(Photo: Madison Sorenson/WCSN)
IOWA CITY – Down two with five seconds and zero timeouts remaining, junior guard Jyah LoVett snagged the inbounds pass and sprinted down the side of the court with a Virginia defender glued to her hip. Crossing half-court, LoVett attempted to probe the center of the paint before her defender’s hand snuck in from behind and jarred it free.
Bodies went crashing in pursuit of the loose ball, but the only sound that mattered was the harsh groan of the buzzer that signified Arizona State women’s basketball’s departure from the NCAA Tournament.
Senior guard Makayla Moore and junior forward McKinna Brackens lent a hand to the grounded LoVett, dragging the junior to her feet as the rest of her teammates absorbed the 57-55 loss on the sidelines.
Days earlier, head coach Molly Miller spoke in front of reporters about the excitement of making the tournament to the point she couldn’t think of anything but scouting Virginia. The Sun Devils’ reward after a promising Big 12 run, where ASU advanced to the third round and earned its first Quad 1 win of the season, 77-68 over Iowa State, was a berth in the First Four, its first March Madness appearance since 2019.
Thursday night exemplified ASU’s erratic playstyle. Down but never out. Behind but clawing and grasping with every fiber of their being to gain the lead.
Miller’s defensive imprint was unmistakable on an ASU squad that finished at the bottom of the barrel in points allowed in the Big 12 last year at 76.9 and soared to the top-five in the conference while following her philosophy.
Full-court presses and traps were recurrent for a Sun Devils side that not only grinded down opponents on that end of the court but cultivated an identity in doing so. ASU restricted Virginia to 32 percent shooting from the field and 17 percent from beyond the arc, bottom-five performances on the season for the Cavaliers.
Yet, as has been equally constant, the Sun Devils offense couldn’t pull its weight. Elliott and Brackens, ASU’s top-two scorers, combined for 21 points on 6-for-25 shooting, as the Maroon and Gold stumbled to a 36 percent clip for the game, its 11th game under the 40 percent mark this year.
Despite trailing for 94 percent of the game, taking 10 fewer shots and being plus-12 in the fouls department, a Washenitz three with 41 seconds left saw the two sides knotted at 51 apiece. A clutch straightaway three from Virginia guard Kymora Johnson tipped the scales in the Cavaliers’ favor, but it was LoVett’s self-induced blow, one of 16 team turnovers, that sealed ASU’s fate.
Perhaps it was a fitting, albeit bittersweet, end to a season for a hodgepodge Sun Devil roster composed nearly entirely of transfers and freshmen that exceeded even the most buoyant of expectations.
Miller arrived from GCU with the third-highest winning percentage amongst active D-I coaches at 84.4 percent, and she wasted no time validating why athletic director Graham Rossini was so keen to have her lead the program.
ASU’s 15-0 start didn’t rejuvenate fans and media alike for the quality of its opponents or for the program’s record-breaking achievement, but simply for its ability to come out on top.
Miller’s 24 wins set a new standard in program history and were more than the Sun Devils had in the previous two years combined. More importantly, after stretches of mediocrity or worse that stranded the program in uncertainty, the first-year head coach’s infectious personality resonated with nearly every player, fan and alumnus.
Minutes after the Virginia loss, and for their final time representing ASU on the basketball court, Washenitz and Elliott took a seat at the podium. Miller, who didn’t travel with the team on Wednesday due to sickness, sat beside them quietly, ceding the microphone to the veterans she was so “grateful” to for taking a chance on her and the program.
“A lot of people asked me, ‘What did we do to get to this point? ‘” Elliott said. “We did nothing but be ourselves and embrace each and every individual for who they are. Molly recruited a fantastic group of people from players to the staff, and to be able to set this standard and to show everybody, including future recruits and alum what Arizona women’s state basketball can be, that’s what it was all about for me.”
After Elliott and Washenitz spoke, Miller opined on the long-term value of her debut season in Tempe. The shutters may have come down on ASU’s season but with Miller at the helm, 2026 figures to be just a chapter in the larger retelling of Arizona State women’s basketball.
“One loss doesn’t define them, but this team defined a season that is going to be the trajectory of this program,” Miller said after the loss. “These seniors, they’re going to be the reason we hang banners. They chose us, and they changed the narrative, and now we’re going to make runs in this tournament moving forward.”
