Arizona State is a completely different team than we have ever seen. In my little summary above, I noted Brakens, but more as a 3pt shooter, but in the end, the Utes basically could find no one to stop her in the 4th quarter. Brakens did anything she wanted including going to the line at least 100 times.
I thought the refs were calling the game really closely and though it helped us when Sneed hit her FTs at the end to give us the lead, we left a bit too much time on the clock.
I noted at the start of ASU’s last play that the Utes came out with Evans on Brackens, but it was outside the 3pt area. So, a pass to the corner and a little pass to Brackens cutting in, whistle, foul, Brackens hits two and wins the game. It also doesn’t help that with 1.1 seconds left the only one open is Evans 25 feet from the basket. Not much of a chance there.
I thought for the entire fourth quarter why the Utes were doubling Brackens when she got the ball. Yes, it leaves another open, but it was clear what ASU’s strategy was. Get it to Brackens, and she either hits a shot or gets fouled (the later being the most often). In the end Brackens scored almost half of ASUs points. Crazy.
That said, ASU is really good, and they would have won by more if not for Elliott being in foul trouble all night. That preseason vote of them being in 12th place, though understandable in light of a new coach and a whole new team from the portal, is now seen as a joke.
I thought the Utes did a lot of nice things in the game. First, Ross played great defense on Brackens until she got into foul trouble and hit the bench at the same time Brackens started to go off. Also, Ross has been a beast on the boards the last few games, and this game, and when she went to the bench ASU got a couple of second chances, including a killer put back by Brackens at a critical juncture in the 4th. That said, the 5th foul on Ross, 30 feet from the basket was a terrible decision by her to play that aggressively.
It was awesome that Wilke finally had a game that I thought she should be having all along. I didn’t see her grab her shoulder even once during the game, and her shooting was on point.
It is clear to me that either Walker is still a bit injured, or that she just isn’t a point guard. She spelled Sneed a few times, and each time the offense was ragged and we saw more turnovers and less made baskets.
Sneed played one of her best games and should start at point guard for the rest of the season IMO. She has quick hands and plays much better defense than Walker does.
White was the emphasis on defense of ASU, and she fought hard to get her points. She also was the one that got Elliott into foul trouble as part of that ASU emphasis. I love her aggressiveness on offense.
The rest of the team played OK, the Evans/Otto pairing worked OK, with the hightlights being Otto hitting a 10’ after an almost turnover, and Evans making an unlikely driving layup that started 20 feet from the basket. Otto has good hands and feet and when she was in, the motion offense seemed to work better.
Walker took Foster’s minutes (who ended up not playing) and Crispe barely played, especially after she drew an easy foul call against her for pushing the devil to the floor.
All in all, a good game for the Utes despite the one point loss. ASU is very good and after these first conference games isn’t going to catch people napping on them going forward. This game shows that the Utes have the moxie needed to hopefully pull of a few upsets along the way and make the conference tourney.