TEMPE – The Sun Devil Women’s Basketball team made it 15 wins in 16 home games this season following its 81-56 win over Houston on Saturday at Desert Financial Arena.
With the win, the Sun Devils improved to 22-7 (9-7 Big 12) while Houston fell to 7-20 (1-15). For ASU, the 22 wins equal the most in a season for a Sun Devil team since the 2018-19 squad went 22-11 and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
With a win in their final home game of the 2025-26 season (vs. BYU on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.), the Sun Devils would tie the 2014-15 team for the most home wins (16) in program history.
Sun Devil standouts
- Heloisa Carrera scored a game- and career-high 23 points and nearly notched her fourth double-double of the season after tying for the team lead with a game-high eight rebounds.
- McKinna Brackens scored 17 points to go with six rebounds and a game and team-high four assists. In her last four games, Brackens has averaged 19.0 points per game while shooting 58.2 percent (32-55) from the field.
- Marley Washenitz scored 12 of her 14 points in the first half and, like Carrera, nearly posted a double-double, tying for the team lead with a season-high eight rebounds, two off her career high of 10 boards accomplished twice in her career. For the fourth time this season, Washenitz also tied her season high with four steals.
- Jyah LoVett came off the bench and scored a double-figure point total (12 points) for the fifth time this season.
- Also providing ASU with key contributions off the bench were Amaya Williams (tied for the team lead with four assists) and Deborah Davenport (grabbed six rebounds).
How it happened
- For the fourth time this season, the Sun Devils scored more than 80 points.
- It was also the fourth time this season ASU shot higher than 50 percent (54.8).
- The Sun Devils overwhelmed Houston on the glass with a plus-30 advantage (48-18). ASU converted its 14 offensive rebounds into 11 second-chance points.
- Houston scored more than 40 percent of its points from the foul line, where it made 89 percent (24-27) of its attempts.
- In the first quarter, ASU was on the other side of what it experienced in the third quarter of its loss at Iowa State on Wednesday. On Saturday, it was the Sun Devils who took control with a plus-14 quarter after starting the game by shooting 52.3 percent and jumping out to a 27-13 lead.
- Carrera’s layup with 1:48 remaining in the first quarter put the Sun Devils up 22-11. From that point forward, ASU maintained a double-digit lead.
- The Sun Devils shot 59 percent in the second quarter and, after making two of their first three shots in the third quarter, led by as many as 27 points, doubling up the Cougars 54-27.
Senior Guard Marley Washenitz Postgame Quotables
On what’s been clicking for her:
“I’ve been trusting the work I've been putting in from the summer all the way up until today. It's funny. I actually had a mentorship program going on. I was talking to this girl about, you know, building her confidence and I love being a part of something like that because it almost feels like I'm talking to my younger self and I feel like that helped me in today's game with my confidence and pushing through things. As an athlete, in sports and in life, you're going to struggle with things and adversity is going to hit. It's just how you respond to it. So, I've been very fortunate to be in an environment here at ASU with the staff and the teammates to uplift me even on my down days and when I'm not fulfilling my job to the best of my abilities.”
On if this win builds confidence in the group:
“Yeah, definitely. Our team is so versatile and we can be so dangerous when we're all clicking on all cylinders, so I think it was really awesome to be back at home and we have the energy from our community here. Our energy was off the charts as well. So just giving the credit where credit's due. I think our energy is what gets us going. When you see one shot fall and you know everyone else kind of starts hitting. So just being able to be confident and being kind of middle grounded. You don't want to get too high. You don't want to get too low. So when things aren't going your way, you stay steady and understand and trust the work we put in. We wanted to come in here and make a statement with our win after the last game. No one wants to number one, lose, and then secondly lose the way we did. So we know that we have a lot at stake and we're playing for something bigger than just this game. We're playing with a chip on our shoulder and we're playing with that confidence that we need to go into March.”
