TEMPE- Just three days ago, the Arizona State Sun Devils women's basketball team snapped its 15-game winning streak, falling to the BYU Cougars on the road.
On Tuesday, head coach Molly Miller and forward McKinna Brackens spoke about how the Sun Devils look to get back on track with rebounding the ball.
As Arizona State faces the UCF Knights in Tempe on Wednesday, Miller mentioned that there were many "awkward rebounds" in Saturday's game and called for her guards to step up in rebounding.
"I mean, it's not necessarily the loss that I was hyper-focused on," Miller said Tuesday. "It's how we lost, and we got outplayed, outworked to the board specifically. [We allowed] way too many offensive boards and second chances, so [we've] done a lot of rebounding drills since then to fix it.
"But I was excited about their focus coming into film and their opportunity to learn and grow. They have done a good job embracing that these past couple of days, so ready to get back at home, too."
The Sun Devils were outrebounded by the Cougars in total rebounds (54-25) and offensive rebounds (26-9) throughout the game on Saturday.
Since then, Arizona State has been working on the improvement of grabbing rebounds and staying aggressive while defending in the paint.
"We fell short at that game, but ever since then, we've been working really hard at practice," Brackens said Tuesday. "We're not letting the scout guys get any (offensive) boards. The coaches have really put an emphasis on it because we don't ever want that to happen again, and we're going to step up to this next one.
"We're looking forward to a game against UCF tomorrow, but I look forward to getting our revenge back. We obviously didn't want to lose that game against BYU. We have a lot to prove back to ourselves, to everyone, that we can compete in the Big 12, and we're gonna need some more rebounds."
As the Sun Devils return to Tempe to play in front of their home crowd on Wednesday, Miller, Brackens, and the whole team are optimistic to see their fans.
"We're four and one on the road our past six games," Miller said. "And it's been great to get that experience and have that adversity. But it's going to be so great to get back at home, have our own routine and our own beds, with our own surroundings that we're used to, and play in front of our fans."