(Photo credit: Aishling Cavanaugh/WCSN)
PHOENIX — With a chance to prove Friday’s loss to Arkansas State was a fluke, Arizona State women’s basketball players walked into Footprint Center for their Hall of Fame game against Grand Canyon with their heads held high.
Through the first 20 minutes, the Sun Devils were on track to get back in the win column. They led by nine and displayed remarkable improvement in almost every aspect that caused the loss in their previous game.
It all changed in the final 20 minutes.
The Sun Devils’ second-half collapse resulted in a 70-59 defeat, dropping ASU to 1-2 in the young season.
Adair: ‘It felt like March.’
Although the game didn’t go the Sun Devils’ way, it still stood out amongst the Sun Devils’ previous matchups for a positive reason: the crowd.
With both schools hailing from the Phoenix metropolitan area, fans didn’t have to travel far to root for their respective teams. The Lopes even brought their trademark student section, the Havocs, to build the atmosphere inside Footprint Center.
“It was electric,” head coach Natasha Adair said. “Just the opportunity to play in Footprint, you know, honored to play, for sure, but I think it was just a great atmosphere for women’s basketball. It felt like a really good environment. It felt like March, in some ways. I mean, just the energy in the building, so honored to be able to play.”
“What an incredible environment that’s unmatched. (The Havocs) really fueled us,” GCU head coach Molly Miller said. “What an amazing atmosphere for women’s basketball [in] only the third game of the season. So it was pretty incredible to have that kind of support here at GCU. They came out, painted the footprint center purple, and it was fun to be a part of that.”
The high-energy atmosphere was particularly special for junior forward Kennedy Basham. As a former Pinnacle and PHH Prep athlete, Basham’s Phoenix roots epitomized the growing rivalry between ASU and GCU in recent years.
“Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous, but I was super excited,” Basham said. “It’s great to be home in front of my friends and family, but even just this crowd with these girls, it’s just fun to go out here in front of this big [a] crowd for women’s basketball.”
Comeback Season
While the game acted as a special sort of homecoming for Basham, it doubled as another type of return for a few other players on the court.
Graduate forward Maggie Besselink, a career Sun Devil, made her return to play after tearing her ACL last season on Jan. 19. In her return, Besselink played just 15 minutes and finished with two points and two rebounds.
Newcomer and graduate guard Jazion Jackson also made her triumphant return to the floor Thursday evening. She played for the first time in over 600 days after missing all of last season with an Achilles injury. Jackson got the start in her Sun Devil debut and scored her first points as a Sun Devil within the first six minutes. Jackson’s first point of the game — a free throw at the 4:30 mark — also marked Jackson’s 1,000th career point. Jackson totaled four points and five rebounds in 29 minutes of play.
“Maggie has been out, and … it’s such a success story for her and her comeback and just the resiliency… But she’s a fighter,” Adair said. “She’s tough as nails… I mean, she’s out there in lineups where she hasn’t really logged a lot of practice minutes. And so it will continue to build, and the same thing for (Jackson)… So the more they play together, the more we play together collectively, you’ll start to see that cohesion.”
On the other side of the floor, graduate guard Sydney Erikstrup got her own dose of nostalgia. Erikstrup played at ASU for the first three years of her career. Thursday night was the third ASU vs GCU matchup of her career and her second on the Lopes’ bench. In 13 minutes, Erikstrup went 2-for-5 from distance. One of those shots was the dagger to extend GCU’s lead to nine which came with 4:38 left in the fourth quarter. It was the Lopes’ last made field goal of the night.
“I knew she was going to get her shot, and I knew she knew the game plan. She wanted to execute the game plan. She was focused, she was intense, she was ready and she shoots it in practice. She makes it too. So I think for us, we just instilled a lot of confidence (in) her.
“But I just told her, ‘Congratulations,’ because when you are a transfer, you go through some emotional turmoil anyway. I imagine it’s really hard when you play your former team, so there’s just an overtake of emotion and just really happy for her for the win. But she really stepped in and helped us. She was a big key for us, especially, hit some big shots.”
The Sun Devils will have an almost immediate chance to redeem themselves. This weekend, they’ll host the annual Briann January Classic where they’ll match up against their first Power Five opponent of the year in SMU. They’ll also take on former Pac-12 Conference opponent Oregon State.
This weekend’s matchups provide another chance for ASU to find their rhythm and adjust to the surplus of newness and unfamiliarity among this season’s roster. To do so, Adair wants to see the version of her team that came out in the first half of Thursday’s game, instead of the version that played the final 20 minutes.
“I think we talked about the first-half effort, and it looked better for sure. A lot of things that we had worked on leading up to the game we saw them do, but again, that’s 20. We’ve got to go 40 and put it together, but we do have that to show as an example of this is what it looks like when we’re clicking on all cylinders.”
