The beginning of the college basketball season is here and fans of the Arizona State Sun Devils womens basketball team should be delighted to see Charli Turner Thorne continue her tenure with the team. The wildly popular coach, Turner Thorne has made ASU one of the premier schools in the Pac-10/Pac-12 conference and a mainstay in postseason play with multiple trips to both the NIT and NCAA Tournaments. She’s also the winningest coach in program history. The longtime Head Coach will be entering her 25th season in charge of the Sun Devils.
Prior to her arrival at Arizona State, Charli Turner Thorne’s coaching resume was soft. She started out her college coaching career as a grad assistant for the Washington Huskies from 1988-1990 before being hired as an assistant coach for the Santa Clara Broncos from 1990-1993. Turner Thorne’s first Head Coaching gig came when she was hired for the vacancy at Northern Arizona University in 1993. She coached at NAU through the end of the 1995/96 season. The Lumberjacks went 40-40 (18-24 against Big Sky Conference opponents) under Turner Thorne’s leadership and they missed out on postseason play in all three seasons.
Arizona State womens basketball was a small program at the time they hired Charli Turner Thorne and certainly wasn’t expecting Turner Thorne to turn it into a perennial contender year-in and year-out. The first three years under Turner Thorne’s leadership were difficult for the Sun Devils. They went 9-19 (3-15 against Pac-10 teams) landing them a 9th place finish in the Pac-10 for the 1996/97 season. The Sun Devils followed that up with a 10-17 season in 1997/98 (6-12 against Pac-10 Teams), and a 12-15 season in 1998/99 (6-12 against Pac-10 teams). Turner Thorne’s Sun Devils appeared in a postseason tournament for the first time in the 1999/2000 season with a trip to the NIT after going 14-15 (7-11 against the Pac-10) and 7th in the conference. The Sun Devils followed up that season with an impressive 20-11 record (12-6 against the Pac-10) with a share of the 2000/01 Pac-10 regular season title. Turner Thorne won Pac-10 Coach of the Year that year. Turner Thorne led the Sun Devils to victory in the Pac-10 tournament in 2002 with a regular season record of 25-9 (12-6 against Pac-10 Teams), which resulted in a 2nd place finish in the 2001/02 regular season. The Sun Devils were also regular season Pac-12 co-champions in the 2015/16 campaign that saw the team finish 26-7 overall (16-2 against Pac-12 teams). Turner Thorne was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year for her efforts that season. Charli Turner Thorne has won 476 games overall with 243 wins against the Pac-10/Pac-12 as Head Coach of the Sun Devils. The Sun Devils have been to the NCAA Tournament 14 times, and the NIT five times in her first 24 seasons.
Charli Turner Thorne’s 25th season with the Sun Devils tipped-off against Northern Colorado on November 9th in Tempe with the Sun Devils winning 71-41.
