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Molly Miller's first Sun Devil squad off to best start in program history

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Molly Miller's first Sun Devil squad off to best start in program historyMolly Miller's first Sun Devil squad off to best start in program history

TEMPE – History was made at Mullett Arena on Saturday – the second and final day of the Briann January Classic – as the Sun Devil women’s basketball team (10-0), under first-year head coach Molly Miller, defeated San Francisco 67-44 to set the program record for the most consecutive wins to start a season.

This year’s Sun Devil squad broke a 33-year-old record held by the 1992-93 squad (9-0), coached by current Sun Devil radio analyst Maura McHugh.

Sun Devil standouts

  • McKinna Brackens and Jyah LoVett tied for the team lead in scoring with 15 points each. For the former, it was the ninth time in 10 games – and the eighth straight game – scoring in double figures this season. For the latter it was the second double-figure scoring game of the campaign. Only Amaya Williams (career-high 18 points vs. Little Rock) scored more points coming off the bench this season. Brackens (6-8 FGs) and Lovett (7-9 FGs) collectively connected on 76 percent (13-17) of their field goals.
  • Gabby Elliott also had her ninth double-figure scoring game of the season with 10 points. On the defensive end, Elliott eclipsed her own 2025-26 team high in steals with a new career high of eight vs. San Francisco. The previous high were the seven steals she collected in ASU’s season opening win over Coppin State. Elliott also tied for the team lead in rebounds with five.
  • Marley Washenitz scored six points, and a team-high six assists to go with four rebounds.
  • Deborah Davenport scored five points and had a career-high five rebounds, tying Elliott for the team lead. 

How it happened

  • The Sun Devils held San Francisco more than 30 points below its scoring average of 74.4 point coming into the game.
  • ASU forced 31 turnovers and had 18 steals on Saturday. The only time it had higher totals in both categories this season came in the season opener vs. Coppin State when it forced 33 miscues and had 19 steals.
  • ASU scored 26 points off San Francisco’s turnovers. Only twice this season has it scored more points: 37 vs. Coppin State and 27 vs. SEMO.
  • Tied at 13-13 after one quarter, the Sun Devils once again separated themselves from their opponent in the second quarter, outscoring San Francisco 18-7. In the second quarter of its last six games, has outscored the opposition by an average of 21.2-8.2.
  • In the second quarter of its last four games, ASU has allowed a grand total of 24 points: 5 vs. Little Rock, 5 vs. SEMO, 7 vs. McNeese, 7 vs. San Francisco.
  • ASU would go on to outscore San Francisco 37-19 in the second and third quarters to take an 18-point advantage going into the final quarter.

Notes

  • Only one ASU opponent (Santa Clara, 77 points) has scored more than 58 points vs. ASU this season.
  • During its six-game home stand, ASU allowed an average of only 49.2 points.
  • In the second quarter of its two games this weekend, ASU connected on 67 percent of its shots (16-24), while allowing McNeese and San Francisco to shoot only 23 percent (6-26).
  • In its last four games, ASU has allowed 13 or fewer points in a quarter (52.0 ppg average) 11 times in 16 quarters (single digits six times).

Up next

ASU will close non-conference play with three consecutive road games starting on Tuesday when it plays at Penn State (7 p.m. EST/5 p.m. MST). ASU will also play at Oregon State (Dec. 14) and at Gonzaga (Dec. 16) before returning home on Dec. 21 to face Colorado in the Big 12 opener.

Postgame quotes

Head coach Molly Miller

On first 10-0 start in program history

“There's a lot of moving parts that go into making it a good start, like this. One is the belief in a bunch of people, a bunch of strangers, from the get go. You probably have surrounding our program, about 30 strangers here that came on campus in June. So for everyone to buy into the vision and now the mission, that's the most special part about this. Again, I have to thank kind of the whole around scheduling. Really elite programs play at home in November and December. I know it's a stretch on resources and facilities when you host two games or two tournaments, like when we hosted at Thanksgiving in here. So shout out to the administration, the facilities, all the staff, to make this happen. These back to back tournaments are good for us, because hopefully that's what we're doing in March, and playing at home and sharing some buzz about the program is good for us, too.”

On the team having each other’s backs

“I love that we all have each other's back. What's so cool about this team, if anything's gonna motivate them, I'm all for it. If it's officials, if it's defense, whatever it is, it's motivating, and we're all on the same page. They're a physical team, like that was good for us. We're playing different styles really early. Yesterday, we got really tested. But then they were scrappy, physical and quick. Today, they were really physical and liked transition. So we’re being tested in different ways.”

On Jyah LoVett’s performance

“I just knew what she wanted and what I wanted from her, and those things met today. She's got some perseverance about her, and if we can get that Jyah every day, she's gonna help us. She wanted to make a difference and an impact. When you're talking about impact, especially in our brand, it's on both sides of the ball, so she can get her offense going with her defense. We call it the Jyah drill sometimes, and she's just dogging the ball up. And I love to see her with that look in her eye, and she did that on a more consistent basis today.”

On McKinna Brackens’ play so far throughout this season

“She's a special one, because she was one of the first players. When she got in the portal, I knew. I'm like, ‘she's mine, like, I gotta go after her hard.’ She's so multi dimensional. You can do anything with her. You can send her off flare screens, and she can hit a three. You can post her up. You can have her get to the elbow and rip or pull up a jump shot. She's just a double-double machine too. She's rebounding really well, which helps the team.”

Junior forward McKinna Brackens

On overcoming a slow start

“I think we just settled in. At the beginning of the game, we knew the history behind it coming in. We wanted to win so bad. So I feel like after that, we kind of just settled in. We didn't let it get too frantic to where we started panicking when it got hard. So I feel like we just needed to lean on each other and know that it's gonna work out.”

On the message from head coach Molly Miller at the half

“Don’t let up. She wrote it on the board, to not let up. We had a pretty good second quarter, and we needed to carry that into the third. We haven’t been that good in the third quarter, and we didn’t want them [USF] to cut the lead.”

On the support from Miller

“It makes us want to have her back too, because she has our back when a foul doesn't go our way, or a call doesn't go our way. So when she has our back like that, it makes us want to play it harder and tell the refs, you're not going to take this game away from us. We’re going to play through whatever you throw at us and just having her like that makes us want to play great.”