For the second straight outing, the Arizona Wildcats (11-8, 2-4 Big 12) controlled the scoring of a dominant post. In this case, it was seventh-year All-American center Ayoka Lee. Once again, the opponent just had too many other weapons as the No. 11 Kansas State Wildcats (18-1, 6-0 Big 12) defeated the visitors 62-47 on Thursday night.

“I’m proud of the way that we played after last game,” Barnes said. “We didn’t lay down, we didn’t give up, we took their runs. We started out the game really bad. We could have just laid down and we didn’t. So I’m proud of that.”

Lee averages 17.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. With sophomore forward Breya Cunningham on her for most of the evening, Lee scored just six points and had six rebounds in 20 minutes on the floor.

Lee did have a big effect on the game, though. The 6-foot-6 grad student tied her career high with eight blocks. The blocks affected more than just those eight shots.

“What I liked about it is she didn’t try to force them,” Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said. “She protected the rim. She altered a lot of our shots…She only had eight. It felt like she had 20. But that’s what great players do. When they’re not scoring, they’re not getting shots, they’re distributing the ball, protecting the basket. And she altered a lot of our shots at the rim. She had eight blocks, but I would say she altered another 15 shots where we were kind of scared.”

The blocks also frustrated Arizona in other ways. On several plays, Lee made considerable contact with Arizona’s shooters while blocking the ball but the whistles never came. She ended the game with no fouls.

“How’d she get away with it? I’m not sure,” said former K-State guard and current color commentator Missy Heidrick after Lee appeared to foul Cunningham on a block in the third quarter.

While Cunningham rarely shows emotion on the court even when the calls don’t go her way, it was clear that the no-calls were getting to Arizona guard Skylar Jones.

Despite the blocks and physical play, Arizona outscored K-State in the paint. Much of that was the doing of Isis Beh, who paced Arizona with 16 points on 5-for-8 shooting. Beh added six rebounds, two assists, and three steals.

On top of keeping Lee from running up her point total, Cunningham kept Arizona’s nose above water in the rebounding battle. While she only scored eight points on 4-for-14 shooting, she grabbed 10 rebounds to go along with three blocks and four steals.

“Breya’s had a really tough task,” Barnes said. “Last three games, she had Nettie Vonleh and Baylor…And then she had (Audi) Crooks of Iowa State, and then Lee. So that’s a tough three-game stretch, but where I’ve seen a growth in Breya’s game is defense. Last year, she would have got killed. She would have fouled out early in the game. I thought she did a great job of working early, deflecting passes inside, and she was solid. So I’m proud of that. But I think since she exerted so much energy in these games defensively, she was really tired and had a tough time finishing offensively around the rim.”

The only other Arizona Wildcat to score in double figures was Jada Williams. Williams had 11 points on 4-for-13 shooting. She hit one of two 3-point shots and both of her free throws. She also had four rebounds, two assists, and one steal.

Arizona came in as a 23.5-point underdog. Over the first five minutes of the game, it looked like that was generous. K-State took an 8-0 lead at 6:54 in the opening quarter. The score stayed that way until Beh finally put UA on the board at the 4:12 mark. Arizona went on an 8-2 run to trim the KSU lead to two points.

The quarter ended with K-State ahead 14-10. All but two of Arizona’s points were scored by Beh and Williams.

UA turned KSU over four times in the first 10 minutes after K-State committed just five turnovers in its previous game. The hometown Wildcats ended the game with 16 turnovers. Arizona had difficulty turning those takeaways into points, though.

“I felt like we weren’t ever sprinting in transition,” Barnes said. “I felt like a lot of times Jada had the ball, she’s faster with the ball than our wings are without the ball, so I have to address those things. And then getting Breya to the point where she’s rim running, but they’re so tired from banging on defense, they’re not running.”

Arizona held Lee scoreless in the opening frame. Someone else needed to step up. In came former Arizona Wildcat Gisela Sanchez, who went off for eight points in the first 90 seconds of the second quarter to put K-State up by nine again. KSU led by as many as 13 in the period and went into the locker room leading by 11.

