For the first time since Feb. 19, and second since Jan. 14, the women’s basketball team entered a game coming off of a win after a first-round upset over UCLA. Just like in Arizona’s previous two wins, the Wildcats faltered in the follow-up, losing to ASU 68-53, thus ending the season for the UA.

“I want to give a lot of credit to Arizona State for how they played the game,” head coach Niya Butts said in a press release.

Kimberly Brandon paced the Sun Devils with 15 points on 5-for-10 shooting, along with six rebounds, three assists, one block and one steal. For Arizona, Davellyn Whyte led all scorers with 17 points. Senior guards Shanita Arnold and Reiko Thomas combined to score 17 points in their final collegiate game.

“Our first half was certainly not one of our better halves,” Butts said. “We couldn’t get stops when we needed them and they shot almost 60 percent.”

After keeping it close for much of the first nine minutes of the game, once the score reached 18-13 with 11:26 remaining in the first half things started to fall apart. ASU went on an 18-7 run to close out the half with a 16-point lead. At one point during that run, from 5:05 remaining until 2:00, both teams went without scoring a single point.

In the second half, Arizona looked prepared to mount a comeback, as the Wildcats brought the score to within six points after a 3-pointer by Shanita Arnold with 11:33 remaining. In the end, Arizona just wasn’t able to muster up the energy to keep it close. ASU outscored the UA 25-16 to end the game.

“There is certainly something to be said for that but at the end of the day we didn’t do enough to get the win,” Butts said.