WBB Falls to Arizona State, 59-51

Saturday, January 21

Tempe, Ariz.

2:00 PM

University of Utah

Arizona State

1/21/2012 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball

Jan. 21, 2012

Box Score

TEMPE, Ariz. - An early second-half deficit proved to be too much for the Utes to overcome, as the women's basketball team fell to Arizona State, 59-51 on Saturday afternoon.

Down 22-19 at halftime, an 8-2 second-half run by Arizona State put the Sun Devils up by 10 points, 30-20. The Utes would end up fighting to cut into that early lead throughout the second half. Back-to-back three's from Iwalani Rodrigues put the lead at four, 30-26, before ASU answered with the next four points put again push it back to eight, 34-26 with 13 minutes remaining.

Arizona State led by 11, 39-28 with 11:20 left in the game before the Utes had their best rally of the second half with a seven-point run to again put the lead at four, 39-35 with 9:30 left before the Sun Devils' Kali Bennett hit a layup to stop the Ute momentum. After trading baskets for the next several minutes and the deficit still at four, 43-39 with 6:48 left after a Michelle Plouffe jumper, Arizona State went on a 5-0 run to put the ASU lead at nine with six minutes left, 48-39.

ASU pushed the lead up to as many as 11 points in the final minutes, while the Utes could come no closer than six points.

Three scored in double figures for Utah, led by 15 points from Plouffe. Taryn Wicijowski scored 10 points with a team-high nine rebounds, while Janita Badon had 12 points with eight assists and five steals. Rodrigues scored nine points with a career-best eight boards.

"I loved our effort tonight -for all 40 minutes we played incredibly hard," Utah head coach Anthony Levrets said. "We are getting better. We are looking forward to getting home and getting a little rest, then getting back at the gym to continue to improve in the areas that we need to improve. But I am very pleased with our effort and the progress of this team."

The first half featured five lead changes, as the Utes were solid on the boards, outrebounding ASU 24-15, but Arizona State shot 39-percent from the floor compared to 24-percent shooting by the Utes.

Arizona State was led by 17 points from Deja Mann.

Utah returns to the Huntsman Center on Thursday, Jan. 26, to face UCLA.