Dec. 14, 2001
CHICAGO, Ill. - Senior Amanda Levens scored 21 points to lead the Arizona State women's basketball team to an 83-43 victory over Chicago State Thursday night at CSU's Jacoby Dickens Center.
Arizona State, now 8-2 on the year, has won its last six games and is just one shy of the seven-game winning streak the team notched last season.
The Sun Devils jumped out on the Cougars (3-5) from the beginning, holding Chicago State to just nine points in the first half and outshooting them 56 to 15 percent. ASU scored the first four points of the game and jumped out to an 11-4 lead with 13:46 to play in the half. The Sun Devils would hold the Cougars scoreless for the next nine minutes of the game and took a 39-9 lead into the locker room.
Chicago State scored the first 11 points of the second half to cut the lead to 19 points, 39-20, with 17:18 to play, but the Cougars did not get any closer in the ball game. The 40-point win was the biggest for the Sun Devils since a 96-52 win over Gonzaga on Dec. 5, 1998, while the 83 points is a season high for the team and the most points since an 83-70 victory over Washington State last season.
Levens led the team in scoring for the eighth time this season with her fourth 20-point performance of the year, while senior Melody Johnson turned in 15 points, hitting all seven of her field goal attempts. Levens also led the team with five assists, while freshman Carrie Buckner had seven points and a team-high six rebounds. Senior Rainy Crisp had a career-best four steals to round out the Sun Devil effort.
For Chicago State, three players scored in double figures, led by sophomore Kathy Coleman who had 13 points.
The Sun Devils continue their road trip to the state of Illinois with a game at Northern Illinois on Saturday, Dec. 15 with tip-off scheduled for 1 p.m. CST (12 p.m. MST). ASU then returns home to open the Pac-10 Conference schedule with Stanford on Dec. 21 and California on Dec. 23. Those two games at Wells Fargo Arena are scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. and 11 a.m., respectively.