ASU Women’s Basketball: No. 17 Devils suffer weekend sweep for first time this season

Like many other games this season, No. 17 ASU (18-8, 9-6) hung with a team that was ranked better than them, and failed to stay with them after halftime.

ASU lost to No. 7 Stanford (23-4, 13-3) 71-50 Sunday afternoon.

In their second-lowest scoring effort of the season, the Devils shot just 30 percent from the field, making only 15 shots of 50 attempts. Senior Courtney Ekmark had 10 points and was the only Devil in double digits.

Like Friday against Cal, ASU allowed a buzzer-beater to close out the first half in what seemed liked deja-vu.

Though the Devils weren’t far behind, they slipped to as many as 22 points behind Stanford and could not recover from their poor shooting.

If there was anything positive to take from this game, freshman Jamie Loera, who had been battling injury for most of the season, got a few minutes in the fourth quarter.

This loss makes it the first time that ASU has suffered a weekend sweep all season. Even in their most daunting of series’, ASU had avoided the dreaded sweep on the road against the Oregon schools, and at home against the very same Bay Area teams.

These losses make the road to the finish line more intimidating. What keeps the Devils hopeful is Oregon’s loss to UCLA Friday and their previous victory over Oregon State in Corvallis.

The easiest path to a first-round bye in the conference tournament is to win the weekend. They still need a loss from UCLA, who is the current fourth seed, to take back that spot in the rankings. UCLA will host the Rocky Mountain schools to close out the season.

The other team to watch for is Utah, who is a half-game behind ASU in the sixth seed. Utah’s game against UCLA next Friday will be pivotal for their seeding as well.

The Devils will return home Friday to host No. 12 Oregon State at 6 p.m.

The game will be broadcasted on the Pac-12 Network and can be heard on NBC Sports Radio Am 1060.