The Arizona State women's basketball team made it three in a row over rival Arizona this season, knocking off the Wildcats 68-53 on Thursday to advance to the semifinals of the Pac-12 tournament in Los Angeles.
The fourth-seeded Sun Devils (20-10) will play top-seeded Stanford in Friday's semifinals at 1 p.m. (MST), while the 12th-seeded Wildcats end their season with a 15-17 record. Friday's game can be seen on FOX Sports Arizona.
“The outcome is not what we wanted to be, but I give a lot of Arizona State to the job that they did,” said Arizona coach Niya Butts. “They came out and played like they wanted to win the game. They knew what they needed to do to get the job done.
Arizona had trouble handling ASU's pressure defense early on, and the Sun Devils built a 15-point lead in the first 15 minutes of the game.
“The first half was not one of our better halves,” said Butts. “We didn’t go to the free throw line one time, could not get stops when we needed to and they shot almost 60 percent.”
Arizona used a 15-4 run early in the second half to cut a 17-point deficit to six, but the Sun Devils regrouped and finished strong.
“To come out and play as well as we did in the first 20 minutes knowing that it is March and teams will make a run, they got more than we wanted them to in the second half ,” said Arizona State interim head coach Joseph Anders. “At that point our team toughness as well as the fact that Arizona played yesterday, we were the fresher ball club and were able to sustain the things we needed to sustain and win the game.”
Kimberly Brandon scored 15 points and Kali Bennett had 10 to lead Arizona State. The Wildcats got 17 points from Davellyn Whyte, 11 from Candice Warthen and 10 from Reiko Thomas. The Sun Devils limited Arizona to 29.6 percent shooting from the field and forced 17 Arizona turnovers.
“It’s a physical game and we needed to step up and play physical,” said Butts. “They played with a lot of confidence and were aggressive. You have to match that defensively to prevent them from getting to their spots. We didn’t do a good job of that in the first half.”
