(Bozeman, MT) The Sun Devil women’s basketball team scored the first 20 points in its contest at Montana State on Tuesday night and never looked back as it cruised to a dominant, 79-64 win over the Bobcats to improve to 3-0 under new head coach Natasha Adair.
Tyi Skinner (game-high 24 points on 9-of-18 shooting) came within a point of matching her career high in scoring while accounting for a career-best four steals. Treasure Hunt scored a career-high 19 points while leading the team with seven rebounds. Jaddan Simmons was ASU’s third double-digit scorer with 15 points, going 4-for-8 from the field and a perfect 5-for-5 at the free throw line. The trio of Skinner, Hunt and Simmons combined for 58 points on Tuesday.
“This is absolutely what I want to see,” Adair said after the game. “We’re getting better and better every day. This is a team that’s only played together for three games and if they’re playing together this hard, and they’re trusting one another, the rest will take care of itself.”
The Sun Devils opened the game on a 20-0 run and led by as many as 27 after Hunt’s triple gave ASU a 38-11 lead with 6:47 remaining in the first half.
ASU was equally impressive defensively as it forced Montana State (2-1) to miss its first nine shots and did not allow the Bobcats to score until just under three minutes remained in first quarter.
Simmons set the tone for ASU’s brilliant offensive performance after knocking down a 3-pointer 18 seconds into the game. The Sun Devils scored in every possible way and with a high degree of accuracy. Outside of the third quarter in which it made only 25 percent of its field goal attempts, the Sun Devils shot 56 percent over the other 30 minutes.
ASU’s extraordinary offensive start combined with Montana’s State inability to score on ASU’s defense allowed the Sun Devils to build up a big enough lead to keep the Bobcats from ever making a serious threat at a comeback. In fact, Montana State never got closer than 15 points the entire second half.
“This is our third game and for us to have competed the way that we did in our first road game; a very tough game … I’m sitting here looking at the stats and 32 points in the paint and we went 21 for 29 from the free throw line … These are things that we work on every day,” Adair said.
Tuesday’s game at Montana State was the first of five straight games the Sun Devils are playing away from home. The second game in that sequence will be on Sunday (2 p.m. MST) when ASU plays at New Mexico. The game can be seen on the Mountain West Network and heard on 1440 AM at KAZG 1440 AM.
Press Release courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics – Steve Rodriguez
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