(Photo: Misha Jones/WCSN)
No. 22 Arizona State (16-8) women’s basketball is in the home stretch of their season as the Devils return to Tempe to face Washington State (11-13) on Friday night, and then Washington (11-13) on Sunday.
After the historic weekend with wins against then No. 2 Oregon and No. 3 Oregon State in Tempe in January, which happened during the middle of a five-game winning streak, the Sun Devils have hit the skids as of late.
The team enters this weekend looking to recover from a 1-4 stretch in their last five games. Four out of those fives opponents are currently positioned in the national rankings, but it is few and far between when a Charli Turner Thorne coached team goes through a slide like this.
The Devils most recent game was a 31-point loss against No. 3 Oregon, a team that has been white hot since their shocking loss to the same Devils a month prior. If the Ducks are the “bar” as their senior guard Sabrina Ionescu claims they are, then last weekend showed the Sun Devils just how large the gap between them and the top.
On the flip side, the Devils took No. 11 Oregon State to the buzzer, falling to the Beavers on Mikayla Pivech’s catch-and-release shot with 0.4 seconds on the clock.
“I thought everyone did some good things,” Turner Thorne said at Wednesday’s media availability. “And then obviously it’s good film for people to watch in terms of things they need to do better.”
ASU had left Washington State and Washington behind with a good chance at a top-3 finish in the PAC-12. Now, at 6-6, the goal is to finish strong in hopes of securing a seventh consecutive 20-win season under Turner Thorne and another trip to the NCAA Tournament.
In order to move on from their recent losing ways, forward Ja’Tavia Tapley says the team has embraced a new mentality.
“We’ve been having new words to try and move on from that stuff,” Tapley said. “One that we use now is ‘next play,’ we use that a lot to move on. We focus on that more than anything.”
Friday night, the Devils will begin a relieving stretch that will only feature one ranked opponent. None of their next four opponents, Washington State, Washington, Colorado or Utah have winning records in Pac-12 play. But the team is not looking past anyone in what has proved to be the most competitive conference in the country.
“Washington State is a very good team offensively,” said senior guard Reili Richardson. “They have very good players that can create for the other team. Keying in on them and rotating is the focus.”
When it comes to Washington, Richardson said the key will be to stop the Huskies’ senior guard Amber Melgoza, with an increased emphasis on crashing the boards after forcing a Melgoza miss.
“They rebound very hard, I remember from the first game,” Richardson said. “We’re going to have to focus on rebounding more.”
Tip-off against Washington State is 7 pm. Sunday’s game against Washington will begin at noon.
