Jan. 22, 2012

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Complete Stats

Postgame Quotes

Postgame Press Conference

TUCSON -The Wildcats won the battle at the boards, 51-30, an area where the focus was all week, but it wasn't enough as the University of Arizona women's basketball team fell to Colorado, 56-54, on Sunday at McKale Center. UA fell to 13-6 overall and 2-5 in league action. CU moved to 14-4 overall and 3-4 in conference play.

"I'm very disappointed in the outcome but we did better on the boards, outrebounding them by 21, but the 20 turnovers really hurt us," head coach Niya Butts said. "We just threw a lot of extra opportunities down the drain. We have to see if we can rectify our missed lay-ups. We missed too many tonight but it's difficult to get a better look that that. We just have to go back to the drawing board as coaches and see what we can do."

"We still have a lot of season left to play, and we just have to keep reminding the team of that, and that we as a coaching staff are confident in their abilities," Butts said. "We're going on the road to the Washington schools, and it's going to be difficult but I know if we stay focused and keep up our energy, we'll be able to have some success. The Washington schools are going to be aggressive because they see that we've been having trouble closing out games but we will continue to fight and play hard. It's not like these were blowout losses."

Senior guard Reiko Thomas led all scorers with 16 points on 5-of-11 from the field and 6-of-7 from the free throw line. She also had nine rebounds, one assist and three steals in 36 minutes of play. Freshman center Aley Rohde's 10 points was Arizona's only other double-digit scoring effort. She also had five rebounds, two assists and one block in 28 minutes of play.

Junior guard Davellyn Whyte paced Arizona at the glass with 11 boards, including seven on the offensive end. UA outrebounded CU, 51-30, including 25 offensive grabs and because of that effort, scored 12 second-chance points. The Cats gave up 20 turnovers and the Buffs scored 21 points off of the Arizona mishaps. Arizona shot 30.8 percent from the field (20-65), seven percent from three-point range (1-13) and 76.5 percent from the free throw line (13-17).

Arizona's starting five included senior guard Shanita Arnold, sophomore forward Erica Barnes, Rohde, Thomas and Whyte. Sophomore guard Candice Warthen had the most minutes off the bench with 22. She had eight points, one rebound and one assist.

For Colorado, Brittany Wilson was the leading scorer with 15 points and she was one of three with double-digit points with 12 from Jen Reese and 10 from Julie Seabrook. The Buffs shot 38.2 percent from the field (21-55), 11.1 percent from behind the arc (2-18) and 75 percent from the charity stripe (12-16).

UA will play next on Thurs., Jan. 26 vs. Washington, in Seattle.