ASU Women’s Basketball: No. 6 Arizona runs past Arizona State

It was a tough loss for the Arizona State Sun Devils as the Arizona Wildcats won 65-37 on Thursday night at the McKale Center.

Turnovers were a huge part of the game, with Arizona State having 23 and Arizona having 17. Arizona converted those into 24 points off of ASU’s turnovers.

“We got soft and we gave them some wide open threes,” said coach Charli Turner Thorne. “And then we’re not scoring. You’ve just got to understand the flow of the game and be tougher.”

The Sun Devils were also not able to make any shots, going 14-52 from the field.

Aari McDonald was tough to defend, scoring 22 points. 15 of those came from the 3-point line. Cate Reese was the other leading scorer for the Wildcats with 13 points and seven rebounds.

Junior Taya Hanson led the Sun Devils with 14 points and seven rebounds in 29 minutes.

“When you lose, the individual part doesn’t matter as much,” Hanson said. “It’s about the team. Even though some shots were falling for me, it means nothing when I give up a rebound or I don’t box out or I don’t play hard.”

With such a young team, a big loss like this is going to serve as a learning experience.

“Not a great game for our young team,” Turner Thorne said. “Just tons of teachable moments for us. It was a good education.”

This is Arizona’s first three-game winning streak against the Sun Devils since 2000. The 28-point margin was the Wildcats’ largest over the Sun Devils since 1998.

Now 4-2 on the season and 1-2 in conference play, ASU will look to redeem themselves this Sunday against San Diego at 2 p.m.