Sun Devils outmatched by No. 8 Bruins

(Photo via Sam Polgreen/WCSN)

TEMPE — The No. 8 UCLA Bruins extended their winning streak against Sun Devil women’s basketball to 16 straight on Thursday evening, as ASU opened its final Pac-12 Conference homestand against two top-10 opponents.

With both schools leaving the Pac-12 at the end of the 2023-24 school year, the Bruins escaped Desert Financial Arena with a healthy lead in the all-time series, 65-28.

In a similar fashion to the all-time series tally, the Bruins (23-5, 12-5 Pac-12) came away with a lopsided 70-41 win over the Sun Devils (11-18, 3-14) thanks to a combination of tough defense and efficient inside scoring.

ASU entered Thursday’s matchup with a significant height disadvantage, most notably in the form of UCLA sophomore center Lauren Betts, standing at 6-foot-7. UCLA was able to feed the ball to its leading scorer on the inside, where she picked up 20 points.

ASU head coach Natasha Adair said in her postgame press conference that the plan was to double-team Betts, but even that wasn’t quite enough.

“You saw it in moments where it worked really well, but those single coverages, they stretch you out obviously so you can’t bring help, and our rotations were just a little late when she had those single coverages,” Adair said.

Betts wasn’t the only threat on the inside, as the Bruins also used excellent ball movement and speed to exploit ASU’s defense and create open lanes to the basket. This led to 44 Bruin points in the paint.

Even when UCLA missed, it was able to rebound and get second-chance points. The Bruins were able to haul in 19 offensive rebounds to The Sun Devils’ seven, part of an effort on the glass that saw UCLA outrebound ASU 52-24.

The Sun Devils struggled mightily against the UCLA defense, which held them to just 28% on 15-of-53 from the field. The Bruins contested almost every shot that ASU took, limiting the Devils in the paint and from the mid-range. Despite ASU shooting well from deep, the lack of interior offense limited openings on the perimeter as well.

This, combined with the lack of offensive rebounds and shot selection that left some to be desired, is what Adair thought contributed to a sputtering Sun Devil attack.

“I thought we were limiting ourselves to one shot,” Adair said. “We didn’t get multiple opportunities on one shot. I thought we were over dribbling in instances, over passing, I thought we turned down some shots that we were looking at and that we wanted.”

Part of UCLA’s defensive success was in limiting ASU’s leading scorers to just 27 combined combined. Sophomore guards Jalyn Brown and Trayanna Crisp both shot 5-of-16 or worse, which proved especially detrimental to a team that relies so heavily on its scoring leaders.

“I think playing a team a second time again, especially after I had a good game against them last time, they’re gonna scout it out, so they’re gonna scout out our plays, they’re gonna scout our actions,” Brown said.

ASU had 19 personal fouls, which allowed UCLA to add 12 more points on 22 foul shots. While the Bruins weren’t efficient from the free throw line, the points, and perhaps more importantly the momentum, started to build in their favor, knocking the wind out of the Devils’ sails.

“I’ve known (UCLA head coach) Cori (Close) for a long time, and I just thought that her team was firing on all cylinders today,” Adair said. “I thought there were moments coming out the gate where we matched their intensity, and then there were moments where our defense was late, and you can’t be late against a team like this.”