On what needs to be done to prove that ASU is tournament worthy:
“We need to be clicking on all cylinders and playing with that chip on our shoulder. We're playing for something bigger right now and we know that. What Molly said after our Iowa State game was that we need to either kill or be killed. That’s what our mentality was coming into tonight's game. I think you could see it and for me personally, I thought it started on the defensive end. I think (Last-Tear) Poa set the tone on defense. She was pressuring their point guard from the jump and since you see her pressuring, you're like, ‘Okay, yeah, I got your back, Poa.’ It gets you fired up. Once everyone starts getting on the same page and we all start matching each other's energy, I think that's where we can be dangerous. It starts on the defensive end when when we can hold opponents under a certain amount of points and then not only hold them to that, but then capitalize on our steals and their turnovers. That’s huge for us and those are easy ways to score.”
On what specifically needs to be done to secure a spot in the NCAA tournament:
"The same mentality of kill or be killed. And That mentality is going to start with us on the defensive end. We need to be aggressive and that's been our identity the whole season. You can't change your identity of a team in February when you've been working on something different since June. Sticking to our identity, knowing what's been working for us this long and executing it when it comes to game time. So just being us and playing within ourselves. Knowing what our job is and then executing our jobs individually and then as a team.”
On senior night coming up on Wednesday:
"Joy, gratitude, blessings. I've been so blessed and fortunate to be here at ASU for a year but I always wish it was more. God works in funny ways and his plan for me is bigger than I even know. I had more time here but at the same time, super grateful to have any because this community has opened their arms to me. They have welcomed me. I've seen so much growth and support for women's basketball here from our first game up until today. You can see the difference in our games and the energy and it's really fun to hear some of the fans and the support. From a community standpoint, I've been so blessed. From a staff and teammate support perspective, I've also been so blessed. I couldn’t ask for a better staff in the country. I don't know where you can find one better than what you have here. From a teammate standpoint, to have only three returners from a previous team and everybody else is new. To see everybody click the way we do, it's not normal. That’s not a bad thing. It's a great thing. I couldn't be more grateful to have the team that we have for this year and for my last year. We support each other. We love each other off the court. We love each other on the court. That’s why when we are all clicking on all cylinders, it's so dangerous because we're all on the same page.”
On the culture Molly Miller brings to the program:
"I'm a firm believer that culture wins and that's what she's established since day one. When I was going through the recruiting process, we didn’t have a team. A lot of us transfers came in here blind, but we trusted the coaches enough and who they are as people and who they are recruiting as people that no matter what happens, we're going to win and we're going to have great people doing it. I think relationships are key when it comes to winning. You need to understand how to motivate your teammates, you need to understand how to motivate your players. When you can connect with people, you can joke and you can understand how to push them to get the best out of them, that's the best way. I think that staff has done a great job of that since June."
On reminiscing on this season so far:
"It’s the reason I came here. I wanted to leave the program better than I found it and fortunately so far we've done that. We’re just such a competitive group that we're never satisfied. Yes, we've turned the program around and we're so proud of what we've done in the past and funny enough, today in chapel, we were talking about things in the past and just kind of being present and I feel like that also kind of helped with my mentality today. Yes, we've accomplished so much and we're so happy with what we've done, but that's not enough for us. We want more and I I love that about our team because from top to bottom, we're all ambitious and we all always want more and we're never satisfied. You want that as competitors. So I’m super blessed and grateful to be on this journey and to have made such an impact. From the summer we all I believed that we could do something this special and it's just really awesome to see it come to life.”
On the rematch against the Cougars:
"The first time around they killed us on the boards and they killed us on their inside out threes. They're a good team. I mean especially at home they're a really good team. Coming in here, making our presence known, we've got to box out number one. Number two, we've got to take care of the ball. They're a pretty good team. They're kind of similar to us in a way, They’re pretty similar to Oklahoma State. We had a really good stretch with our Oklahoma State week, and that's the team we want to be, especially in February. So, being able to get that revenge is something we definitely want, especially because they were our first loss of the season. So they knew how special that one was for them and now we want to make sure that we have that same mentality coming into it that this one's going to mean more.”
Up next
The Sun Devils will conclude the home portion of their schedule when they host BYU on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The game will be Senior Night as the Sun Devil women’s basketball program will be recognizing this year’s senior class. Tickets for the game can be purchased by visiting www.TheSunDevils.com.