The Arizona women’s basketball team let a second-half lead slip away Sunday and fell to Washington 68-59 at McKale Center. With the loss, the Wildcats fell to 14-13 overall and 3-13 in Pac-12 play. Washington improved to 14-11 overall and 6-9 in league action.
"Obviously, we’re disappointed,” Arizona head coach Niya Butts said. "We felt that we had control of the game until about eight minutes left in the second half. Washington took a 3-point lead and we just couldn’t fight back. We didn’t have anything on offense, no stops on defense, and we just didn’t do what we needed to do. We let them have some wide open 3s, and we just didn’t make the plays we needed."
"We shot 25 (3-pointers) but only made four, and that’s tough,” Butts said. "Our mistakes really start mentally. We need to have an edge, but we just didn’t have it today. Losing the lead really deflated us, and we couldn’t respond."
Senior guard Shanita Arnold paced the Cats with 19 points, finishing 6 for 15 from the field, 3 for 7 from 3-point range and 4 for 6 from the charity stripe. She also had four steals, three assists and two rebounds in 38 minutes of play. Junior guard Davellyn Whyte had 16 points, nine rebounds and three assists, and freshman center Aley Rohde had 10 points, five rebounds and two steals.
The Wildcats had 18 turnovers, good for 12 Washington points. UA also lost the rebounding battle 48-36, and allowed the Huskies to collect 16 second-chance points. Arizona shot 30 percent from the field (18 for 60), 16 percent from behind the arc (4 for 25) and 70.4 percent from the free-throw line.
Arizona’s starting five included Arnold, freshman guard Erin Butler, Rohde, freshman guard Layana White and Whyte. Sophomore guard Candice Warthen had the most minutes off the bench with 22.
Senior center Regina Rogers led Washington with 22 points and seven boards. As a team, the Huskies shot 41.5 percent from the field (22 for 53), 43.8 percent from 3-point range (7-16) and 60.7 percent from the free-throw line (17 for 28).
