By DANIEL DULLUM
Sports Radio Service
Monday, January 4, 2016

photo credit: azcentralsports.com ASU bench celebrates after ASU’s Elisha Davis buries a three pointer in third quarter

TEMPE, Arizona – Arizona State merely wanted to put together a solid defensive game plan for Monday’s Pac-12 women’s basketball encounter with Stanford. And it worked.

The result was an effort of historic proportions – literally. The Sun Devils held the No. 11-ranked Cardinal to its lowest point total ever in a 49-31 victory before 1,708 at Wells Fargo Arena.

“This certainly wasn’t our night,” Cardinal Coach Tara VanDerveer said. “We just missed too many shots, and Arizona State did a lot of things defensively that made it difficult to come back. They played a great game.”

Women’s basketball became a varsity sport at Stanford in 1974-75 as part of the old AIAW. Based on team statistics kept since the 1978-79 season, the Cardinal’s previous scoring low was in a 72-32 loss to Missouri on Jan. 2, 1984 in the Dial Classic at Miami, Fla.

“We had a beautiful scouting report that allowed us to know their personnel inside and out. That allowed us to play the defense that we played,” ASU guard and Bay Area native Elisha Davis said. “You can have a system, but if you don’t have the chemistry and the awareness on defense, it’s not going to work.”

Davis admitted that getting the wins over Cal and Stanford mean a little more to her, saying, “I’m really good friends with some of the girls at Cal, so that makes it a little more personal. With Stanford, it’s more of a rivalry. I’m thankful for both wins. To open up conference with wins against teams of their caliber speaks a lot to how much we’ve grown as a program.

“It’s a beautiful win, but it also shows how much our hard work is starting to show.”

Arnecia Hawkins and Sophie Brunner each scored a game-high 12 points for ASU (11-3 overall, 2-0 Pac-12), while Davis canned three 3-pointers to finish with nine points. Brunner pulled down 10 of the Sun Devils’ 41 rebounds, and teammate Katie Hempen had five assists.

“Rebounding was a big focus this weekend, especially with Stanford,” Brunner said. “Whoever was going to hit first was going to get the rebound. We really took that to heart, and tonight, we were the ones that hit first.

“When we hit them first, they seemed to get tired, and I wasn’t expecting them to get tired that easily,” she continued. “They (Stanford) just seemed to get tired early in the game, which we took advantage of.”

Hawkins didn’t want to consider the decisive win as a statement game, saying, “We treat every game like it’s a statement game.”

Davis added, “We want to show that anyone can win on any given day. We don’t think about rankings. None of that matters on the court. What you do with the ball and how you interact with your teammates and having a collective team effort is what’s most important.”

Sun Devils Coach Charli Turner Thorne said, “I thought we had a tremendous effort and worked hard the entire game. We never let (Stanford) get comfortable in their offensive mode.

Arizona State, which defeated Stanford twice last season, defeated the Cardinal for only the 14th time in 71 meetings.

Two days after a 59-34 win at Arizona, Stanford (11-3 overall, 1-1 Pac-12) never led in the game against ASU. After the 17th-ranked Sun Devils opened the game with a 14-4 run, Stanford was held to single-digit scoring until Kaylee Johnson’s layup with 1:02 left in the first half closed their deficit to 26-11.

“I didn’t think we would hold Stanford the way we held them,” Turner Thorne said. “I couldn’t believe the halftime score. We’ve had some defensive battles over the years with scores in the low 50s. But I was confident that we could do a great job defensively.

“Our goal is to make teams work for what they get. We won’t give anyone anything easy, and when we do that for 40 minutes, I like our chances.”

The Cardinal shot 24 percent (5 of 21) from the field in the first half and didn’t fare much better after halftime, making 6 of 22 shots (27 percent) in the third and fourth quarters.

Arizona State didn’t shoot much better (31 percent), but made 17 field goals and made 9 of 11 at the free throw line.

Thorne said one of the things that worked in ASU’s favor was “time of possession.”

“That’s usually a football term, and it worked in our favor in both of these games” Turner Thorne said, laughing. “With our leads, I thought we did a very good job of getting offensive rebounds, kicking it out, and make them keep playing defense. I thought our team played very poised, very smart in the fourth quarter in both games.”

After ASU’s Kelsey Moos opened the second half with a 3-pointer, Erica McCall’s inside jumper and a layup by Lili Thompson helped Stanford pull to within 29-17. The Cardinal got no closer than 31-19 on a pair of Brittany McPhee free throws.

“Our team is good at adjusting, so we had faith that we could adjust and we can usually do that to our advantage,” Hawkins said.

Davis’s third 3-pointer gave the Sun Devils a 39-19 lead with 1:56 remaining in the third quarter. Arizona State would take its final 20-point lead with :56 left in the game on two Sabrina Haines free throws.

Thompson was the Cardinal’s top scorer with seven points. Thompson and Johnson each had four rebounds.

“It came down to motivation; the team with the made-up mind was going to win this game,” Turner Thorne said. “We always want to be as relentless as we can be, and tonight, I thought we were.”

Stanford returns home Friday to host Utah (7 p.m.), with Colorado visiting Maples Pavilion on Sunday (noon).

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