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ASU Basketball: Three Takeaways from Pac-12 Women’s Tournament

By Alex Weiner

TEMPE, AZ - NOVEMBER 14: The Arizona State Sun Devils mascot 'Sparky' performs during the college football game against the Washington Huskies at Sun Devil Stadium on November 14, 2015 in Tempe, Arizona. The Sun Devils defeated the Huskies 27-17. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
TEMPE, AZ - NOVEMBER 14: The Arizona State Sun Devils mascot 'Sparky' performs during the college football game against the Washington Huskies at Sun Devil Stadium on November 14, 2015 in Tempe, Arizona. The Sun Devils defeated the Huskies 27-17. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /
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ASU women’s basketball fell short of the finals in the Pac-12 Tournament, but there were three big lessons learned from the Devils’ three games in Seattle.

Arizona State won two games to make it to the Pac-12 Tournament semi-finals. However, Stanford overpowered the Devils and won 58-46 Saturday. But, the season is not over for ASU, as the Devils will certainly make the NCAA Tournament.

Now that the Sun Devils have played in a competitive tournament, it is apparent that three things need to happen for ASU to make a deep run.

The first is that Kianna Ibis needs to be involved down-low offensively.

She is ASU’s leading scorer this season, however she couldn’t get anything going Saturday. She put up just six shots and scored six points.

Ibis scored just two points on three shots the last time Stanford defeated ASU. Denying her the ball was an effective defensive strategy for the Cardinal and the Sun Devil shooters didn’t have as much space on the outside because of the lack of inside scoring.

Head coach Charlie Turner Thorne said, “Kianna, our leading scorer, they’re doubling her on every touch. They just do a good job of keying in on your top scorers and trying to make other people beat you.”

Another reason why getting Ibis good looks underneath the hoop is vital is for rebounding. She grabbed seven offensive rebounds against Oregon State on Friday.

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Those extra shots were a huge boost. Against Stanford, she didn’t get looks underneath and therefore came out for the ball. ASU had half of the offensive rebounds that they had on Friday and this is a big reason for that.

Another lesson to take away from ASU’s weekend in Seattle is that a good start could mean everything.

Against Arizona on Friday, ASU opened the game on a 13-0 run and the Wildcats couldn’t get over the poor start. The Sun Devils started the game against the much tougher Oregon State similarly, going on a 10-2 run. Against OSU, this start gave the Devils a lot of confidence and allowed them to stay in the game even when the Beavers went on runs of their own.

Stanford dominated the first quarter of Saturday’s game, outscoring the Sun Devils 13-3. With the fatigue of playing three straight days and confidence hit of going down big early on, Arizona State couldn’t get past the rough start.

When asked about getting over the slow start, guard Kiara Russell said, “Obviously it was a struggle. But we tried to stay calm, stay collected and play together and play for each other.”

Staying calm through tough stretches of games is a good mentality, and perhaps with the rest coming and one-day rest between NCAA Tournament games, ASU could get over being outplayed in the first quarter.

But ASU cannot go down as big as they did against Stanford and expect to beat quality teams that make the NCAA Tournament.

The third key is simple, ASU needs to make shots. On Saturday, Turner Thorne said, “We just didn’t make shots. We needed to shoot better.”

The Devils shot 1-of-10 in the first quarter and put up just three points. They shot just 31 percent in the game against a team that was 16-3 when opponents shoot under 40 percent. Starters Reili Richardson, Robbi Ryan and Courtney Ekmark shot a combined 1-of-19. Stanford’s defense played very well, but the Devils had a fair amount of opportunities to hit open shots.

Next: ASU Basketball: First half proves costly in semifinals

The NCAA Tournament like the Pac-12 Tournament is single elimination. If ASU shoots as poorly as they did against Stanford, they will more than likely lose that game, thus ending their season.