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Washenitz's improbable triple helps WBB improve to 5-0

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Washenitz's improbable triple helps WBB improve to 5-0Washenitz's improbable triple helps WBB improve to 5-0
Sun Devil Athletics

TEMPE – Anyone who saw what turned out to be the game-winning 3-pointer made by Marley Washenitz in the Sun Devil Women’s Basketball team’s 56-53 win over UNLV on Saturday – and is old enough to remember – might just have harkened back to the commercials of the early 90s that featured basketball Hall of Famers Michael Jordan and Larry Bird playing a game of H-O-R-S-E.

What shot would Washenitz have challenged her opponent to make on Saturday? With only seconds remaining in the game, the shot clock about to expire, with your back to the basket, save the ball before it rolls out of bounds and – in the same motion – turn around and fling a left-handed 3-pointer off the glass. For Washenitz, who came into the game having scored in double figures in each of ASU’s first four games of the season, the improvisational shot was the first – and only – of her seven field goal attempts of the game that resulted in points.

 

 

It was the perfect afternoon for such a statistical anomaly – all of which ended up being positives for ASU. They included ...

  • The second time ASU has started a season 5-0 since 2002-03.
  • The first time UNLV was held to 53 or fewer points in 148 games. On that fifth day of February in 2021, the Lady Rebels were the victors over Air Force, 52-49.
  • Exactly one year and one day later, the Sun Devils upset No. 19 Oregon 55-49 on Feb. 6, 2022. The significance? Before Saturday’s win over UNLV, it was the first time in 104 games in which ASU won a game when scoring 56 or fewer points.
  • The 56 points ASU scored on Saturday came on the heels of scoring a season-high 82 points in Sunday’s 82-77 win over Santa Clara. On the flip side, the 53 points UNLV scored on Saturday represented the third time in the season’s first five games the Sun Devils have held the opposition to 53 or fewer points.

ASU’s win came against a UNLV program that has proven itself to be a formidable squad in recent seasons, as they averaged 28 wins the past four seasons and qualified for three of the past four NCAA Tournaments coming into the 2025-26 campaign. And anyone looking for evidence on how good this edition of the Lady Rebels is need look no further than Nov. 14 when UNLV was within two points of current No. 7 Baylor with fewer than 90 seconds remaining in the game.

 

 

Sun Devil standouts

  • After scoring a career-high 23 points and grabbing 11 rebounds in Sunday’s win, McKinna Brackens had her second consecutive double-double, matching her career-high point total to go with 10 boards against her former team. She also matched her career high in field goals (10) and 3-pointers (three).
  • Heloisa Carrera had career-best figures in points (16), rebounds (8) and field goals made (8).
  • Gabby Elliott scored in double figures for the fifth time in as many games, accounting for 11 points.
  • In addition to scoring the game-winning triple, Washenitz also had a game-high five assists.

 

 

How it happened

  • The first quarter was a mixed bag for the Sun Devils. The good news was they held the Lady Rebels to their second-fewest point total in a quarter this season (12). The bad news for ASU was that it could not capitalize on its strong defensive performance after scoring only seven points.
  • The Sun Devils not only matched their outstanding defensive effort from the first quarter, but offensively, they tripled their point production from the first 10 minutes. In what ended up being a defensive struggle, ASU’s plus-nine-point advantage in the second quarter (21-12) ended up playing a major role in the outcome.
  • ASU’s shooting 62.5 shooting percentage and 10 field goals in the second period both represented the best marks in a quarter by either team.
  • Trailing 20-17 midway through the second quarter, the Sun Devils used an 11-0 run to put some separation between themselves and the Lady Rebels. UNLV answered by scoring the last four points of the half to trim ASU’s lead to 28-24.
  • ASU’s best defensive stretch of the game came after the Lady Rebels knotted the score at 28-28 early in the second quarter. An 11-2 run that went over a span of four-plus minutes gave ASU its largest lead of the game, 39-30, after Brackens’ jumper with 4:15 left in the third quarter.
  • UNLV closed the gap to three points by the start of the fourth period.
  • Neither team led by more than three points in a fourth quarter that included two ties and four lead changes.

