Despite forcing a season-high 26 turnovers and shooting 49.2% from the field last game, Adia Barnes and the No.12 Wildcats seemed out of order on both ends of the ball, getting dominated by Kansas 77-50 to hand them their first loss of the season.
This Arizona Wildcat (7-1) loss would give the undefeated Jayhawks (8-0) their first-ever win at McKale Center.
"They [Kansas] came in here and manhandled us," Barnes said. "They had a really good game plan. They executed, and they made it really hard for us to do a lot of good things. They outplayed us in every sense of the way. They out-muscled us inside.”
In Arizona’s biggest test this young season, senior Cate Reese score a team-high 14 points and dominated the glass with eight rebounds, including five offensive rebounds.
Coming off a season-high 27 points against the Lobos, guard Jade Loville was not as dominant against the Jayhawks, struggling to get her shot going in the ladder half of the game, shooting 5-of-13 from the field finishing with 13 points.
Arizona had a difficult time dealing with interior defense —primarily on the glass against a larger framed team, losing the rebounding battle 51-31, including 19 offensive rebounds, with 12 coming in the first half.
“This is a game that is going to happen,” Barnes said. “I’m not worried about the loss, I’m worried about the fashion in which we lost. “Its better to foul out boxing out then to let someone do what they want.”
Kansas was able to get inside the paint easily with 51 points against a Wildcat defense that only allows 34 points in the paint per game.
"I don’t think we’ve ever given up 50 points in the paint at home,” Barnes said. “It’s embarrassing, Kansas did it to us.”
The Jayhawks stunned the Arizona defense shooting 46% (29-of-69) from the field against a defense that only allowed 40% prior to tip-off.
“You gotta communicate,” Barnes said. “You have to communicate when you are switching, you have to communicate when your help side, you have to talk and I think that we don't have that yet."
After limiting Taiyanna Jackson to four points in the first half, the Wildcats had no answers for the Kansas center allowing 15 points in the second half, with multiple miscues and mismatches that were taken advantage of. Jackson finished with a double-double with 19 points and 15 rebounds.
Moreover, the Wildcats won the turnover battle 17 to 11, but it was the Jayhawks that scored five more points off turnovers 16 to 11 as Arizona missed some easy layups throughout the night.
Averaging 88.1 points per contest, the Wildcats did not play as sharp offensively only shooting 31% from the field including going 9-for-34 in the first half against a stagnant Kansas team that only allows 53.3 points per contest.
The Wildcats had no response offensively in the second half, continuing to shoot on a downward trend, going 1 of 7 from behind the arc in hopes of clawing back against a relentless Kansas exterior defense.
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