

ASU Women’s Basketball Recap: ASU vs. Cal State Bakersfield

(Photo: Brooke Faber/WCSN)

In another strong offensive outing for ASU’s Women’s Basketball team, the Sun Devils came out on top, 83-54 over the visiting CSU Bakersfield Roudrunners.
ASU started to pull away in this game early on, with the first half ending in a score of 38-23, giving ASU a 15 point cushion going into the second half, that cushion would lead to the 29 point victory for ASU.

There were several key aspects for this surge of points for ASU on Wednesday night, including points off of turnovers. ASU forced 17 turnovers, resulting in 30 points, making sure that they capitalized on all opportunities handed to them. However, CSU Bakersfield only had seven points off of the 15 turnovers ASU committed.

The amount of bench points by each team was also substantially lopsided in this match up. While Coach Charli Turner-Thorne is known for her mass substitutions, it’s still an accomplishment to see a bench score 24 points. CSU Bakersfield did not share this accomplishment, only scoring 11 points off of the bench.

ASU had 32 points in the paint, most of them coming from power forward Sophie Brunner. For a second straight game, Brunner was the focal point of this ASU offense, scoring a total of 22 points, while nabbing a total of 7 rebounds on both sides of the court. ASU needed someone to step up, and in these first two games, Sophie Brunner has been their woman.

Sophie wasn’t the only Sun Devil with a particularly strong game on Wednesday. Senior guard Promise Amukamara also had a nice performance with 13 points in 26 minutes, giving Amukamara her first double-digit night on this young season. With seven rebounds, five assists, two steals and no turnovers on the night, Amukamara had a superb all-around game.

Part of this complete win was the nice defensive stance ASU had against CSU, ending the night with eight steals and 17 forced turnovers. ASU was able to slow down CSU’s high powered and fast tempo offense, which caused those turnovers and steals. Also, CSU Bakersfield averaged 86 points per game last season, an amount that was out of reach tonight for the Roadrunners.

ASU dominated on both sides of the court, and made their second win of the season one to be proud of.