ASU women's basketball overwhelmed in loss against Massachusetts

Arizona State women’s basketball showed an early fight at the beginning of the first quarter, but Massachusetts responded with a fire and never surrendered the lead.

As a result, ASU lost its first game at Desert Financial Arena this season in a 88-64 loss on Friday.

"Obviously, not the performance that we wanted," ASU head coach Natasha Adair said. "I felt like UMass just came out and like we talked to the team about, they were really aggressive. A lot of the keys were to contain them on the perimeter, limit them in transition, take away their second-chance opportunities. And we just dug a hole."

ASU guard Jaddan Simmons made a 3-pointer to chip away at the seven-point deficit in the first quarter, making way for Sydney Erikstrup to add two 3-pointers to tie the game at 11. Massachusetts didn’t quit and responded with a 9-0 run to end the opening frame.

Defense had trouble keeping up with Massachusetts guards Sydney Taylor and Destiney Philoxy in the first half as both combined for five 3-pointers. The offense was rewarded with the defense churning out six blocks and 20 defensive rebounds in the first half against ASU.

Massachusetts outplayed ASU in every category in the game, most notably in assists with Massachusetts moving the ball around 28 times to ASU's 13.

Top plays

Jaddan Simmons sparked ASU early in the first quarter with a 3-pointer at 5:11 to begin ASU’s 9-2 run.

Journey Thompson fought through several Massachusetts players and grabbed an offensive rebound from Simmons’ initial shot and passed over to Kayla Mokwuah for a good layup with 43 seconds left in the third quarter.

Standout performers

Journey Thompson picked up more minutes when Treasure Hunt exited the game early in the third quarter and recorded a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Jaddan Simmons tied for ASU's scoring lead with 15 points on 4-of-11 shooting and 6 assists.

They said it

"The biggest thing right now is that consistency of effort for 40 (minutes). Not that we did not play hard in spurts today, but it was just the consistency of what we need and what we need for 40 full minutes from tip to the final buzzer. There are things that we will prepare because it's a quick turnaround before we play Missouri." —ASU head coach Natasha Adair on the keys moving forward.

"My goals going in to always do what I know I can do and what's going to help the team. In this particular game, it was rebounding and if I could get second-chance opportunities. I'm going to continue to focus on what I can do to help out the team." —ASU forward Journey Thompson on her recent improvements.

"We got to look at how they scored and it was a lot of our mess ups. I think we'll get back to staying down on defense, spreading the court, and doing what we can to stop them on defense, and that would've helped our offense a lot better today." —ASU guard Jaddan Simmons on fixing defensive mistakes.

"My goals going in to always do what I know I can do and what's going to help the team. In this particular game, it was rebounding and if I could get second-chance opportunities. I'm going to continue to focus on what I can do to help out the team." —ASU forward Journey Thompson on her recent improvements.

Up next

ASU (6-2) will finish the inaugural Briann January Classic with Missouri on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. The Sun Devils will get the week off before playing at Stephen F. Austin on Sunday at 3 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU women's basketball overwhelmed in loss against Massachusetts