No. 6 Arizona opened its game against No. 1 Stanford looking more than ready to take down the top-ranked team in the country, but that quickly faded as the Wildcats found themselves in an offensive rut while the Cardinal was able to find success on offense to blow open the game.
Ultimately, Stanford led by as many as 26 points and that deficit was too much for UA to overcome in what ended up as a 81-54 loss for the Wildcats at McKale Center.
UA (7-1, 5-1 Pac-12) jumped out to an 11-5 lead midway through the first quarter dealing the first blow in the game as the Wildcats forced Stanford into some difficult shots offensively. After the 3-pointer from Sam Thomas that gave Arizona the six-point lead, Stanford answered with a 13-0 run the flipped the game in favor of the road team.
The Wildcats scored just two baskets the rest of the first half allowing the Cardinal (8-0, 5-0) to extend its lead and put the game out of reach with UA eventually outscored 24-7 in the second quarter.
"We got punched in the mouth and then slapped up and down the court for 38 minutes," UA head coach Adia Barnes said about Friday's loss. "It should hurt. It should hurt because they made us look bad and we didn't help ourselves. We didn't play the type of defense we normally play but they played really good offense.
"... They're a better team right now. I feel like anybody's beatable. I feel on a good day they're capable of being beat. I feel like on a good day we can beat them, but it was a bad day for us. We played very bad."
Made shots were difficult to come by for Arizona after its initial burst to open the game making it a rough night for most of the team.
Thomas provided Arizona with a spark to open the game as she hit two 3-pointers in the opening minutes and ended up as the leading scorer with 14 points on four 3-pointers to go with five rebounds.
Star senior guard Aari McDonald finished just behind Thomas with 12 points, but she needed 18 shots to reach that mark. She also had five assists to lead the team.
Transfer guard Bendu Yeaney helped the Wildcats find some offense to open the second half and she ended up as one of the three players in double figures for UA as she finished the night with 10 points and a pair of rebounds.
"They baited us into taking tough shots," Yeaney said. "We took a lot of tough shots. In the first five minutes of the game we were playing our game. After that we started playing their game, and I think that's what really separated us and separated them."
The Wildcats had been preparing for Friday's matchup against the top-ranked Cardinal all season, but both Barnes and McDonald have continued to stop short of saying the team was ready to play its toughest opponent of the season this early in the schedule.
McDonald has been especially adamant that UA needed to continue to make improvements to take down a team like Stanford despite what was an undefeated start with a win over a top-10 team, UCLA.
The message from Barnes after the game was that the team needs to continue working on different parts of its game and regroup in a hurry with so many difficult games still remaining on the schedule this season.
"Just learning what it takes to beat a number one team in the country," Thomas said about what she learned Friday night from the loss to Stanford. "Obviously we didn't beat them, but just knowing we have to work on the little things and being able to play 40 minutes of good basketball in order to beat them."
Arizona will now have to shift gears and prepare to face Cal on Sunday as it looks to begin a new winning streak.
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