The third quarter hasn’t been great for Arizona in several games this season. In its last outing, UA let a four-point deficit turn into nine points in the opening seconds of the third. That wasn’t the case against Kansas State, and it started inside.

Beh and Cunningham had Arizona’s first nine points. When Beh hit a layup at the 6:29 mark, the KSU lead was down to six points. At 5:28, Paulina Paris cut it to four.

Then, Lee’s blocks started to come faster. At 4:13, she blocked a shot by Paris that could have made it a two-point game. At 2:47 came the block of Cunningham’s shot that made the K-State color commentator question the officiating.

Arizona didn’t take care of things it could control, either. Missed layups. Failure to take advantage of transition after forcing K-State turnovers. Questionable shot selection. Still, UA was only down by six heading into the final 10 minutes.

The final quarter was similar to the first, providing bookends. KSU opened the frame on a 10-0 run. Arizona didn’t score until the clock read 5:24 when Paris hit a layup. That cut the lead to 14, but Arizona scored just six points in the final 10 minutes.

The box score shows a game that was much closer than expected and closer than the score suggests. Kansas State had a slight edge in every category, giving them just enough to pull off the comfortable win.

Both teams had two players in double figures, with Serena Sundell (17) and Temira Poindexter (14) slightly outscoring the pair of Beh (16) and Williams (11). Arizona won the steal game 12-6 while K-State won the block game 9-4. Arizona outscored KSU in the paint 28-20; K-State won the 3-point race 24-3. KSU was 8 for 13 from the charity stripe; UA hit 8 of 12 free throws. KSU outrebounded Arizona 37-34.

In the end, it came down to bench scoring and experience. KSU had eight of nine players put points on the board. For Arizona, it was seven of nine. But the home Wildcats had slightly higher totals than the visiting Wildcats. In addition to their double-digit scorers, K-State had four players score at least five points—Sanchez (9), Lee (6), Taryn Sides (6), and Zyanna Walker (5). UA had just two in Cunningham (8) and Paris (6).

“I think that they do have a lot of weapons, but that’s what good teams do,” Barnes said. “We had been a top team 10 team for many years, and I think when one person is down or shut down, someone else steps up, and that’s what great teams do, and they’re one of the best teams in the country, and they’re really good and really deep.”

Some of Arizona’s problems were the same ones that have occurred all season, but the coach sees improvement. Barnes also thinks it’s about more than just one or two players doing things they shouldn’t. In some cases, it’s the lack of aggressiveness by their teammates that can put other players in untenable situations.

“I think that it’s also hard because as you saw, it’s like they give the ball up fast,” Barnes said about her younger guards. “I think just with a young team, those are pressure situations, and a lot of people don’t want them in those situations. We saw how at times we turn and give (Williams) the ball in three, four seconds, and it makes her have to jack up a shot. And I think getting them to the understanding, the confidence that you don’t have to call an on-ball. You can go to drive and kick it, attack someone one-on-one to end the shot clock. It’s really hard defensively to stop someone without fouling at the end of the shot clock.”

Barnes is not looking for perfection right now. She wants to see progression, especially when she’s putting seven first- and second-year players against a team that played seven upperclassmen.

“So we’re better than last game,” Barnes said. “We’re holding it less, so we’re moving the ball a little bit more…Now it’s like, you get maybe 25 minutes of that. Now you try to get 27 and try to win games. I think we are young…We have to just be a little bit better. I think, a little bit more locked in mentally, to pay attention to the detail, because there’s small margins there, and we’re playing better teams.”

The goal is obvious. It’s about how to get there.

“We need to get Breya and Isis up at the same time, and then get some guards to hit some shots,” Barnes said. “So if anybody has the magic potion for that. We’re working on that. we are getting better, and they’re learning, and we just have to continue to stick with it and keep our heads up and get better during hard times.”