ASU Women’s Basketball: Sun Devils fall in semifinals against Stanford

(Photo: Tyler Rittenhouse/WCSN)

A cold start combined with fatigue from playing the team’s third game in three days was too much for the Arizona State Women’s Basketball team to overcome as they fell to the Stanford 58-46.

“Fatigue is real,” ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “I don’t know if it was that or maybe we squeezed too hard. We really wanted it.”

Stanford was led by freshman Kiana Williams who torched the Sun Devils for 24 points behind 9/11 shooting including going 6/7 from beyond the arc.

The Cardinal also benefited from cold shooting nights from Courtney Ekmark, who finished scoreless, and leading scorer Kianna Ibis who finished with six points.

“They are just scout specific,” Turner Thorne said. “They chased Courtney Ekmark all over the court. She wasn’t going to get a clean look. Kianna, our leading scorer, they’re doubling her on every touch. They just do a great job keying in on your top scorers and trying to make other people beat you.”

ASU finished the game with a field goal percentage of 31% compared to Stanford’s 43.4% and as Charli Turner Thorne pointed out in the post-game press conference the team needed to shoot and execute better than they did.

Despite the poor shooting effort, Turner Thorne was proud of the team’s effort on the defensive end and perseverance.

“Really proud of the team,” Turner Thorne said. “We battled, we defended, holding Stanford to 58 points. We got to the free-throw line. We took pretty good care of the ball.”

The Sun Devils struggled from the beginning as they scored their first and final field goal of the first quarter on their first possession as Kianna Ibis poured in the lone basket.

ASU finished the quarter shooting 10% as Stanford took advantage ending the quarter on a 13-1 run with all five of their starters scoring. Despite the early struggles, the Sun Devils did their best to remain collected as a unit.

“Obviously it was a struggle,” guard Kiara Russell said. “We tried to stay calm, stay collected and play together and play for each other.”

Russell would play a big part in trying to keep ASU in the game as starting point guard Reili Richardson picked up her third foul early in the second quarter.

It was Russell who put an end to an 8-0 run Stanford in the quarter that put the Cardinal up by 20 until Russell was able to convert a three-pointer. The sophomore guard was then the driving force behind a Sun Devil 6-0 run to pull the game to a 14 points margin.

“We just didn’t execute,” Russell said. “We took good shots, but we weren’t hitting them. Obviously, second shots is the biggest key to the game, and we didn’t do that too.”

Coming out of the half it was Williams for Stanford who replicated an 11-point quarter in the second with three three-pointers with the same exact same stat line in the third quarter. Stanford used a 7-0 run in the quarter combined with ASU hitting only one of their last nine shots in the quarter to pull away 52-28.

Despite a lead that hit 26 points at one moment in the fourth quarter, the Sun Devils would not go away as they showed the team’s character of not quitting with a 16-2 run to end the game.

“Everybody has talent,” Turner Thorne said. “To get beyond that talent, you’ve got to go to the core of your character, and this team does that consistently day-in and day-out.”

ASU will now move on to the NCAA tournament where they will look to piece together a March run to remember.

“Yeah, we didn’t make some shots today,” Turner Thorne said. “But I love them. I mean, they’re amazing young women, and we’re not done.”