Week 13 with the Pac-12: Arizona State Starts to Gel
The Sun Devils are putting the pieces together. Can they get to the NCAA Tournament?
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Even in years when Arizona State doesn’t quite live up to its high standards, the Sun Devils manage to pull out a big win or two. They did it again last weekend.
Two years ago, the Sun Devils got the home sweep of Oregon and Oregon State. Last year, they closed out the season with a rivalry win against Arizona, taking down the Wildcats 66-64 in overtime at home. Could they do both within a week this season?
The conference season didn’t start out terribly promising. ASU had its first three weeks of Pac-12 games canceled due to COVID-19 issues either within its own program or its opponents’ programs. When they finally got back on the court on Jan. 21, the results were mixed. A win over then-No. 22 Colorado was followed by three straight losses. One of those losses was to Oregon on the road and it wasn’t close.
Just three days after playing the Ducks in Eugene, the Sun Devils hosted the Beavers in Tempe. Oregon State went into the final quarter leading by three, but ASU came out determined in the fourth. A 23-10 final frame gave the Devils their second Pac-12 win.
Two days later, ASU was facing Oregon for the second time in a week. This time, they had something to prove–and they proved it. The Sun Devils held the then-No. 19 Ducks to just 23 points in the first half. On the downside, ASU only scored 20, but it was enough to keep Oregon within arm’s reach..
Both teams picked it up a bit in the second half, but it was not by much. The Devils were able to pick it up a little more, though, and got the 55-49 victory. It was their second home sweep of the Oregon schools in three years and it was enough to knock the Ducks out of sole possession of second place in the conference at the time. Oregon retook that position in the standings after a win over Washington State on Wednesday.
ASU can now keep its rival from moving back into a second-place tie with Oregon. Since the 2018-19 season when Arizona won the WNIT and really started to turn its program around, the Wildcats lead the series 4-2. Before that, the Arizona games had been easy wins for Arizona State for years.
Now, the tables are turned. Arizona is fighting for a No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, while its rival from up north is fighting to get into the tournament. The Sun Devils sit at No. 43 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET ) rankings as of Feb. 10. They are No. 64 in our rankings, which uses machine learning to compare teams against a theoretical team in the middle of Division I.
This week, the two will battle twice. On Friday, they will meet in Desert Financial Arena in Tempe. On Sunday, the rematch comes in McKale Center in Tucson.
What will ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne’s team bring to those games?
The Sun Devils lost a lot after last season, but they also brought in two of the best mid-major transfers available. Jade Loville out of Boise State scored 17.1 points per game in 2020-21, putting her second in the Mountain West last season. Ayzhiana Basallo was a semifinalist for our Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year award out of San Jose State during the 2019-20 season. Before her time with the Aztecs, she was the Big West Sixth Player of the Year at Cal Poly her freshman season.
Turner Thorne shored up the roster with a grad transfer and a junior college player as well. Mael Gilles spent her previous four seasons at Rutgers. Isadora Sousa came through the juco ranks where she helped lead Chipola College to the NJCAA Tournament semifinals
Loville has kept up her high-scoring ways as a Sun Devil. She leads the team in scoring with 16.5 per game. She is the only one in double figures, but three of her teammates are hovering around that mark.
The transfers joined eight returners, but it has taken a while for them all to gel. It also took them a long time to get on the court against Pac-12 opponents.
Now that they seem to have come together, the team needs to stack up the wins. At 11-8, they need to sweep their final seven Pac-12 games just to finish with 18 wins in the regular season. That stretch includes two games against No. 6 Arizona, a game at Washington State, and home matchups against UCLA and USC.
They will have an opportunity to get some quality wins in the Pac-12 Tournament, but the time is getting short. For a proud program that missed its first NCAA Tournament in seven years last season, keeping that absence to a single year is high on the list of goals.
Underrated Player of the Week
In a new section this week, I want to take a look at a player who doesn’t get as much attention as she should, either nationally or (sometimes) even within the Pac-12. As is appropriate for this week, Loville is my underrated player of the week.
When a player moves from a mid-major to a conference that is as competitive and tough as the Pac-12, it’s not always clear what she will do. Sometimes the step up in competition is too much. That hasn’t been the case for Loville this season.
After scoring 17.1 PPG in the Mountain West last season, she is scoring 16.5 this season and 19.2 in Pac-12 play. That places her fourth in the league in scoring, and she’s doing it very efficiently. Loville shoots 45.4 percent from the floor, including 43.9 percent from 3. Her 3-point percentage places her third in the Pac-12 for the full season.
The 3-point shooting is a new wrinkle for Loville. At Boise State, she never hit more than 24.4 percent of her shots from beyond the arc and she bottomed out at 15.2 percent last season. This season, she is making as many 3-point shots per game as she ever attempted at Boise State. She has 1.6 3PM this season. Prior to this season, her highest 3PA was 1.6 as a freshman; she has upped that to 3.7 3PA this year.
Voting for the Best
Pac-12 Player of the Week
My vote: Jordyn Jenkins, USC
The winner: Cameron Brink, Stanford
Both sophomores had a double-double this week. Both sophomores scored 26 points in a game this week. Jenkins did slightly better in the game where she didn’t score 26; she had 20 points against Stanford while Brink had 17 against UCLA. Neither was a bad choice, but I went with the player who had the better second game and who did it against a better opponent.
Pac-12 Freshman of the Week
My vote: Jayda Curry, California
The winner: Jayda Curry, California
There aren’t many freshmen who are going to get the kind of opportunities that Curry is getting. Gianna Kneepkens at Utah is her biggest competition in the Freshman of the Year race, but it would seem to be Curry’s for the taking right now. Will the voters give the nod to the freshman who plays for the better team or the freshman who puts up bigger numbers? It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
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