Women's basketball completes memorable season

With a run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, the 2006-2007 season was the most successful ever for the ASU Women’s Basketball team.

Throughout the season, the team – led by Head coach Charli Turner Thorne – drew national attention, including a No. 7 ranking in the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll in February that was ASU highest ever ranking in either of the major polls. Turner Thorne herself achieved a pair of milestones this season, earning her 100th Pac-10 win and her 200th ASU win.

The team finished the season going to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. Overall, ASU’s 31 wins this season eclipsed the previous record of 25, which was done three other times.

Along with all of the on-court success, ASU made a mark off the court as well.

After posting the highest finish in the NCAA Tournament of any school in the Pacific-10 Conference this season, the women's basketball team had the best year in the classroom of any school in the Pac-10, too. The Sun Devils placed a program record eight players on the Pac-10's All-Academic Women's Basketball Team. See full story here.

Included among ASU's eight honorees are two first-team members (senior co-captions Aubree Johnson and Emily Westerberg), one second-team member (sophomore Kate Engelbrecht) and five honorable mentions (sophomore Briann January, junior Jill Noe, sophomore Danielle Orsillo, junior Reagan Pariseau and sophomore Kirsten Thompson).

Among the over incredible accomplishments this season:

• For the first time in school history ASU made its third consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Sun Devils’ No. 3 seed in the Greensboro Region was their highest ever placement in the NCAA Tournament.

• With 31 wins, the Sun Devils have won 20 or more games three straight years and five times in the last seven seasons. Only one other time in the program’s history have the Sun Devils had three consecutive 20-win seasons.

• For the second consecutive season the Sun Devils set the single-season school record for most Pac-10 wins with 16. Last season ASU won 14 Pac-10 games.

• ASU also set a new standard for most road wins in a season with 10. In fact, ASU is 14-1 in its last 15 road games going back to the 2005-2006 season.

• The Sun Devils advanced to the championship game of the Pac-10 Tournament for the third time in the tournament’s six-year history. Westerberg was named to the All-Tournament Team after averaging 12.3 points and 4.7 rebounds in ASU’s three tournament games.

• With 652 assists this season the Sun Devils set a school record for the third consecutive season. ASU entered the NCAA Tournament ranked No. 1 in the nation in assists. Last season ASU finished No. 4 nationally with 18.4 assists per game. In addition, ASU also finished the regular season (prior to the Pac-10 Tournament) ranked No. 5 in the nation in field goal percentage (.483), No. 11 in scoring margin (+16.3) and No. 14 in scoring offense (75.2). The Sun Devils finished the regular season atop all those categories in the Pac-10 in addition to free throw percentage (.737), three-point field goal percent defense (.276) and steals per game (10.17). They finished the regular season ranked No. 2 in the Pac-10 in scoring defense (58.9 points allowed per game), rebounding defense (33.4 rebounds allowed per game), turnover margin (+4.62) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.07).

• Westerberg became the first Sun Devil in school history to be named to the All-Pac-10 Team three times. Also earning All-Pac-10 First-Team Honors was Johnson. January earned Pac-10 Honorable Mention honors and Dymond Simon was named to the Pac-10 All-Freshman team despite being sidelined the second half of the Pac-10 season due to an ACL injury.

• Including this season, the Sun Devils are 80-22 (.784) since 2004-05.