With 17 seconds left to play, No. 19 Arizona State’s Courtney Ekmark sank a 3-pointer to put the No. 19 Sun Devils within two points of upsetting No. 5 Oregon. Fouls from Arizona State sent sophomore Satou Sabally and junior Sabrina Ionescu to the free-throw line where they shot 4-of-4 to secure the 77-71 win for the Ducks.
“Arizona State is never fun to play. I told the team, ‘It’s like going to the dentist.’ You’ve got to play them, but it’s never fun,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “They never give up; they’re talented. They play great defense and they don’t make anything easy.”
Despite trailing most of the first quarter, Oregon (16-1, 5-0) outscored Arizona State (12-5, 3-3) in every quarter except the last and led the entire game after earning the lead late in the first quarter.
The Ducks entered the fourth quarter with a ten-point buffer, but behind an 11-2 run by the Sun Devils late in the quarter, Arizona State got within one point of Oregon, outscoring the Ducks 24-20 in the final ten minutes.
“We have a veteran team,” Arizona State head coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “We can cover a ten-point spread pretty quickly if we’re really defending and going on all cylinders.”
Still, in front of a home crowd of 6,769, Ionescu earned a season-high 31 points, 12 of those coming in the final quarter alone. Sabally tied her season-high blocks with four, and senior Maite Cazorla added 16 points.
Cazorla’s drive with two minutes left in the first put the Ducks within one point of taking a lead, and with a short jumper from junior Ruthy Hebard, who finished with 14 points, the Ducks earned their first lead of the game at 17-16. Ionescu followed with a 3-pointer to give Oregon a four-point, 20-16 lead into the second quarter.
In the second quarter, with back-to-back 3-pointers, Ionescu led the Ducks on an 11-4 run to widen their four-point lead to nine headed into halftime. Ionescu earned eight points, while Hebard and Cazorla added four each.
The Sun Devils improved scoring after halftime, finishing in a near-tie with Oregon for the quarter with 18 points to almost match the Ducks’ 19. Arizona State was unable to make headway overall, still trailing nine points to head into the fourth.
“We knew they were going to come out and fight to the end,” Ionescu said. “We knew this was going to be a ball game no matter how much we got up on them. We just had to fight.”
Despite the Sun Devils come-back attempts, the Ducks finished the game with a six-point lead and an undefeated Pac-12 season intact.
Oregon will host the Arizona Wildcats Sunday at noon in Matthew Knight Arena.
Follow Sierra Webster on Twitter @WebsterSierraE.