Desert Financial Arena hosted the Stanford Cardinal Women’s Basketball team on Friday evening. The Arizona State Sun Devils are coming off their first Pac-12 conference win over Washington last Sunday.
While ASU sits at the bottom of the conference, Stanford sits at the top. The Cardinal took the win in a landslide 80-50 final score.
The Cardinal proved to ASU that they are certainly a force to be reckoned with. Scoring came easy for Stanford’s forwards due to a noticeable advantage in paint scoring.
Senior forward Cameron Brink is currently projected by ESPN.com to be selected No. 2 overall in the coming WNBA draft this Spring. With this, Brink continues to raise her draft stock and show what her value is, as she went into halftime with 16 points and 12 rebounds.
Brink’s partner in the paint was junior forward Kiki Iriafen, another high-valued prospect, but for the 2025 WNBA draft. Together, they held 47 of the 80 points the Cardinal scored, along with 30 of the team’s 49 total rebounds.
Along with Iriafen and Brink, Stanford’s head coach Tara VanDerveer just recently broke the record for most wins by any coach in the history of men’s and women’s college basketball.
“The prep doesn’t change. We didn’t just get all caught up in the hoopla that came around the game,” said ASU head coach Natasha Adair. “We honored Tara as we should have before the game because that was just respect for what she’s done for women’s basketball and what that means for the Pac, but once they tipped the ball up, it was time to compete.”
Brink and Iriafen were phenomenal, but the Sun Devils entered this game with more problems than momentum. Though it had a winning performance last outing, ASU lost a key player from its lineup for the rest of the season, senior guard and forward Maggie Besselink.
Downed by an ACL injury, Besselink’s absence may have been a large reason the score ended up being what it was. She stands at equal height to Iriafen and has been a consistent rebounder for the Sun Devils through this season.
The rebounding differential tonight stood at 15, as the Cardinal cleaned 28 shots off the glass, and ASU caught only 13 from their clutches.
One of the larger stat differentials from Friday’s game was shooting percentage, as the No. 6 team in the nation walked away, shooting over 50% from the field. Meanwhile, the Sun Devils were below 30%. Mix that with rebounding issues; a 30-point differential in the final score starts to make sense.
Through the trouble, ASU never gave up. Sophomore guards Trayanna Crisp and Jalyn Brown scored over 15 points each and combined for a third of ASU’s rebounds, as sophomore forward Journey Thompson brought in 13 rebounds herself.
“We’ve had, I don’t know, how many different starting lineups since November because of the changes and because of the injuries,” said Adair. “At one point tonight, it was all sophomores and freshmen out there on the floor. As a coach, you look at that as a growth moment.”
The game ended with Stanford simply outplaying the Sun Devils in just about every facet of the game. Great defense led to quick and easy offense on fast break opportunities, with 44 points coming from just inside the paint.
Brink led both teams in blocks, with three, contributing to Stanford’s seven total, as opposed to ASU’s zero.
Unfortunately for ASU, the theme of tonight is a repetitive one. More injuries will turn into fewer wins. In the final seven minutes, senior guard Jaddan Simmons left the game after an apparent elbow to the face. It is still unclear as of now what the extent of that injury is for her and the team.
No matter the injuries and cost it has on this team, the Sun Devils are coming closer to February. With only one win in a very stacked Pac-12 conference, ASU may find more struggles up ahead.
Five of its next matchups are against a top-25-ranked team, including a rematch with Stanford on the road. The Sun Devils next opponent, however, is the California Golden, who hold a 3-4 conference game record.
“Ultimately, it just came down to being, I don’t want to say ‘young-minded,’ but we are in a sense,” said Brown. “We only have two vets. If shots aren’t going in, it’s a little more difficult for you to be as peppy or as bouncy.”
Leave a Reply