TEMPE – In a game that was much closer than the final score indicated, the Sun Devil women's basketball team was defeated by No. 10 TCU 82-66 on Wednesday night at Mullett Arena.
Tyi Skinner scored a game-high 25 points and is now 20 points away from scoring 1,000 in her ASU career.
Jalyn Brown added 15 points while Kennedy Basham pulled down a game high-tying nine boards, the fourth consecutive game she had led the team in rebounds. Nevaeh Parkinson just missed her 10th double-figure scoring game of the season with nine points.
TCU outrebounded the Sun Devils 42-26. Each team had 10 offensive rebounds, but it was TCU that ended the game with a 13-5 advantage in second chance points.
Although TCU's final margin of victory was 16 points, for much of the game ASU was doing its best to follow one of the blueprints for an unranked team to overtake one of the nation's best. For that to happen, it had to play not only its best game of the season but also capitalize on every TCU miscue and every fortuitous event that went in its favor.
For their part, the Sun Devils (8-19, 2-13 Big 12) committed their fewest turnovers of the season (seven), posted their best single-game 3-point field goal percentage of the season (54.5 percent/6-11 3 FGs) and held the Horned Frogs (25-3, 13-2 Big 12), known both for their accuracy and volume of makes from 3-point range, to only 31.8 percent (7-22) from long distance. It was just the eighth time in 28 games TCU had a percentage equal to or lower than what it shot against ASU. On the flip side, TCU shot 56.9 percent for the game, the highest by an ASU opponent this season and was successful on 72 percent of its attempts inside the 3-point arc.
Another element necessary for ASU to pull off the upset was to still be within striking distance at the point in the game where the teams, the crowd and everyone tuning in, realized either team was capable of coming away with the win. While the Sun Devils left everything on the floor and battled until the end, the possibility of creating such an end-of-game scenario became exponentially harder when the Horned Frogs started the second half with an 18-8 run to take their largest lead of the game, 60-43.
"We talked about the third quarter. We talked about those last threes when it was an eight-point game, and just getting over the ball screen," ASU head coach Natasha Adair said. "But we also talked about the toughness and the grit the team played with. Short-handed team, without three starters, and the fight. [We] just have to put it all together."
Even though TCU's 17-point lead was not insurmountable, the Horned Frogs gave themselves enough breathing room to weather a sudden flurry of Sun Devil points.
What ensued was not a flurry, but rather a methodical stretch in which ASU gradually chipped away at TCU's lead. With just over five minutes remaining, Brown's jumper pulled the Sun Devils within nine points, 71-62.
However, ASU could not get any closer and thus was not able to pull nor push the Horned Frogs into the deep end of the water, an area they were much less familiar with in the closing minutes of games.
Still, it did not nullify everything the Sun Devils did against the nation's No. 10 team.
"I'll take our fight right now. If that's what we show against the No. 10 team in the country, we need to carry that over [for] the remainder of the season," Adair said. "That's what we talked about, not moral victories, the things we needed to do to win the game. But there's a lot of good momentum.
"People say, Well, how's your team? Is your team doing this? The team's fighting. This team still has a lot of basketball to play, and that's how we look at it. But every [game in the Big 12] you're playing a top 20, top 30 team where every possession matters"
Given the opposition ASU was facing – TCU came into the game seventh in the nation in 3-pointers per game (9.9), 10th in scoring margin (+22.1), 13th in 3-point percentage (37.4) – and the fact it was once again playing short-handed, the Sun Devils could not have scripted a better first half.
Although it shot 55 percent in the first two quarters, 14 of TCU's 17 field goals were not the kind of gut-punch triples that are often so deflating for the opposition.
Led by Skinner (14 points) and Brown (nine points), who combined for 23 of ASU's 35 first-half points, the Sun Devils not only were within single digits for much of the first 20 minutes, but also showed tremendous poise in not letting the game get away from them when TCU took double-digit leads.
The Horned Frogs went up by as many as 11 points on three occasions in the first half. Each time, the Sun Devils had an immediate response to prevent TCU from creating more distance between itself and ASU.
While the Sun Devils were more economical with their attempts from long range, they not only matched the number of 3-pointers TCU made (3) in the first half, but also made good on 50 percent of their tries (3-6).
With the Sun Devils down by 10 and the seconds quickly ticking down, Skinner was able to beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer that cut TCU's advantage to 42-35 at the half.
