After snapping its four-game skid on Friday, the Wildcats looked to sweep Cal and Stanford at home for the first time since 2004, but the lack of depth and size against the Cardinal was too much to handle.
The sixth-ranked Cardinal (19-2, 8-1 Pac-12), led by a 25 point, 19 rebound performance by Cameron Brink, dominated the Wildcats (11-10, 3-6) 96-64-Sunday afternoon in front of 7,692 fans at McKale Center.
This marks the seventh straight victory for Stanford over the Wildcats and third straight in Tucson.
"Stanford is a really good team," Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said following the loss. "They're big inside, two dominant post players that really impact the game. ... I'm proud of our fight, I'm proud that we didn't give up, we fought for 40 minutes."
The Wildcats, with once again only seven players, were led by junior guard Courtney Blakely, who scored a career-high 24 points on 11-for-20 shooting. Freshman guard Skylar Jones, who made her second career start, also scored a career-high with 12 points on 4-for-6 shooting.
"I think [Courtney] is playing with a tremendous amount of confidence right now," Barnes said. She's getting the opportunities, I think when you know you have more opportunities, you can play a little looser."
Barnes said that prior to the Friday-Sunday stretch of games, where Blakely totaled 31 points, she drover her to class and gave her advice that she applied.
"She's been more solid, not turning the ball over, and doing the little things. ... I said when you do those things, we play you more," Barnes added.
Arizona, despite shooting 50% two days prior, struggled to shoot the ball against Stanford, only going 37.7% from the floor.
UA spread the ball out well in the first half with six out of its seven players scoring but struggled passing consistently, surrendering eight turnovers.
The Cardinal’s size was too much for the Wildcats in the half, out rebounding them 26-12, 16 of which coming from Brink, leading to nine second chance points.
Foul trouble was an issue for the Wildcats, who were missing starting guard Kailyn Gilbert for another game, with three of their players picking up three fouls.
Brink and Hannah Jump overwhelmed Arizona in the first half, combining for 31 points on 11-for-16 shooting, helping the Cardinal jump to a comfortable 18-point advantage by halftime.
The Wildcats' shot was able to improve in the second half, with the team shooting 48.4% from the floor. However, the foul trouble continued to be an issue for Arizona with having three players, two of which are starters with four fouls entering the fourth quarter.
Isis Beh fouled out with five fouls in the fourth quarter in the 32-point blowout loss.
Despite the foul trouble, Jones said that she and the team were able to adjust to this by "playing hard no matter what the size of the lineup looks like.
"It doesn't matter if we have a lot of smalls, we have a lot of bigs out, we're gonna do our best to do what we can do with whoever is on the court," Jones said.
Stanford finished the game outrebounding UA 49-21 and outscoring the Wildcats 50-24 in the paint in the Cardinal's blowout win.
Although the mistakes, the Wildcats were still able to fair well defensively, cumulating 10 steals, resulting in 15 points off of turnovers.
Arizona will host its bitter in-state rival Arizona State on Feb. 4
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