Jordan HammDecember 5, 2015.
The world was two weeks away from Star Wars: The Force Awakens taking over the, well, universe. Adele’s “Hello” was still fresh on the radio airwaves and the country was getting over that Thanksgiving hangover and gearing up for the holiday season.
It was also the last time the ASU women’s basketball team lost. Since then, the Sun Devils have rattled off 13 straight wins, including eight in-conference victories.
How have they done it? Spreading the ball around. Five players on roster score at least eight points per game. And you can’t forget about the defense, which gives up the second fewest points in the Pac-12, and kept the Sun Devils in Friday’s game against rival Arizona.
“We know when our offense isn’t going, we have to get our defense going,” junior forward Kelsey Moos said. “So that was a big focus at halftime was just stepping up, playing together, and getting our defense going.”
With it being a rivalry victory, win #13 was a little bit sweeter on Friday. Arizona ran with the Devils in the first half, but Charli Turner Thorne’s squad was too much in the second half as they went on to win 61-49 with senior Elisha Davis and junior Sophie Brunner leading the way, combining for 31 points.
So how does the eighth-ranked team in the nation continue this win streak? It may be simple, but stay consistent.
“We know it’s really hard for teams to beat us if we are working as hard as we can each possession. Another thing we are working on is just staying connected every single possession,” Moos said. “There will be times where we have a good quarter where we are really connected and on the same page, but we’re trying to string together four solid quarters on both ends of the floor.”
Four solid quarters may be exactly what the Devils need to extend the win streak to 14 when they head down to Tucson to play this same Arizona team on Sunday.
