Turner Thorne gets 500th win in ASU WBB’s first 3OT game in team history
Jan 31, 2020, 7:14 PM | Updated: 7:17 pm
(AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
(AP Photo/Darryl Webb)
It took the first triple-overtime game in program history, but Arizona State women’s basketball head coach Charli Turner Thorne picked up her 500th career victory on Friday.
ASU beat USC 76-75 behind senior guard Reili Richardson’s career-high 24 points, 19 of which came in the second half and overtime.
Richardson hit the game-winning 3-point shot with 1.9 seconds remaining on the clock.
Senior guard Robbi Ryan had 11 points and senior guard Kiara Russell had 10 points. Freshman forward Eboni Walker tied her career-best 10 rebounds, according to ASU.
“I’m a big believer any close game, one-possession games, just makes you tougher,” Turner-Thorne said in a postgame press conference tweeted to the team’s account. “I almost think sometimes those games are more valuable than when you put a team away.”
Turner Thorne now has 460 wins in 23 seasons at ASU to go with her 40 at Northern Arizona, where she coached from 1993-96.
“It just makes you reflect on all the incredible players, incredible staff … It’s not my wins, it’s ASU women’s basketball program, and I was at NAU for three years, just all those people that were involved in that,” Turner Thorne said.
She said she doesn’t reflect much, but needed to after this milestone.
In the couple minutes she did during the postgame interview, Turner Thorne didn’t talk about the basketball court. She talked about the people she got to know along the way.
“Everything in life is relationships. It is — if your relationships are good, you’re good. If you’re relationships aren’t good, you’re not good,” she said. “When you reach a milestone win like this it gives you a chance to just really appreciate all the relationships that I’ve had through college basketball, at NAU but especially these last 23 years at ASU.”
