Game day preview: No. 18 Oregon women opens weekend in the desert against Arizona State

Oregon is on its first road trip of the Pac-12 season, a weekend that will include a showcase game against No. 15 Arizona Sunday evening. But first comes a matchup against struggling Arizona State, a team that allows more points than any other in the conference. That’s a good thing for the Ducks, whose 22-point average scoring margin ranks 12th nationally.

Center Phillipina Kyei has the fifth most rebounds in the NCAA at 166 and is tied for fifth with a per-game average of 11.9. Kyei, who also averages 8.1 points, had a career-high 20 rebounds against the Trojans on Sunday. It was the most rebounds by a Duck in a game since Jillian Alleyne had 21 against Arizona State on Jan. 29, 2016.

Reserve guard Taya Hanson spent four years at Arizona State before transferring to Oregon for her final season. She returns to Tempe coming off her best game as a Duck when she scored 17 and made 5-of-7 3-point attempts Sunday against USC. She scored 739 points and made 134 3-pointers during her Sun Devils career and currently ranks third among all active Pac-12 players with 165 career 3-pointers.

First-year coach Natasha Adair took over when Charli Turner Thorne — the second winningest coach in Pac-12 history — retired last March after 25 seasons. Adair got off to a good start as Arizona State opened 6-1, but it has gone 1-6 since, including Pac-12 losses to Arizona, Stanford and California by an average of 21 points.

At this point, the Sun Devils don’t do anything well. They allow the most points (74.0) and rebounds (41.6) of any team in the Pac-12, rank last in the conference in field-goal percentage (37.7%) and opponents field-goal percentage (44.3%), and are the only Pac-12 team with a negative scoring margin (-4.71) and a negative rebounding margin (-1.43).

The Sun Devils have the conference’s No. 2 scorer in junior guard Tyi Skinner, a transfer who followed Adair to ASU from Delaware where she played for two years. Skinner averages 20.4 points per game, though she is also the Pac-12 leader in turnovers with an average of 3.21 per game.

Scoring average: Oregon, 82.4; ASU 69.3

Opp. scoring average: Oregon, 60.4; ASU, 74.0

FG percentage: Oregon, 46.9%; ASU, 37.7%

Opp. FG percentage: Oregon, 36.9%; ASU, 44.3%

3-point FG percentage: Oregon, 38.7%; ASU, 28.7%

3-point FG per game: Oregon, 8.6; ASU, 5.1

FT percentage: Oregon, 69.9%; ASU, 73.5%

Rebounds per game: Oregon, 43.7; ASU, 40.2

Rebounding margin: Oregon, +10.4; ASU, -1.4

Assists per game: Oregon, 18.6; ASU, 10.1

Turnovers per game: Oregon, 12.3; ASU, 13.4

Turnover margin: Oregon, +2.3; ASU, +0.43