(Eugene, OR) The Sun Devil women’s basketball team was on the wrong end of a 16-6 third quarter that helped the Oregon Ducks break open a four-point game at the half on their way to a 65-53 win over the Sun Devils on Friday night.
Journey Thompson (12 points), Trayanna Crisp (11 points) and Jalyn Brown (11 points) all reached double-figure scoring totals for the Sun Devils.
Jaddan Simmons led ASU with six rebounds and tied Crisp and Brown for the team lead in assists with three.
While the most important sequence of the game was the start of the second half, it was on the boards where the Ducks were able to most separate themselves from the Sun Devils on the stats sheet. The Ducks outrebounded ASU 48-27 and were plus-14 on the offensive glass, which led to a 19-8 advantage in second chance points.
Up 33-29, the Ducks (10-7, 1-3 Pac-12) scored the first seven points of the third quarter to take what at the time was their largest lead of the game, 40-29.
A pair of 3-pointers by Adison Novosel got ASU within seven, 42-35. Unfortunately for the Sun Devils (8-8, 0-4), Novosel’s triples represented the only points ASU scored in the third quarter.
The Ducks took advantage of ASU’s scoring drought by scoring the last seven points of the quarter to double their advantage and put the Sun Devils in a 49-35 hole entering the final frame.
Neither team led by more than three points after the Sun Devils scored the game’s first four points which came courtesy of jumpers by Crisp and Isadora Sousa (eight points).
The Sun Devils held the lead until Oregon’s Grace VanSlooten’s jumper gave Oregon its first lead 8-7 and was the first of six lead changes that transpired over the second half of the first quarter.
With the Ducks leading 14-11, the Sun Devils responded with a 5-0 run in the last 90 seconds of the quarter. Fittingly, it was ASU’s top two scorers of the quarter who provided the points as Thompson (jumper, six points) and Crisp (3-pointer, five points) combined to give ASU a 16-14 lead.
After Kadidia Toure opened the second quarter scoring with a 3-point play to increase ASU’s lead to 19-14, the Ducks answered with the game’s biggest run of consecutive points: 10. The flurry, which came in the span of 3:21, resulted in Oregon taking a five-point lead (24-19).
ASU’s first-half playmakers – Crisp (3-pointer) and Thompson (layup) who combined for 18 points in the first 20 minutes – scored the game’s next five points to square the game at 24-24 midway through the second quarter.
In what became a quarter of scoring runs, Oregon took back the wheel with seven consecutive points to go up 31-24.
A 3-pointer by Brown helped ASU to close the gap to four points at the half, 33-29.
The Sun Devils close out their first Pac-12 road trip of the season on Sunday (1 p.m. MST/12 p.m. PST) when they play at Oregon State. The game can be seen on Pac-12 Arizona.
Press Release courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics – Steve Rodriguez
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