TEMPE, Ariz. – Katie Hempen had 15 points as she set the single-season record for made three-pointers and the No. 10 Arizona State women’s basketball team used a dominant second half to defeat the visiting Colorado Buffaloes 59-46 on Sunday.
Promise Amukamara added 13 points in her final regular season home game for the Sun Devils (26-4, 15-3 Pac-12) while Sophie Brunner had a career-high eight steals to go along with six points and seven rebounds.
ASU’s final conference record of 15-3 was good enough for a second-place finish in the Pac-12 and with it the No. 2 seed in the 2015 Pac-12 Tournament, which begins later this week at KeyArena in Seattle, Wash. The Sun Devils will open play in the tournament on Friday (11:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. MT) when they will face either Washington State (No. 7 seed) or Oregon (No. 10 seed) in the quarterfinal round.
“I am unbelievably proud of this group and how hard they’ve worked,” head coach Charli Tuner Thorne said. “We don’t just work on basketball in the offseason, we work on what it means to be a team… They have seen, probably more than any team I’ve ever coached, how much that can separate you.”
ASU started the game on a 9-2 run as the Buffs missed seven of their first eight shot attempts, but a layup by Jasmine Sborov with 9:33 left in the first half tied the game at 11 and capped off Colorado’s own 9-2 run.
A three from Lauren Huggins with seven seconds left in the first half gave Colorado (13-16, 6-12 Pac-12) a brief 21-20 lead before Elisha Davis was able to race down the floor and beat the buzzer with a jumper from the foul line to give ASU a 22-21 lead heading into halftime. Davis had seven of her nine points in the first half to go along with two assists.
The defense of the Sun Devils shined once again in the opening half. The Buffs shot just 9-22 (40.9 percent) and turned the ball over 10 times, thanks to eight steals by ASU.
After a turnaround jumper from Zoe Correal brought Colorado to within two, 27-25, the Sun Devils ripped off a quick 8-2 run to take a 35-27 lead with 12:34 left to play. Promise Amukamara had four points during the stretch. Colorado would get as close as four points a few minutes later, but never fully recovered.
Leading the way for ASU in the second half was Hempen. The redshirt-junior guard had 14 points in the final 20 minutes of play, including all four of her 3-pointers. The third of those four triples, which came with 6:54 remaining in the game, moved Hempen into first place on ASU’s all-time list for most 3-pointers in a season. Hempen passed current former Sun Devil and current Indiana Fever guard Briann Janaury who connected on 65 in 2009.
“With Katie, that’s her role,” Turner Thorne said. “She’s earned it. She has put the time in, she works as much on her shooting as anybody on our team and she has come up huge for us all season long.”
Hempen’s hot shooting from behind the arc opened up some driving lanes for the Sun Devils, particularly for Amukamara, who had 11 of her 13 points in the final half of play.
ASU’s 26 wins ties its second-highest win total in school history. Only the 2008-09 team (26 wins) and the 2006-07 team (31 wins) won as many or more games than this year’s squad. ASU’s final conference mark of 15-3 ties its second-best league record (2008-09 team went 15-3). Only the 2006-07 squad, which went 16-2, had a better record.
Sunday’s game was the final regular season contest in Wells Fargo Arena for both Promise Amukamara and Isidora Purkovich. Both players were honored in a ceremony following Sunday’s game.