(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)
Arizona State (10-7, 5-7 Pac-12) heads to the Bay Area for dates with No. 6 Stanford and California this weekend.
The Sun Devils defeated California 56-53 back on New Year’s Day thanks to 21 points from Taya Hanson off seven three-pointers. Jaddan Simmons led the way and facilitated the offense with seven assists in that contest.
Two days later, the Sun Devils fell to then No. 1 Stanford 68-60 in Tempe. After trailing by 15 after one quarter, the Sun Devils cut the deficit to single digits at the half. Simmons led with 16 points with Hanson scoring 15 points.
The Sun Devils are coming off a 67-61 victory over Washington State in one of their better showings of the year. Just a few days earlier, they had arguably their worst game of the year in a 15-point loss to Washington. Head coach Charli Turner Thorne was pleased with the effort over Washington State.
“I felt really good about that win,” Turner Thorne said. “We got back to being more ourselves and outworking a team and not trying too hard. We are very excited to build on that win for this week.”
They’ll have to contest with Stanford’s duo of Kiana Williams and Haley Jones, who each average just under 14 points per game with Jones grabbing eight rebounds per game. In the January 1 matchup in Tempe, ASU held Jones to just eight points but fell victim to a great performance of Francesca Belibi who scored 23 points and brought down 12 rebounds and dominated the game for the Cardinal.
One of the big differences from that game to Friday’s contest is the Sun Devils will go into the game with a full roster – something they did not have in the eight-point loss in the first meeting. Turner Thorne believes that could help ASU.
“In watching that game, I think we are a much better team now than we were then and also we weren’t at full strength in that game,” Turner Thorne said. “It’ll be fun to see how we match up at this point.”
Turner Thorne also noted the pace of play that Stanford plays at. ASU had played as many or more games than almost every team in the nation at that point, but had not played a team of Stanford’s caliber.
“They’re a championship caliber team and their pace really hurt us in the first quarter,” Turner Thorne explained. “They really beat us on transition and we weren’t ready. (We) weren’t getting back but then I thought we settled down and adjusted.”
Turner Thorne is hoping Sunday’s performance is a sign of things to come down the stretch with the Pac-12 Tournament drawing near.
“It’s not a normal year and every day is an adventure,” Turner Thorne said. “I do feel that we are in a position to finish very strong and this team is very motivated to do that and there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t do that.”
As of now, the Sun Devils are slated to play three more games the rest of the season. Their final scheduled game would be Feb. 28 when they host No. 10 Arizona. There is a possibility to make up some postponed games the weekend of the Pac-12 Tournament which begins March 4 in Las Vegas.
An option that has been discussed is should teams that lose in the early rounds of the tournament need to make games up, the conference would work with participating teams to arrange games to be played if it could help their NCAA Tournament rating.
The aforementioned battle at No. 6 Stanford will be Friday night at 8 p.m. MST on the Pac-12 Network. Sunday’s game at California will tip off at 2 p.m. MST and can be seen on the Cal Live Stream.
