ASU Women’s Basketball: Sun Devils honor historic Sweet 16 team

(Photo: Andrew Bell/WCSN)

Amidst a 75-50 home victory against Arizona on Friday night, the ASU women’s basketball program honored its historic 2004-05 Sweet 16 team.

Kylan Loney, Carrie Buckner, Kristin Kovesdy and Betsy Boardman were all in attendance, and the four starters were honored at halftime of Friday night’s Territorial Cup matchup.

“It was great to see them. Their legacy is up on the walls of Weatherup (ASU’s practice facility),” ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “That was our first regional round team, and to be able to earn the right to come back to Wells Fargo and play in the Sweet 16, I can’t even tell you how special that was.”

During ASU’s historic NCAA tournament run 13 years ago, the Sun Devils knocked off Eastern Kentucky and Notre Dame as a five-seed in the tournament.

Following back-to-back wins in Fresno, ASU returned to Tempe to face North Carolina.

The Sun Devils fell 79-72 in that game, but the team’s legacy was cemented in ASU lore for the historic season that the team accumulated.

ASU finished the 2004-05 season with a 24-10 record, and the Sun Devils reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history since the tournament expanded to 64 teams.

Emily Westerberg was named to the All Pac-10 First Team as a sophomore, and Kovesdy was a Pac-10 honorable mention.

The Sun Devils obtained success with a team that knew how to share the basketball. ASU finished the 2004-05 season averaging 17 assists per game, which led the Pac-10 Conference.

ASU had four players who talled 70 assists or more in a single season, and Loney averaged three assists per game as a senior.

“We worked so hard to get where we were that year and making the Sweet 16 was huge for us,” Loney said. “It was just a really fun team to be a part of, and Charli was an amazing coach. We had a great coaching staff behind us, and after that, I really felt like ASU has done an amazing job of just keeping up with that winning tradition.”

In addition to her assists, Loney ended her career in Tempe with 161 three-pointers while shooting nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc.

Among others, Westerberg led an unselfish team in scoring with 11.3 points per game while Boardman finished her senior campaign with a career 1,065 points, becoming just the 14th Sun Devil in school history to score 1,000 points or more in her career.

“When we were in it and you are playing and you are working hard every day, of course the goal is to end up being national champions,” Boardman said. “To get to the Sweet 16, that was my final year. It was pretty special to just get to that point…to finish out my final year (in that way), it was pretty special.”

Aside from a fantastic postseason run, the 2004-05 team reached unchartered waters in the regular season.

Just a couple days before Christmas in 2004, the program shattered a single-game attendance record at Wells Fargo Arena, with 8,927 fans at ASU’s upset win over Connecticut.

In addition to a packed house, Turner Thorne became the winningest coach in program history in just her ninth season in 2005 when ASU knocked off UCLA 44-42 in Los Angeles.

That record and the ASU women’s basketball program has only grown since that time, as Turner Thorne has established one of the legitimate powerhouses in all of college basketball.

“We had won a couple of Pac-10 Championships, but they really grew that program from that point,” Turner Thorne said. “We had to kind of reset, and then they really brought it to the consistency that I think we have had ever since.”

As for this year’s ASU team, the Sun Devils met the members of the Sweet 16 team on Friday, as they now try to create their own legacy in the maroon and gold.

Turner Thorne continues to keep in touch with her former players despite a chaotic college basketball season, and the bond between herself and her players continues to be a staple in her legendary coaching career.

“She was such an incredible person and a part of my life throughout college, but even post (college),” Boardman said. “She is just a wonderful person and I felt very lucky to be on her team and be a part of the program when I was here at ASU.”

While Turner Thorne’s former players have respect and admiration for their former head coach, it is Turner Thorne who continues to be awed by what her former players are now doing off the court.

“I am just so proud of what they are doing now with their lives,” Turner Thorne said. “They are professionals and moms. They are just incredible women.”