(Photo via Xavier Litman/WCSN)
TEMPE – Back at Desert Financial Arena after a five-game road trip, Arizona State Women’s Basketball found itself facing off against the reigning Atlantic 10 Conference champions Massachusetts in the opening game of the inaugural Briann January Classic.
Allowing 88 points on 50% shooting from the field, the Sun Devils could have used January’s defensive prowess that she displayed during her time at ASU. The Sun Devils’ 88-64 loss was the largest margin of victory or defeat for either team this season. With two games left in the Classic, UMass moves to 8-1 while the host, ASU, drops to 6-2.
The homecoming quickly turned sour for ASU when it found itself down 9-2 less than four minutes into the game. Although it managed to tie the game 11-11, a 9-0 run for the Minutewomen to end the quarter foreshadowed the subsequent struggles for the Sun Devils.
Things went from bad to worse as the nine-point deficit quickly ballooned to a 20-point margin. Often hailed for their resilience by head coach Natasha Adair, the Sun Devils simply didn’t have it in them Friday night to put together another comeback.
“I think we just dug a hole,” Adair said. “I thought in the second half we had a spurt. I thought our pressure worked. I thought we turned them over, but it’s hard to come back when you’re 20 (points) down. I know we showed we could come back from 10, but not 20.”
The Minutewomen took every opportunity to expose holes and deficiencies in the Sun Devils’ defensive rotations. Quick pass after quick pass allowed UMass to find open players for 28 assists, 19 of which came from the combined efforts of senior guard Sydney Taylor and junior guard Ber’Nyah Mayo.
“I think it was just being a half an inch over to help,” Adair said. “It just seemed like we were a step slow in our rotations … I do think that we pressured on the perimeter. I do think that in the half-court set, there were opportunities for us where we did get those stops, but I think the moments where they might have got loose around the rim, or they slipped to the basket, it was just a half an inch too late.”
Despite seeing just 20 minutes of action, UMass senior forward Angelique Ngalakulondi gashed ASU for 21 points. She made her living sinking high-percentage shots on fast breaks and in the paint. Ngalakulondi was just one Minutewoman to take advantage of the Sun Devils’ lack of resistance in those areas. Altogether, the Minutewomen scored 27 points off fast breaks while putting up 54 in the paint.
“We wanted to limit their paint points, Adair said. “Some, obviously, were off the dribble, but there were some paint points that were just off of second-chance opportunities.
“I think some of their transition was activated because we had just one-shot opportunities … They limited us to one [shot], which activated them in transition … Our posts normally crash and our guards normally get back, but I just felt like we were one-and-done, and that really activated them in transition.”
ASU’s hopes for a comeback were further dashed by their inability to make shots on the other end of the floor. Limping to a 29.6% clip from the field, the Sun Devils struggled to connect on shots that were open, contested, close, far and everything in between.
Just two nights removed from scoring a career-high 29 points, junior guard Tyi Skinner was comparatively neutralized by UMass, scoring just 15 points while shooting 4-for-19 from the field.
The Sun Devils’ low percentages came from a combination of missed opportunities and poor shot selection early on. Adair tried to help her team adjust, but ultimately, they still couldn’t make up the lost ground.
“It was just not settling for jump shots,” Adair said. “[Junior guard] Jaddan [Simmons] did a phenomenal job turning the corner and trying to play downhill and get to the rim. Shortening up your shot. Shooting that mid-range game and getting to the free throw line, but just really not settling for that quick three or that quick shot in the perimeter. It was more important for us to put foul pressure on and play downhill to the rim.”
With no way to overcome their offensive or defensive faults, the Sun Devils found themselves trailing by as many as 31 points during the loss. Bad offense continuously led to bad defense and vice versa.
“It was a lot of our mess ups is how they scored,” Simmons said. “I think we’ll get back to just staying down on defense, running the court, doing all that we can do to stop them on defense, and then that would have helped our offense a lot better today.”
With a plethora of mistakes to fix on both ends of the floor, the Sun Devils will be back in action on Sunday against Missouri (7-1) to end the Briann January Classic. They plan to take Saturday to regroup and come out stronger on Sunday.
“We know we played bad, and it’s just like Coach said – it was effort, paint points, transition, but a lot of that stuff we can control,” Simmons said. “I think the team knows that, and we’ve just got players who want to win, so this is going to leave a little chip on our shoulder, and we know Sunday, we’re going to be able to control the effort, and it’s going to be way better than it was today.”