Up next for the Sun Devils are back-to-back road games – at BYU on Saturday and at Colorado on Feb. 26 – before returning home to face Arizona in the regular season finale (Mar. 1).
Tyi Skinner scored a game-high 25 points and is now 20 points away from scoring 1,000 in her ASU career.
Jalyn Brown added 15 points while Kennedy Basham pulled down a game high-tying nine boards, the fourth consecutive game she had led the team in rebounds. Nevaeh Parkinson just missed her 10th double-figure scoring game of the season with nine points.
TCU outrebounded the Sun Devils 42-26. Each team had 10 offensive rebounds, but it was TCU that ended the game with a 13-5 advantage in second chance points.
Although TCU's final margin of victory was 16 points, for much of the game ASU was doing its best to follow one of the blueprints for an unranked team to overtake one of the nation's best. For that to happen, it had to play not only its best game of the season but also capitalize on every TCU miscue and every fortuitous event that went in its favor.
For their part, the Sun Devils (8-19, 2-13 Big 12) committed their fewest turnovers of the season (seven), posted their best single-game 3-point field goal percentage of the season (54.5 percent/6-11 3 FGs) and held the Horned Frogs (25-3, 13-2 Big 12), known both for their accuracy and volume of makes from 3-point range, to only 31.8 percent (7-22) from long distance. It was just the eighth time in 28 games TCU had a percentage equal to or lower than what it shot against ASU. On the flip side, TCU shot 56.9 percent for the game, the highest by an ASU opponent this season and was successful on 72 percent of its attempts inside the 3-point arc.
Another element necessary for ASU to pull off the upset was to still be within striking distance at the point in the game where the teams, the crowd and everyone tuning in, realized either team was capable of coming away with the win. While the Sun Devils left everything on the floor and battled until the end, the possibility of creating such an end-of-game scenario became exponentially harder when the Horned Frogs started the second half with an 18-8 run to take their largest lead of the game, 60-43.
"We talked about the third quarter. We talked about those last threes when it was an eight-point game, and just getting over the ball screen," ASU head coach Natasha Adair said. "But we also talked about the toughness and the grit the team played with. Short-handed team, without three starters, and the fight. [We] just have to put it all together."
Even though TCU's 17-point lead was not insurmountable, the Horned Frogs gave themselves enough breathing room to weather a sudden flurry of Sun Devil points.
What ensued was not a flurry, but rather a methodical stretch in which ASU gradually chipped away at TCU's lead. With just over five minutes remaining, Brown's jumper pulled the Sun Devils within nine points, 71-62.
However, ASU could not get any closer and thus was not able to pull nor push the Horned Frogs into the deep end of the water, an area they were much less familiar with in the closing minutes of games.
Still, it did not nullify everything the Sun Devils did against the nation's No. 10 team.
"I'll take our fight right now. If that's what we show against the No. 10 team in the country, we need to carry that over [for] the remainder of the season," Adair said. "That's what we talked about, not moral victories, the things we needed to do to win the game. But there's a lot of good momentum.
"People say, Well, how's your team? Is your team doing this? The team's fighting. This team still has a lot of basketball to play, and that's how we look at it. But every [game in the Big 12] you're playing a top 20, top 30 team where every possession matters"
Given the opposition ASU was facing – TCU came into the game seventh in the nation in 3-pointers per game (9.9), 10th in scoring margin (+22.1), 13th in 3-point percentage (37.4) – and the fact it was once again playing short-handed, the Sun Devils could not have scripted a better first half.
Although it shot 55 percent in the first two quarters, 14 of TCU's 17 field goals were not the kind of gut-punch triples that are often so deflating for the opposition.
Led by Skinner (14 points) and Brown (nine points), who combined for 23 of ASU's 35 first-half points, the Sun Devils not only were within single digits for much of the first 20 minutes, but also showed tremendous poise in not letting the game get away from them when TCU took double-digit leads.
The Horned Frogs went up by as many as 11 points on three occasions in the first half. Each time, the Sun Devils had an immediate response to prevent TCU from creating more distance between itself and ASU.
While the Sun Devils were more economical with their attempts from long range, they not only matched the number of 3-pointers TCU made (3) in the first half, but also made good on 50 percent of their tries (3-6).
With the Sun Devils down by 10 and the seconds quickly ticking down, Skinner was able to beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer that cut TCU's advantage to 42-35 at the half.
Up next for the Sun Devils are back-to-back road games – at BYU on Saturday and at Colorado on Feb. 26 – before returning home to face Arizona in the regular season finale (Mar. 1).