Coach Adair and her Sun Devils have come through a ton of adversity this preseason. They've come out of it as a tight-knit, determined, enormously improved team. The new coach took over in April from Charlie. The adversity started then and hasn't let up. She preaches toughness, grit, determination, and togetherness - and her young team has taken her sermon to heart. Although they've rarely had enough healthy players to scrimmage or walk through their next opponent's offense - they've won five hard-fought games and given a great account of themselves in their loses. Against Notre Dame in the Bahamas they were up by three with three minutes to go in the third quarter, but couldn't withstand the Fighting Irish's furious rally down the stretch. They came out of that game knowing they could go toe-to-toe with a top ten team.
On Saturday we have an unranked .500 team coming to Maples, but let me tell you - they've got the heart of a wounded lion and they'll fight like one - tooth and nail.
On Monday we get the 10 and 1 Wildcats. They recently trounced Baylor by twenty-one down in Texas. Jade Loville is a grad transfer from ASU and is their leading scorer. She plays like her dad, a three-time Super Bowl champion.
Maya Nnaji is a 6'-4" freshman who is the highest ranked recruit in program history. She was the ninth ranked player in the 2022 class. In the preseason she has averaged fifteen minutes per game, seven points and seven rebounds.
Esmery Martinez had 15 rebounds against Baylor. Helena Pueyo is a candidate for sixth-player of the year. The team had eight threes and Jade had four of them.
We're almost too familiar with Pellington and Reese and the rest of the Wildcats. Monday will be one of our toughest conference contests.
COME ON CARDINAL - LET'S ROLL!!
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