Turnovers and game-long miscues plagued the Arizona State Sun Devils, who fell 71–62 to the BYU Cougars (13–2, 2–1 Big 12) in Provo on Saturday night.
Both teams forced difficult shots and committed frequent turnovers, but Arizona State (15–1, 2–1 Big 12) struggled to overcome its mistakes, resulting in its first loss of the season.
BYU dominated the rebounding battle, pulling down 54 boards overall. The Cougars repeatedly attacked the basket, creating extra possessions and securing multiple offensive rebounds on single trips down the floor.
BYU finished with 26 offensive rebounds, the fifth-most in program history.
“That is the stat of the game — 20 offensive rebounds or 20 second-chance points on 26 offensive rebounds,” head coach Molly Miller said. “That’s pretty fixable because that’s an effort-based statistic. I don’t like to be sitting here saying a lot of credit to BYU, but I also don’t like to be sitting here saying we got outworked — and they outworked us — on rebounds. That will be fixed.”
Miller added that blocking out, the final step of a defensive possession, proved to be the difference.
“We said our defense would win this game,” Miller said. “Now it’s ironic that the last part of defense is blocking out. I thought our half-court defense was fine. We did what we needed to do, but the very last thing to put the exclamation point on a good defensive possession is blocking out, and that’s where we lost the game.”
Arizona State also failed to get consistent production from key scorers, including junior guard McKinna Brackens. Coming off a career-high 31-point performance in a New Year’s Eve win at Utah, Brackens finished with 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting.
As a team, the Sun Devils shot 37% from the field (19 of 52) and 29% from beyond the arc (4 of 14).
Despite the loss, Arizona State held BYU to 25% shooting from three-point range, an improvement the team credited to an increased emphasis on perimeter defense in recent practices.
“We tried to do both — stop the drive, stop the shot, be a little quicker on our closeouts with high hands,” Miller said. “Palm before head. We did a good job of that.”
Miller emphasized that growth often comes through adversity, particularly in high-pressure environments.
“Obviously tonight wasn’t the result that we wanted at all,” Miller said, “but it’s a testament to our kids that now they’re playing in big games that matter.”
Arizona State will look to regroup when it returns home to Tempe for a matchup with the UCF Knights on Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 6:30 p.m.