After trailing by 12 points at halftime, ASU basketball cut the Stanford deficit to one possession on numerous occasions but fell short 72-65.
Sometimes a game comes down to one play. It isn’t always the final play, but perhaps a moment that shifts the momentum completely. That is what happened in Tempe on Friday.
No. 6 Stanford’s DiJonai Carrington sank a half-court heave to put the Cardinal up by four to end the third quarter. Prior to that shot, Arizona State was outscoring Stanford 25-14 in a massive comeback effort. And it took ASU a few minutes to recover.
Stanford started the fourth frame on a 6-0 run, taking the lead up to 10. The Devils tried to claw back into the game, but they never got as close as they were before Carrington’s shot. Stanford won 72-65 to improve to 13-1 (3-0 Pac-12) while ASU dropped to 11-4 (2-2 Pac-12).
Visibly upset head coach Charli Turner Thorne saw that moment as a product of one of her team’s flaws.
“That’s just indicative of our team right now,” Turner Thorne said. “Oh, we made a play let’s take a breath. That is not good enough to beat a Final Four caliber team. That’s our big challenge, consistency and sustaining things.”
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Falling into a hole like that in the fourth quarter was major given ASU’s unreliable play on offense against Stanford.
The Devils shot an abysmal 28 percent in the first half, including 1-for-10 from beyond the arc. In the third quarter, they looked like a new team, with better screens and drives.
ASU shot 12-for-18 in that quarter. But, the fourth looked more like the first half than third period as the Devils shot 35 percent, with lots of holding the ball and many possessions with limited movement.
“They get on the court and they don’t have that next level teamwork and toughness to help each other on both ends of the floor,” said Turner Thorne. “The shooting percentage isn’t reflective of our shooting, it’s reflective of our offense. Not waiting for screens, execution stuff. And they know it, they just got to do something about it.”
Stanford was ASU’s third top-10 ranked opponent and third loss. The Devils were in striking range in all three games with the seven-point loss to Stanford being the largest margin of defeat. ASU has one of the toughest schedules in the country and it doesn’t get easier with three ranked opponents in a row coming up, two of which are top-ten teams.
“What would really help is if we got more fluid with our offense,” Turner Thorne said. “We really can shoot the ball well, but we’re so impatient that we almost guard ourselves a little bit. Stanford played us exactly how we prepared for them, and the fact that they executed against us and we didn’t execute against them is a bummer.”
ASU scored 69.1 points per game entering Friday. That falls outside the top-100 in the country. Its defense was top-11 prior to the Devils’ latest defeat.
However, without that consistent offensive punch, ASU simply won’t be able to keep up with scoring behemoths like No. 5 Oregon and No. 10 Oregon State. It hasn’t shot over 50 percent in a game since defeating Southern Illinois on November 24.
“I think we’re all going to go home tonight and look at ourselves and see what we can do better to help the team,” said senior Courtney Ekmark. “It’s a quick turnaround, we play Cal on Sunday. That’s the Pac-12. It is another big game that we have to get ready for.”
All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.