Charli Turner Thorne is Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take it Anymore
In our weekly women’s hoops update, a controversial last-second loss to Cal has Charli Turner Thorne fuming. What happened to get her so worked up?
Last Week (0-2, 8-6 overall, 0-2 Pac-10): Stanford 64, ASU 61; Cal 54, ASU 53
What We Learned: The Sun Devils can’t win big games. After falling to Stanford and Cal at home over the weekend, they are 0-5 this season against teams ranked in the AP top 25 after going 0-8 against teams ranked in the final poll last season.
Few could be as painful as the Sunday’s controversial loss to Cal. After rebounding a last-ditch shot attempt by the Bears, ASU’s Sybil Dosty lost the ball when she was hacked by Cal’s Ashley Walker, who put it in with 1.8 seconds remaining for the win.
Charli Turner Thorne was none too please. Quoth Turner Thorne in the Arizona Republic: “We won, as far as I’m concerned. We made our shot, forced a travel, got the rebound, you know, got hacked. To me, we won the game. Report that. We won the game.”
The Cal loss punctuated a brutal first weekend of conference play for the Sun Devils, who blew a 14-point lead against Stanford in their Pac-10 opener. The Sun Devils’ biggest challenge right now is finishing games strong; they’ve let several games get away from them in crunch time this season, and the conference is too tough for them to continue to give possible victories away.
Star of the Week: ASU caught a big break when it learned that the foot injury that Dymond Simon suffered earlier in the season that caused her to miss one game wasn’t serious.
The Sun Devils’ starting point guard had one of her best games of the season against the Golden Bears, scoring 17 points and leading a furious late charge to get ASU back in the game. Simon hit 3 of 5 attempts from beyond the arc, including a trey with 8.7 seconds remaining to cap a 13-2 run and give the Sun Devils a 53-52 lead. Simon’s output was crucial for the Sun Devils, who saw their leading scorer, Briann January, suffer an off night.
Simon also contributed 11 points against Stanford.
What’s Next: ASU heads to Oregon this weekend. The cliché “must-win game” is thrown around a lot in sports, but the Sun Devils surely can’t afford to start 0-4 in Pac-10 play, so it’s vital that they win at least one this weekend. On paper, they should beat the Ducks and Beavers, but the problem for ASU will be that traditionally Corvallis and Eugene are tough environments to steal victories, and the Sun Devils have struggled at times in the past in the Beaver State.
Oregon is 4-8 on the year, but picked up a key road split last weekend, snapping a six-game losing streak by knocking off a good UCLA team 73-56. Micaela Cocks is second in the Pac-10 with 15.8 points per game.
Oregon State is 9-3 on the season but was swept on the road by the Los Angeles schools last weekend. The Beavers lead the Pac-10 in scoring defense and scoring margin.
Enjoy this article? Buy us a beer for just $4. (Credit Card / Paypal)More Sun Devil News, Less HassleDon’t fool around with bookmarks or the refresh button. We’ve made it easier to subscribe, so you can have Sun Devil news delivered FREE straight to your inbox.
The cliche “on paper” is also thrown around a lot in sports. Good thing this is a Web site.
It’s beginning to look like CTT has hit a bit of a ceiling with the program. Her system has the Devils consistently among the 15-30 range among women’s programs, but they’ve consistently struggled against the elite teams. Her system is great for wearing opponents down with waves of fresh legs, but seems to struggle with adding in a truly elite player that could really take over games in crunch time.
There’s no way that anyone should question her job security, but I would hope that she is scrutinizing her program and methods to see how we can take that next step.
@Mark, I wonder if we can say the team is even in the 15-30 range this season. They’re hovering near .500 and can’t close out games in which they have a big lead.
For those who follow the program closely, “on paper” this should be one of CTT’s more talented teams, right?
Let’s not get carried away here, guys. Three visits to Big 12 schools, plus a trip to Gainesville, should theoretically toughen a team up. Granted, the ladies have only won one road game thus far, but more will come.
There’s some comfort in being maybe the best 8-6 NCAAW basketball team in history. But bogus non-calls at the ends of games still tear at the soul.
CTT has turned Devils girls hoops from pure cellar dweller to regular contender in the last decade. She is probably my all time favorite coach of ASU sports. HOWEVER, after steadily improving the team her first 6 or so years, it has plateaued the last 4 or so. The goal is to reach Stanford’s level, and to do that, ASU has to at least split with them every year. Beating them at home woulda bean easier, but now, they just have to beat them in Palo Alto!!!!!
@ZD Oh, I totally agree that ASU has played a very ambitious schedule, and hopefully it’ll pay off come tourney time with some added toughness. But that said, you’d like to at least come up with at least a couple of wins against that tough schedule. Otherwise you just end up like ua last year crowing about how many tough teams you played, while overlooking the fact that you didn’t actually BEAT any of those tough teams.
@Drexel CTT has absolutely changed the culture of the women’s basketball program to where we were at one time just hoping to get into the tourney, to where we’re expecting to consistently challenge for the conference title and win 2-3 games in the dance. I’ve seen people on Devilsdigest suggest that she should be on the hot seat and those people are ignorant fools, IMO. That said…I agree that things seem to have plateued, and I hope that she is able to figure out what needs to happen to get the program to the next level.
[...] The Sun Devils started 0-2 in Pac-10 play, but have since won five straight and now are tied for second place with USC and UCLA, both of which ASU already beat. Cal (7-0) and Stanford (6-1), the two conference teams to beat the Sun Devils, sit on top of the Pac-10. [...]