Sun Devil women's basketball comes up short against No. 21 Colorado

The Arizona State women's basketball team came up short in its bid to upset No. 21 Colorado, Feb. 17, as the Buffaloes used a second half rally to come away with a 71-63 win.

Promise Amukamara, Janae Fulcher, and Adrianne Thomas scored 14 points each for the Sun Devils (11-15, 3-11 Pac-12), who led by as many as 12 points on two occasions.

The Buffaloes (20-5, 9-5 Pac-12) used a 16-1 run in the second half to take control of the game. Jen Reese came off the bench to score a game-high 22 points. Also scoring in double figures for Colorado were Arielle Roberson (16 points) and Chucky Jeffery (12 points).

Colorado outrebound ASU 50-35, including a 23-14 advantage in offensive rebounds, which led to 23 second-chance points for the Buffaloes.

The Sun Devils return to action on Tuesday (7 p.m.) when they travel to Tucson to battle in-state rival Arizona. It will be the first of two meetings between the Sun Devils and Wildcats over the course of six days with the rematch taking place next Sunday (1 p.m.) in Wells Fargo Arena.

Notes

• ASU’s 63 points represented only the seventh time this season and the third time in 16 games that a Colorado opponent has scored 60 or more points. Colorado came into the game giving up a Pac-12 low 52.0 points per game in conference games. Stanford (69 points) and UCLA (62 points) are the only other Pac-12 schools to score 60+ against the Buffaloes.

• The eight-point loss to Colorado represents the seventh time this season that ASU has lost by eight or fewer points. Three of those losses came to ranked teams (current AP ranking): vs. Dayton (17) - 59-65 on Dec. 2; at UCLA (15) - 50-54 on Jan. 27 and vs. Colorado (21) - 63-71 on Feb. 17.

• Redshirt senior forward Janae Fulcher, junior guard Adrianne Thomas and sophomore guard Promise Amukamara scored 14 points each for the Sun Devils, who led Colorado by as many as 12 points. Amukamara came one point short of tying her career high in scoring while Thomas came two points short of tying her career high. 

• Redshirt junior center Joy Burke grabbed 10 rebounds on Sunday. It’s her second straight game with 10+ rebounds after recording 11 vs. Utah on Friday. Burke now has six of ASU’s seven highest single-game rebounding efforts this season.

• With 13 turnovers on Sunday ASU has now had 14 or fewer turnovers seven times in its last 12 games, including a season-low 10 turnovers on two occasions.