Sun Devils to enter Pac-12 season on seven-game winning streak

By Scott Mammoser

TEMPE, Ariz. – The No. 17-ranked Arizona State women’s basketball team wrapped up its non-conference schedule with a 68-52 win over Fresno State to improve to 9-2 on Thursday.

Once again, the senior duo of Courtney Ekmark and Kianna Ibis led the way with 17 and 15 points. Ekmark’s scoring primarily came from downtown, where she was 5-of-14.

Sun Devils win 68-52 over Fresno State, improve to 9-2

“One thing we’re focusing on is our leadership and our team leadership,” Ekmark said. “Our coaches can only do so much. We always talk about having a team-led team, especially going into Pac-12 because it’s only going to get harder from here.”

Ibis was 7-of-15 from the floor, and her five rebounds were second on the team behind Charnea Johnson-Chapman’s eight.

“We’re seniors, so we need to bring that sense of urgency,” Ibis added. “We just need to be as aggressive as we can.”

The Bulldogs (6-4) entered the game scoring 73 points per game with single-digit losses to USC and UCLA. They kept it close, only trailing by one after the first quarter and seven at halftime. ASU outscored them 15-7 in the fourth and used a 21-10 advantage from its deep bench to pull away. Aly Gamez led the Bulldogs with 16 points, and Candice White collected 15 points with nine rebounds.

“I told our team this was going to be a good game before the break,” ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “They have all of their starters back. Different people stepped up, and it’s nice to have other people to step up and do some things, our freshmen stepped up. That’s a luxury we have this year.”

The Pac-12 currently has five teams in the Top 25 and two in the receiving votes category, and Coach Turner Thorne mentioned that she believes it is the nation’s premier league top to bottom and a handful of team could make Final Four runs.

“We just need to keep getting better,” Turner Thorne said of the upcoming part of the season. “We’re not where we need to be in any aspect of our game. It was very odd that we played eight games and didn’t see a possession of zone. Now, we’ve played three-straight games that were almost 90 percent zone (Colorado State, Kansas State and Fresno State). Some of our freshmen were coming along and figuring out stuff, then we needed to shift gears. It was great for us to get the experience.”

The next game for the Sun Devils will be at 5 p.m. on Dec. 30 at Arizona, and the next home contest is at 7 p.m. on Jan. 11 versus No. 8 Stanford. Fresno State has a home game on Dec. 29 against Fresno Pacific before opening the Mountain West Conference schedule on Jan. 2 against San Jose State.

“It’s going to come down to a lot of one-possession games,” Ibis said of the upcoming Pac-12 season, “and we need to work on our keeping possession of the ball.”