Arizona women’s basketball lost its fifth game in a row, letting Washington State go on a 17-7 run to end the game, resulting in a 60-50 loss for the Wildcats.

“We didn’t do what we needed to do down the stretch,” head coach Niya Butts said. “We didn’t stay together as a team, offensively. We had a ton of turnovers, you can’t do that and win the basketball game. We have to stay with it, go back to the drawing board and see what we can do the second time around.”

Junior Alli Gloyd had her first double-double of the season, scoring 13 points and grabbing 12 rebounds, and senior guard Davellyn Whyte scored 17.

The Cougars (8-13, 4-6 Pac-12) turned the ball over 25 times but out rebounded Arizona (11-9, 3-7 Pac-12) by 13.

“We just weren’t focused, all the way around,” Whyte said.

UA led early, but a 5-0 run by Washington State halfway through the first half gave them a 13-12 lead. The Wildcats led 27-26 at the break though.

Junior guard Kama Griffitts said this loss stings more.

“Yea personally for me I think it does and for my other teammates’ reactions, it seems like it does sting more,” Griffitts said.

Arizona’s last win was at eleventh place Utah, 62-58 on Jan. 18.

“We didn’t stay together as a team, offensively,” Butts said. “We had a ton of turnovers, you can’t do that and win the basketball game. But, we had our chances. We went into the bonus early in the second half and got nothing from it.”

Whyte tied it at 43-43 with a three pointer, but after that the Cougars pulled away.

“We just couldn’t get stops,” Whyte said. “When you don’t get stops it messes up your offense, so it kind of escalated quickly”
On Friday, Arizona lost 74-65 to Washington.

Whyte scored 20 points against UW and moved into third on the UA career scoring charts. Despite being injured, Whyte had her fourth highest scoring out put of the season.

She had to leave the game and the bench area, but had less of a limp on Super Sunday.

After the Washington State game Whyte said she was feeling better.
Arizona wore its regular road reds against UW in honor of national “Wear Red Day,” which is to create awareness about heart disease, the No. 1 killer of women. Butts wore a red jacket and Washington coaches wore red ribbons.

“We wanted to make sure that we let people know that we were part of that fight,” Butts said. “We always want to make sure our teams are socially aware of what’s going on in the world and not just about basketball; but also understand that we have a stage here and what better way to show our support than to wear red?”

Up next for the Wildcats is a road trip to the Bay Area schools, the top two teams in the Pac-12, this weekend.