KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The roller coaster that was the 2024-25 Arizona State season screeched to a halt Thursday in the second round of the program’s inaugural Big 12 tournament.
The Iowa State Cyclones ended Natasha Adair’s third season at the helm with a 96-88 defeat of Adair’s Sun Devils.
While the loss ends a number of collegiate basketball careers on ASU’s roster, some key contributors have yet to reach the end of their stories. As seniors graduate and potential transfers move on, the weight of leadership falls on the shoulders of whoever remains.
“Now being a senior, I do have to be a bigger leader,” junior forward Kennedy Basham said after Thursday’s loss. “But I feel like this year has kind of prepared me for that. I’m excited to take on that role next year.”
Basham, a Phoenix native, transferred home from Oregon prior to the season. The local product by way of Pinnacle High School faced her share of ups and downs in 2024-25. Still, tasked with guarding All-American honorable mention Audi Crooks in a win-or-go-home game, Basham turned in one of her more well-rounded performances all year.
“We kept fighting. We kept going no matter what, and I feel like a lot of people had us underrated,” Basham said. “I don’t think a lot of people thought we were gonna even win the first game. So I felt like we went out there and fought till the end.”
The 6-foot-7 Basham was a defensive disruptor all evening, blocking six shots and collecting several deflections as she constantly found herself on an island around the basket against Crooks. Offensively, this season has not always been smooth sailing for Basham, who finished the year shooting 43% from the field, but the rising senior showed signs of improvement over the course of the Big 12 tournament, shooting 50% from the field and flashing some shooting touch, knocking down a pair of 14-footers against Iowa State.
With the Cyclone defense occupied by graduate guard Tyi Skinner and junior guard Jalyn Brown, sophomore guard Jyah Lovett also contributed in ASU’s loss, racking up 12 points and three assists while turning the ball over just once.
Lovett, who transferred in from San Jose State, ended the season with nine consecutive starts, a sign of the growth displayed in her first year of Power Four basketball.
“Having more poise and learning from my upperclassmen that everything is not as bad as it is in the moment (were big parts of my growth),” Lovett said. “Just the ‘going next play’ mentality.”
Lovett showed flashes as a shooter all season but goes into next season as ASU’s best point-of-attack defender. Though the box score doesn’t reflect it, showing zero steals next to Lovett’s name, the rising junior was a pest defensively against Iowa State; Lovett constantly fought over screens and disrupted the Cyclone’s offensive sets seemingly before they even got going. Her physicality and lateral agility are some of her best tools and should aid her greatly as she develops next season.
“I just thank my father for instilling that hard work and always being in the gym,” Lovett said. “It’s always going to translate over. And I feel like it did just that.”
Basham and Lovett are just two players who could potentially return to Tempe next year. Skinner has another year of eligibility due to a medical redshirt and Brown will be just a senior next year. Yet, with the ever-changing landscape of college sports, it’s hard to say for certain exactly what the ASU roster or coaching staff will look like after another season at the bottom of its conference.
Still, the Sun Devils dealt with a particularly harsh bite from the injury bug this season. With a strong offseason from the returning members of their roster, Basham and Lovett among them, ASU could find itself right back in the second round of the Big 12 tournament next year and maybe not as the 18-point underdog they were today.
“We finished strong,” Lovett said. “Playing together, working hard together, all the extra work we do in the gym, it does matter, and that it’s going to translate over and bring people along.”
