(Photo credit: Maya Diaz/WCSN)
NASHVILLE — Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, Arizona State women’s basketball took a trip east to Nashville for the Coast2Coast Music City Classic. There, the Sun Devils matched up against No. 14 Kentucky and South Dakota.
ASU walked out of Nashville with a split record, falling 77-61 to the Wildcats on Tuesday before rebounding with a 95-88 win over the Coyotes on Wednesday. With the early season split against two vastly different opponents, this week’s tournament allowed viewers to learn more about this year’s rendition of the Sun Devils.
Backcourt Versatility
In the offseason, head coach Natasha Adair added eight new players to her squad. Four of those new additions were guards. Combined with the firepower of previous stars graduate guard Tyi Skinner and junior guard Jalyn Brown, the Sun Devils’ backcourt new additions allowed ASU to flourish in Nashville.
In the loss to Kentucky, Brown led the team in scoring with 16 points. Although she had an atypical shooting day, Skinner still contributed with eight points and five assists. The next day, Brown scored 19 points and Skinner upped her offensive impact to 20 points. But it wasn’t just Skinner and Brown who got going against South Dakota. Sophomore guard Jyah LoVett and junior guard Kennedy Fauntleroy both scored 14 while adding five and seven assists, respectively.
In total, the Sun Devils wracked up 27 assists on 69 made field goals in Wednesday’s game. With how much versatility in scoring options lies among the Sun Devil guards, the team’s willingness to share the ball and create opportunities for teammates is what pleased Adair the most.
“We highlighted the assists,” Adair said. “That was the first thing that I said before I said points. And so I think when you see Tyi with seven, Jyah with seven, Kennedy Fauntleroy with seven, the team has 27 assists, we talk more about how fluid and how it felt. Sometimes, if you get individual, it’s not going to flow right. … Yes, we all know that we have scorers top to bottom, but we also know that we want to execute offensively and give up the good for the great.”
Tyi Skinner has Leveled Up
Within the Sun Devils’ backcourt prowess, Tyi Skinner has stood out. The fifth-year guard is making her return from a knee injury that caused her to miss all of last season, and since being back on the court, Skinner has improved her game in almost every facet through the first six games of the season.
Compared to the 2022-23 season, Skinner averages more rebounds and assists per game. With 33 assists on the season, she’s almost halfway to her season total in 2022-23 of 67. She’s also more efficient shooting-wise. Her field-goal percentage has increased nearly 10 points, from 36.1% to 45.5%. From beyond the arc, the chasm between her figures in 2022-23 and now is even larger, improving from 34.7% to 45.5%.
Against South Dakota, Skinner’s rejuvenated efficiency was put on display. 18 of her 20 points came from deep. She was 6-of-11 from 3-point land. The rest of the team outside of Skinner only hit six threes collectively.
As mentioned previously, she’s also had a nose for finding her teammates. Across the two games, Skinner totaled a team-high 12 assists. Many of these went to graduate center Nevaeh Parkinson down low, allowing the Sun Devils to prove their dominance in the paint.
“We share the ball,” Adair said. “We recognized where the mismatches were. … [Parkinson] did what she was supposed to do, but her teammates made sure they got the ball to her, and she delivered.”
Big Basketball is Alive and Well in Tempe
Neveah Parkinson was the only Sun Devil named to the Music City Classic All-Tournament Team, a well-deserved honor. Tuesday, she scored 12 points and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. She was the only Sun Devil to come out of the Kentucky loss without a negative +/-.
Wednesday, Parkinson built on her performance from Tuesday. Although came off of the bench for the first time this season, she was pivotal in helping ASU crack the zone defense the Coyotes elected to employ. She scored a career-high 26 points, going 12-for-13 from the floor. She was the driving force behind ASU’s 40 points in the paint.
“[Parkinson] made me realize that [she was the go-to player],” Adair said. “I mean, [Parkinson] is a big presence for us. She’s tough to guard, great hands, great feet. That’s why she’s here. … I think it was just the team playing together today, playing for each other, and [Parkinson] responded.”
At 6-foot-3, Parkinson is a dominant presence on the inside. She has created a size advantage for the Sun Devils in almost every game they’ve played, but it’s also created a disadvantage. Parkinson tends to be penalized for fouls fairly often. Although she avoided disqualification, she finished Tuesday’s game with four fouls, the fourth time she’d finished with three or more.
Still, on Wednesday, Parkinson approached the game with passion and energy on both ends of the floor, leading to a career day for the first-year Sun Devil.
“Honestly, leading up to this tournament, I’ve been hard on myself all week,” Parkinson said. “Even [Adair] knew I was hard on myself all week. My teammates knew I was hard on myself, but they reassured me that I was here for a reason and that they needed me, and I was doing everything that I needed to be doing. So today for them to have the faith in me and the belief in me, to trust me with the ball and everything, I think it was amazing because I was really nervous and antsy this whole week.”
With the lessons learned from Nashville, the Sun Devils will have a week to apply what they learned in preparation for a meaningful trip to the East Coast. The Sun Devils are slated to take on Historically Black Universities Coppin State and Maryland Eastern Shore in their next pair of games. Saturday’s game against the Hawks is a part of the lineup for the Coaches vs. Racism series that will take place in Washington D.C.’s Entertainment & Sports Arena, the home of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics.
The trip east is also a homecoming for Adair, who spent time coaching at Georgetown and Delaware, and players Skinner, Brown, Fauntleroy and Toure who are all from the East Coast. All of the aforementioned players, minus Brown, spent time at East Coast universities before transferring to ASU as well.
The Sun Devils will face Coppin State on Dec. 5 in Baltimore before traveling to Washington D.C. to take on Maryland Eastern Shore on Dec. 7.
