NO. 6 STANFORD 72, NO. 19 ASU WOMEN 65 Half-court shot steals momentum from ASU

Stanford’s Dijonai Carrington drained a half-court shot to close the third quarter Friday night, sucking enough momentum from Arizona State for the No. 6 Cardinal to escape with a 72-65 win at Wells Fargo Arena.

No. 19 ASU roared out of halftime with an 11-2 run, erasing most of a 12point deficit, and were within a point when before Carrington swished her buzzer beater for a 51-47 Stanford lead.

The Cardinal then scored the first six points of the fourth quarter, boosting their lead to 10, and ASU could only get as close as four in the final 3:45.

Down 64-60 after Charnea JohnsonChapman rolled in a hook shot following two misses, ASU got the ball back when Robbi Ryan stole the ball on top and streaked down court. Instead of taking a layup, she passed to Reili Richardson, who missed.

Stanford’s Alanna Smith, a WNBA first-round draft prospect, hit a 3-pointer with 2:05 left to clinch a win for the Cardinal (13-1, 3-0 Pac-12).

ASU (11-4, 2-2) now has lost by a combined 15 points to No. 2 Louisville, No. 4 Baylor and No. 6 Stanford.

Buzzer beater impact

ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said Carrington’s third-quarter heroic was not a back breaker but symbolic of what her team needs to do to beat elite opponents.

“That’s just indicative of our team right now,” she said. “Oh, we made a play (to get within one), take a breath. That’s not good enough to beat a Final Four caliber team. That’s our big challenge is consistency and sustaining things. It’s hard to do that. You’ve got to help each other, and that’s where we’ve got to grow.”

Johnson-Chapman, who scored a career high 16 points against Stanford for the second straight season, said of Carrington’s shot, “We didn’t really let it get us down. We just decided we need to not make mistakes like that.”

WNBA prospect scores 25

The 6-3 Smith had 25 points and six rebounds with Phoenix Mercury coach Sandy Brondello among 2,728 in attendance. Smith played for Brondello on the Australian national team at the 2018 World Cup.

“She’s a really good player,” 6-3 Johnson-Chapman said. “We just decided we needed to help each other. We fell short on that and even when we did help each other, she’s a really tough player so she can knock down some shots. We just have to do better at our assignments.”

Carrington had a double-double (17 points/11 rebounds) and Kiana Williams 10 points.