(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)
The final road trip of the season was full of frustration for the Sun Devils (10-9, 5-9 Pac-12), as they gifted the California Golden Bears (1-14, 1-12 Pac-12) their first win of the season in a 67-55 loss at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley.
Head coach Charli Turner Thorne summed up the loss simply after the game.
“It’s brutal,” Turner Thorne said.
Arizona State took 22 more shots than Cal, but failed to make open looks from inside the paint. The team finished the afternoon shooting 18-63 from the field.
“We didn’t make layups this weekend. We didn’t make free throws, and we haven’t been,” Turner Thorne said during her postgame comments on KDUS AM 1060. “We’re a Division I program and we can’t make easy shots. That’s killing us.”
The Sun Devils struggled with their discipline, sending the Golden Bears to the foul line 28 times, where they were able to convert a third of their points. Cal came up with multiple three-point plays, calls that Turner Thorne strongly disagreed with.
“I thought the officiating was absolutely horrible. Just horrible,” Turner Thorne said. “But, you know, I mean we were horrible too. So there’s nothing to be said in that situation.”
The game started off slow with Arizona State leading 8-5 after 10 minutes. The Sun Devils held onto their lead, capitalizing off second-chance points, until a 7-0 Cal run in the second quarter gave them the lead.
The Golden Bears continued to build on their lead in the second half, with help from guard and Phoenix native Leilani McIntosh’s game-high 21 points. Another Golden Bear run across the start of the fourth quarter would give them as much as a 16-point lead.
In the final minutes, the Sun Devils began to create and convert more shots. Junior guard Taya Hanson had 14 of her 17 points in the final quarter, including four shots from beyond the arc.
But the Golden Bears’ efficiency from the foul line was able to keep them ahead, with nine of their final 11 points coming from the charity stripe.
The Sun Devils had five players commit at least three fouls, putting a strain on the team’s clear advantage in depth.
“We didn’t battle throughout,” Turner Thorne said. “We’re just not playing hard enough. We played really hard at the end of the game, and I think anybody who watched the game saw that. So why don’t we play with that same energy and effort throughout the entire game? That’s what’s very frustrating for everybody right now.”
The inability to generate offense for much of the game follows a clear trend the team has had all season. The young Sun Devil squad will look to make final adjustments as the clock ticks closer to the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament beginning on Mar. 3.
“This isn’t the first game this happened, but this was for a lot,” Turner Thorne said. “You know, we were trying to get into postseason. That’s not definitely an option anymore. So we’ve just got to try to play a little bit of basketball and not be so awful.”
The Sun Devils will finish the regular season next Sunday as they host a Territorial Cup match against No. 10 Arizona. The game will be at 12:00 p.m MST and can be viewed on Pac-12 Network.
