The Arizona women's basketball team dominated the battle on the boards Sunday, an area that was a focus all week, but dropped a 56-54 decision to Colorado.
UA fell to 13-6 overall and 2-5 in Pac-12 play with the loss, while Colorado moved to 14-4 overall and 3-4 in conference play.
Wildcats senior guard Reiko Thomas led all scorers with 16 points, going 5 for 11 from
the field and 6 for 7 from the free-throw line. She also had nine
rebounds, one assist and three steals in 36 minutes of play. Freshman
center Aley Rohde, who had 10 points, was Arizona’s only other double-digit
scorer. She also had five rebounds, two assists and one block in
28 minutes.
Junior guard Davellyn Whyte paced Arizona on the glass with 11 boards,
including seven on the offensive end. UA outrebounded Colorado 51-30,
including 25 offensive grabs, and scored 12
second-chance points. But the Wildcats gave up 20 turnovers and allowed
21 points off of those mishaps.
“I’m very disappointed in the outcome, but we did better on the boards,
outrebounding them by 21, but the 20 turnovers really hurt us,” head
coach Niya Butts said. “We just threw a lot of extra opportunities down
the drain.
"We have to see if we can rectify our missed layups. We missed too many
tonight, but it’s difficult to get a better look that that. We just have
to go back to the drawing board as coaches and see what we can do.”
The Wildcats shot 30.8 percent from
the field (20 for 65), 7 percent from 3-point range (1 for 13) and 76.5
percent from the free-throw line (13 for 17).
“We still have a lot of season left to play, and we just have to keep reminding the team of that, and that we as a coaching staff are confident in their abilities,” Butts said. “We’re going on the road to the Washington schools, and it’s going to be difficult, but I know if we stay focused and keep up our energy, we’ll be able to have some success. The Washington schools are going to be aggressive because they see that we’ve been having trouble closing out games, but we will continue to fight and play hard. It’s not like these were blowout losses.”
Arizona’s starting five included senior guard Shanita Arnold, sophomore
forward Erica Barnes, Rohde, Thomas and Whyte. Sophomore guard Candice
Warthen had the most minutes off the bench with 22. She had eight
points, one rebound and one assist.
For Colorado, Brittany Wilson was the leading scorer with 15 points. She was one of three player with double-digit points, as Jen Reese added 12 and Julie Seabrook had 10. The Buffs shot 38.2 percent from the field (21 for 55), 11.1 percent from behind the arc (2 for 18) and 75 percent from the charity stripe (12 for 16).
