(Photo: Travis Whittaker/WCSN)
When Arizona State welcomed Utah to Tempe Sunday afternoon, they did so with the two teams headed in completely different directions. The Sun Devils were winners of four straight, having handled USC, Arizona, Washington State and Colorado each by nine points or more. The Utes entered play having lost five consecutive games after opening the season 18-1 in their first 19 contests.
For three quarters and change, it appeared that both the Sun Devils and Utes would be breaking their respective streaks as Utah’s Andrea Torres hit a 3-pointer that gave Utah its largest lead of the game, a 58-40 advantage with 8:09 to play. Then the most remarkable, mind-boggling comeback in recent history happened.
The comeback started with a simple layup by junior guard Robbi Ryan with 7:45 on the clock and it ended when Ryan hit her second three-pointer of the night with 13 seconds remaining to tie the game at 58 apiece. After Ryan sunk the game-tying three, junior guard Reili Richardson took a charge with 1.9 seconds left to allow ASU an opportunity to take its first lead of the game.
Following head coach Charli Turner Thorne’s timeout, redshirt senior guard Courtney Ekmark curled off a screen, caught and rose for a 3-point attempt from just inside the Wells Fargo Arena logo. For the second time that night, Ekmark was fouled on her attempt from deep, and went to the line to shoot three free throws.
“I knew that there was only 1.9 seconds left and I knew that they had a foul to give, but I didn’t think that they were trying to foul,” Ekmark, who scored a game-high 15 points said. “I thought it was going in, honestly. I called the bank.”
At the line, she would make two of three attempts, to give ASU the 60-58 lead. With 0.6 seconds remaining following the free throw, the Utes had one last chance. That opportunity was erased when senior forward Kianna Ibis caught the inbound pass, securing the Sun Devils fifth consecutive win, and extending the Utes losing streak to six.
“In the fourth quarter we felt more connected,” Ibis said. “We also had more flow on offense and defensively we just got it done.”
At the half, Turner Thorne said she told the team they would need a 40 or 50-point second half to win the game. Arizona State scored 18 points in the third quarter, and 22 in the fourth, but the comeback came largely on the backs of the fourth quarter defensive effort. The Utes ended the game on an 8:08 scoring drought, missed their last six shots from the field and had eight turnovers in that span to go along with the poor shooting.
“I thought we were just more locked in [during the fourth quarter],” Turner Thorne said. “We played better team defense in the fourth quarter, by far. They missed a few shots, but we sped them up.”
While Arizona State struggled early as Ibis and the Devils struggled to score, Utah senior forward Megan Huff scored 15 points, while adding nine rebounds and seven assists. Huff, a First Team All-Pac-12 Selection in 2018, scored just three points in the second half.
The Sun Devils improved to 9-4 in conference play and held onto their claim of the No. 4 seed in the conference tournament. Next week, the Devils travel to the Bay Area to take on California and Stanford, before ending regular season play with Oregon State and Oregon in Tempe in two weeks.
“Every game is huge right now,” Turner Thorne said. “We only have top-half teams left, so we’d like to win them all but as many as we can get is going to be huge for seeding in the conference tournament and the NCAA tournament.”
