(Photo: Rebecca Striffler/WCSN)
On Sunday, in its last road game of the regular season, Arizona State found themselves walking out of Seattle with a 69-74 loss against the struggling Washington Huskies.
The first quarter went exactly how Arizona State wanted every game and the rest of the remaining games to begin. The team went up 22-16 with eight different players contributing. The team shot a combined 52.9 percent from the field and got four 3-pointers to fall.
Head coach Charli Turner Thorne mentioned early in the year that she wants to use her bench and allow them to contribute when their typical scorers cannot get going, and that is exactly what happened against the Huskies on Sunday. Twenty-one of the 69 ASU points came from the bench players, led by guard Gabriela Bosquez with nine. Seven of her points came in the first half, and she added 3 rebounds before leaving early due to an injury.
The Sun Devils held their largest lead in the second quarter, but allowed the largest run of the game as the Huskies scored 11 straight in under three minutes, but ASU would hold the lead 33-31 going into half. With an incredible first quarter performance, the second quarter was a major cool down for the Devils, as they shot 5-18 and only hit one shot from beyond the arc.
The Huskies’ Van Dyke was torching the Sun Devil defense. Van Dyke was spreading the floor hitting three triples on the day, but was moving without the ball and found a couple easy layups at the rim and ended the day with 18.
The biggest letdown for the Devils came in shooting. Jade Loville struggled to find the bottom of the basket. She has averaged just under 21 points per game over the past five games and only put up 10 on a tough night of shooting. Arizona State shot well under their average field goal percentage, rarely got to the line, and could not finish from beyond the arc.
A winless Huskies team within the Pac-12 has led at halftime nine times, but have largely been incapable of finishing games. However the third quarter seemed as if they were ready to win a game. Washington went on a 12-0 run in the last three minutes of the third quarter to take their largest lead of the game.
With a strong push towards the end of the fourth quarter, Jaddan Simmons and the Sun Devils fell just short after two different attempts to tie the game. Simmons had nine points in the fourth on perfect shooting and an all-around stat stuff for Mael Gilles, putting up six points, eight rebounds and seven assists, but it was not enough as they could not quite get the job done.
Arizona State heads back to Tempe to face off against UCLA and USC at home next week before the Pac-12 tournament.