 

 

Up next

The Sun Devils host Utah Tech on Tuesday at 6:30 pm at Desert Financial Arena. Click here to purchase tickets.

 

 

Postgame quotes
Head Coach Molly Miller
On the main story of the game
“It seemed that when we would punch, they would punch us back. It was a back-and-forth game. If you can ride that to the end instead of getting discouraged, that shows the maturity of the team. That back and forth, then all of a sudden we hit a three, and they hit a three (and so on), and then we hit a crazy three. It can take the wind out of your sail, or you can know that this is a game of highs and lows, you’ve got to weather through the ups and downs.” 

On Washenitz’s game-winning buzzer-beater shot
“Honestly, we mishandled the ball there. I would like to say that’s how I drew it up, but it’s not. The thing that stuck out to me in that moment is that Washenitz didn’t have a great shooting night. She didn’t even fill up the box score, but she played 40 minutes for us, and she kept at it. That’s her every single day. That’s good juju for her because she puts it out in the universe every single day that she is a fighter. She’s tough, not going to back down, and she’s going to keep going. We messed up the play, and she grabbed the ball and threw it up. It was a fun moment for her.”

 

 

On where she’d like to see improvements
“The offense, we were 63% from the field. It shows what we’re capable of, but we can’t have spurts of that. We have to have a whole quarter or two of that. A whole game of that. It’s an imperfect game for sure, but we’ve got to cut down on silly mistakes and play basketball. We sometimes play analysis by paralysis, and that’s ok. We’re not naturally doing these things. It’s just repetition and practice. We’re molding a team together for chemistry. That was a fun one today.”

 

 

Senior Guard Marley Washenitz
On her game-winning shot
“Honestly, I was in disbelief, if you couldn't tell from my reaction. I couldn't have cared less or more who would have scored that. [Or if it was by] three or two points. As long as we got on the board and put ourselves in a position to win the game, that’s all that I cared about. I knew the clock was ticking down and I was like someone needs to do something, so I grabbed the ball and threw it up, obviously, but a win like this for [Brackens] is all I wanted. It didn't matter how we got it as long as we got it.”

 

 

On the team’s versatility
“I think we’re a really versatile team. We have a lot of different pieces, and it can be anyone's night anytime. I think just understanding that, yes, every team's going to have a leading scorer, and [Gabby Elliott) happens to be ours. And respectfully so, she puts in the work to do so. But at the same time, that doesn't mean we need to depend on one player, and we understand that. I think [Elliott] started picking it up when she started on the defensive end and she's very aware of that, as the whole team is. A lot of our offense starts with our defense. So when she started rolling and started getting on pace, obviously it helped lift energy for the whole team. But at the end of the day, [Heloisa Carrera] was doing her thing, [McKinna Brackens] was doing her thing. Even the small stuff that goes unnoticed, [Last-Tear Poa's] assists, Jyah’s [LoVett] defense. It's not always necessarily about scoring for us. We found energy in Poa’s charge, that was huge for us. So just small stuff like that, outside of just scoring, that [Elliott] does for us is really, really impactful.”

 

 

Junior forward McKinna Brackens
On earning a double-double against her former team
“It was exciting. Nobody wants to lose to their old team, I feel like that’s obvious. It was exciting to see my old friends who were on that team. Obviously, I wanted to play well, but ultimately I wanted to win, so it didn’t matter how we got that.”

On the importance of building off momentum
“Basketball is a game of runs, so I feel like at the beginning we weren’t hitting anything. We were all looking at each other, and we had no energy, and it was kind of like blah. But after that, we were like, ‘OK, come on guys, we're OK.’ We settled in after that, and I felt like it helped move the game along. Then shots started falling. We got open look,s and then it was like barbecue chicken from there.”