March 2, 2002
EUGENE, Ore. - Senior Cian Carvalho scored 17 points, 15 in the second half, to a 66-58 come-from-behind victory over the Arizona Wildcats Saturday afternoon at McArthur Court in the team's first game at the inaugural Pac-10 Women's Basketball Tournament.
With the victory, Arizona State improves to 22-8 on the season, its most wins since the 1982-83 season, while the Sun Devils will face tournament host Oregon in the semifinals Sunday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. PST/1:30 p.m. MST.
The two rivals exchanged runs in the first half with Arizona jumping out to a 16-8 lead with 14:53 to play. ASU closed to within one with a 9-2 run of its own to make it 18-17 at the 9:07 mark, but Arizona rebuilt its lead to 26-19 over the next three minutes. The Sun Devils tied the game at 26 with 3:27 to play, but the Wildcats scored the final 10 points of the half to take a 36-26 advantage into the locker room.
ASU shot just 30 percent in the first half compared to 51.7 percent for the Wildcats.
In the second half, the dogfight continued with ASU slicing the Arizona lead to just five with Carvalho scoring the first five points of the second half. The Wildcats went up 48-42 with 8:58 to play, but the Sun Devils scored six straight points to tie the game at 48 with 7:01 remaining, including four straight free throws by senior Rainy Crisp.
Arizona went up again, this time 52-48 with 5:10 remaining, but the Sun Devils scored seven of the game's next 10 points to tie it at 55 with 2:12 to play. Senior Amanda Levens hit her first and only field goal of the game to give ASU a 57-55 lead, an advantage that the Sun Devils would not relinquish.
The Sun Devils held the Wildcats to just 17.4 percent shooting in the second half (3-20). ASU ended up shooting just 30.5 percent in the game compared to 36.5 percent by Arizona, but the Sun Devils outrebounded the Wildcats 46-38.
Carvalho led the three Sun Devils in double figures with 17 points with 15 of them in the second half. Senior Melody Johnson had 14 points and nine rebounds on 7-of-13 shooting, while Levens had 10 points and five assists, knocking down just one field goal but going 8-of-10 from the free throw line. Freshman Carrie Buckner, a Corvallis, Ore., native, pulled down a career-high 11 rebounds to lead the Sun Devils in that category.
For Arizona, Candice Allen led all scorers with 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the field.
ASU's semifinal game vs. Oregon will be televised live to a national cable audience by Fox Sports Net and can be heard locally on XTRA 910 AM.