Virginia Women’s Basketball Punches their Ticket to the Big Dance: A look at Arizona State

Sixty-six teams heard their name called on Sunday before the selection committee announced that the Virginia Cavaliers would heading to Iowa City to take on the Arizona State Sun Devils.

And if we are going to be technical about it, this is a play-in game, meaning the Hoos have to win this game to get into March Madness, but who cares? Virginia is playing post ACC Tourney and that’s only happened once since Debbie Ryan departed U Hall in 2011.

So, what do we know about Arizona State? Well, the Sun Devils finished ninth in the Big 12 while Virginia was tied for eighth (with Clemson) in the ACC. It’s been a seven-year NCAA tourney drought for Arizona State. The Sun Devils do come into the game with a bit more bounce than does Virginia as they won two games in the Big 12 tournament, beating Arizona and Iowa State.

Arizona State is coached by first-year coach Molly Miller who had the kind of record at Grand Canyon (WAC) that causes mid-tier Power 4 schools like Arizona State to jump at her. In her five years at Grand Canyon she finished first or second four of those years and in her final season, she led the Antelopes to an undefeated season and swept the regular season and tournament. Her two teams, if they have a shared identity, comes on the defensive end. At Grand Canyon, her teams averaged 12+ steals per game, and that’s over five years. I would expect that Kymora Johnson will feel a lot of pressure bringing the ball up. Miller’s comfortable with the team grinding it out, and in the WAC, she played to a lot of Bennett-like 60 – 55 games. Arizona State had the 5th most efficient defense in the Big 12, so those defensive tendencies apparently translated well as Miller moved up.

Arizona State is led by Gabby Elliott (16/ppg, 4.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists) and McKinna Brackens (14.6/ppg, 6.5 boards and 2 assists,) both of whom landed on the Big 12 Third Team. If you remember the name Gabby Elliott, well, you are quite the ACC fan as Elliott started her career with Clemson during the COVID season. (She was only there for one year, and honestly, I only know this by looking it up.)

Marley Washinitz comes more easily to mind as she was at Pitt the last three years where she was a two-year starter, a role she is reprising at Tempe.

As for what to expect, Arizona State is going to try and slow the game down while trying to turn defense into offense by forcing turnovers. They are going to want to play at a 60-possession pace. This is not a particularly tall team with just two players getting major minutes over 6’ 1”: Brackens and Heloisa Carrera. Brackens has spent her entire career at Arizona State, so she’s banged with Audi Crooks, and Carrera has spent her career in Power 4 conferences. They will at least be used to being the smallest bigs on the court.

Gametime is 9:00pm on Thursday, March 19th. While you’d have to find TruTV to see one of the men’s play-in games, the women have a better deal as the entirety of the tournament is on ESPN. This game will be on ESPN2.