Arizona women can't hold off Washington
TUCSON, Ariz. – Senior Davellyn Whyte scored 20 points Friday night, but the Arizona women’s basketball team fell to Washington 74-65 at McKale Center.
Whyte’s 10 points put her at 1,909 career points, the third-highest total in school history.
Junior Kama Griffitts added 15 points, while junior Alli Gloyd led all players with nine rebounds.
As a team, the Wildcats (11-9, 3-6 Pac-12) outrebounded the Huskies 46-33 and shot 32 percent from behind the arc, but they also committed 20 turnovers to the Huskies’ six.
“We didn’t play well defensively at all,” Arizona head coach Niya Butts said. “However, I thought offensively, we scored a little bit better tonight. We were able to make some plays, but we still had a little drought. We just didn’t get stops when we needed to get stops and turned the ball over too much.”
Arizona came out strong in the first half, running out to a 14-8 lead behind two Whyte 3-pointers, but Washington (15-5, 7-2) went on two lengthy runs and went into the locker rooms with a 39-30 halftime advantage.
In the second half, Washington extended its lead and led by as many as 17, but the Wildcats responded with a 9-0 run to narrow the score back to within seven. The Huskies would not let the lead slip away, though.
Kristi Kingma led Washington with 22 points, while Talia Walton had eight rebounds.
“We picked up the energy and came back within six points," Griffits said. "Once they hit a shot, it was like we broke down. We need to learn from that and not let that defeat us. One shot won’t win the game. We need to make sure we come back and play the best we can.”