Women's basketball loses eighth-straight game to No. 21 Colorado

UA turns ball over 25 times in 55-42 loss

Arizona women’s basketball lost its eighth game in a row Friday and benched its star.
The Wildcats (11-13, 3-10 Pac-12) lost 55-42 to No. 21 Colorado (19-5, 8-5) Friday night at McKale Center.

“Obviously, it’s a tough loss,” head coach Niya Butts said. “I thought we did enough defensively, holding them to 55 points gives yourself a chance to win, but we didn’t do enough offensively to win the game.”

Senior guard Davellyn Whyte tied her season low of six points and after not going back on defense, was benched. Whyte has been battling injuries but was diving for loose balls earlier in the game.

“Dav[ellyn] has done a lot for this team, a lot for this program, and she knows what she needs to do,” Butts said. “When we make a mistake, we have to get back on defense and be able to move on to the next play. I think frustration got the best of her [Friday] night. We had to make some changes there.”

Butts’ press conference was delayed about an hour and players were not available for comment.
Whyte was 2-9 from the field, getting her six points off of a couple three pointers. She was 2-5 from beyond three point line.

The Wildcats only scored 36 points in their last meeting with Colorado and despite scoring 23 points in the first half, their score hovered in the 30s most of the second half.

“It was just tough for us to score,” Butts said. “We didn’t share the ball as well as we needed to. We had some spurts in transitions when we got some things going but just not enough to get the win.”

Junior guard Carissa Crutchfield and junior forward Alli Gloyd scored eight points and junior guard/forward Kama Griffitts had six rebounds.

The Wildcats forced 20 turnovers but coughed up the ball 25 to the Buffaloes. UA shot 32.6 percent, while CU shot 37.3.

UA’s last game against the Buffaloes was a 79-36 loss in Boulder, Colo., the start of the Wildcats’ losing streak.

“Certainly a much better showing than we had at their place, but we didn’t do enough offensively to win the game and we had 25 turnovers and they were very costly,” Butts said.

Arizona’s last win was over Utah, 62-58, Jan. 18 in Salt Lake City. The Wildcats will face them again Sunday at 5 p.m. at McKale, the annual Breast Cancer Awareness games. The first 500 fans will receive pink pom poms.

Utah (14-10, 5-8) handed ASU its sixth straight loss on Friday, 54-46.

The Utes game can be seen at http://pac-12.com/ScheduleResults.aspx#sportId=7.