ASU has lots of offensive weapons but no go-to scorer, so it was difficult to say who the inbound pass was going to when USC led 68-66 with 3.9 seconds left in the game.
Senior guard Elisha Davis was inbounding. She could go to Katie Hempen, who had 10 points on 2-4 three-point shooting on Sunday and broke the ASU career three-point record on Friday.
Senior center Quinn Dornstauder was in, too. She had eight points on the day and had displayed impressive post moves with her 6-foot-4 inch frame.
The team ended up adapted a similar play they ran on Friday against UCLA. The exchange before ASU's final offensive possession went something like this, according to head coach Charli Turner Thorne:
Elisha Davis: "Get (me) the ball, I'm passing it in!"
Junior forward Kelsey Moos: "Sophie (Brunner)'s curling and I'm screening for her!"
"They were actually designing who was where in the final play to win the game," Turner Thorne said. "I was actually just kind of smiling."
The play was drawn up for junior forward Sophie Brunner, though, who had six points on 3-4 shooting. She got the ball on the right side, cutting inside the elbow. She drove and hit the layup.
Brunner got fouled. She hit the free throw, giving ASU the one-point lead, its first since there was 8:55 in the fourth quarter.
ASU had been playing catch-up all day. USC jumped out to a 12-point lead in the first quarter behind sophomore guard Sadie Edwards' eight points. ASU only had 10 points.
"We weren't really in position to help each other and we weren't working hard enough to dig in when we knew all (they) wanted to do was drive with their strong hand into the basket," Turner Thorne said.
The Sun Devils caught up in the second after hitting its first seven shots, cutting the deficit to one. Senior guard Arnecia Hawkins had two threes in the span, contributing to her team-high 12 points, and Hempen added another. By the end of the half, ASU had tied the game at 34.
ASU didn’t take the lead until there was only 2:22 left in the third quarter. USC quickly came back and the score was tied at 52 going into the fourth.
Edwards hit a layup with 2:55 remaining to take a four-point lead. She had 26 points on 10-16 shooting.
"The last thing we wanted to do was guard USC one-on-one, and we kind of did that," Turner Thorne said.
Dornstauder followed it with a jumper. 40 seconds later, Brunner hit Moos down low on a beautiful backdoor pass.
With five seconds remaining, USC got ASU defense out of position. The Sun Devils did a good job rotating through help defense, but forward Temi Fagbenle hit a difficult jumper to take a two-point lead that was potentially fatal for ASU.
After a timeout, Brunner came through. She hit the layup and free throw to take the lead.
With under two seconds and no timeouts, USC chucked a Hail Mary up court and the ball went out of bounds. ASU celebrated, but the referees ruled there were .4 seconds remaining.
The Trojans managed to get the ball down low. They flipped up a layup, but the ball wasn’t out of their hands by the time the clock expired. ASU snuck away with the victory.
"We just put a lot of pressure on our defense on a day where our team defense struggled and we were tied and we played a very, very good offensive team," Turner Thorne said.
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