AMHERST — Allie Palmieri stepped into a 3-pointer and drilled it with 3 minutes, 37 seconds to go in the fourth quarter of the UMass women’s basketball team’s game against Davidson on Saturday afternoon – cutting the Minutewomen’s deficit to 10 points (48-38). They hadn’t played well offensively all game, but their defense continued to turn the Wildcats over and give their offense a chance to get back in it.

But as was the case all day long, UMass’ offense disappeared for a large chunk of game time. The Minutewomen were held scoreless the rest of the way and Davidson put up eight straight points to hand UMass a 56-38 defeat – snapping a four-game winning streak.

UMass’ 38 points were a season-low, and it was the Wildcats’ aggressive switching that flustered the Minutewomen’s offense. Many of their first-half possessions took the majority of the shot clock, and they only shot 26 percent from the field for the entire game.

“They guarded 1-on-1 in the post pretty well at times,” UMass head coach Mike Leflar said of Davidson’s defense. “I just thought their switching caused us to stand around. I was disappointed with that. We started to work on more movement within our offense, especially when we throw it into the post, and that didn’t carry over today.”

The switch defense also caused UMass to hold onto the ball at times instead of swing it around to make the Wildcats rotate and help. In Wednesday’s win over St. Bonaventure, the Minutewomen tallied a whopping 26 assists. But on Saturday, they had only eight.

Leflar has told his group that in order for them to take their offense to another level, quick, precise ball movement is required. That led to UMass’ second-most points in a game (81) on Wednesday, and the lack of movement brought a season low against Davidson.

“We played a lot of 1-on-1, the ball stuck,” Leflar said. “We’re coming off a game where we had 26 assists and the ball was moving. Obviously I know Davidson did a nice job defensively today, but there were still plenty of opportunities for the ball to move more than it did. And the ball wasn’t going in the basket. At times we got frustrated out there.”

At the break, UMass trailed 33-20 and only one player (Yahmani McKayle) had multiple field goals. McKayle went 4-for-11 and had nine points while nobody else had more than three points. Aside from McKayle, only Palmieri attempted more than three shots. The Minutewomen went 8-for-27.

And although UMass put together a nice 8-0 run in the third quarter that cut its once 15-point deficit down to seven (39-32) with three minutes left in the frame, the Minutewomen didn’t score again until the 6:57 mark of the fourth – allowing Davidson to build its lead back up to 13.

“We have another level to get to,” Leflar said. “And for us to do that, we have to do X, Y and Z offensively. We’ve started digging in on that stuff at practice, but against it certainly didn’t show on the court [today].”

Davidson led by eight entering the fourth, and UMass used its full-court press to turn the Wildcats over eight times in the final quarter alone. But once again, the Minutewomen’s offense let them down. They shot 1-for-10 in over the last 10 minutes of the game, and turned the ball over seven times.

The Wildcats coughed up 23 total turnovers on Saturday, yet the Minutewomen only turned that into 15 points.

They played well on the defensive end for the most part, except for Davidson’s 10 made 3-pointers – several of them uncontested.

“We weren’t scoring a whole lot, so our defensive mistakes get magnified,” Leflar said. “I was happy with the turnovers [we created], unfortunately we could never turn those into points or easy baskets. We didn’t do a very good job executing in transition and we made some poor decisions… The [defensive] mistakes we made were very controllable – when to double [team], when not to double, where to double from. They had a lot of open 3s and knocked down some important ones.”

McKayle finished with a team-high 14 points, Megan Olbrys scored seven and added five boards before fouling out and Palmieri tossed in six points for UMass. Stefanie Kulseza was held to 0-for-5 shooting from the field and scored two points.

The Minutewomen (13-11, 8-5 Atlantic 10) now hit the road for a pair of conference games, starting with Duquesne on Wednesday night (7 p.m.).

Minutewomen celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day

Despite the tough loss, UMass players and coaches went back out onto the floor as the team hosted an event for National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which was officially celebrated on Feb. 5. The Minutewomen shared laughs and a whole lot of fun as they made the experience enjoyable for every kid involved at Mullins Center.

“It’s really important to put a big smile on your face, because these kids come to support you all the time,” UMass junior Megan Olbrys said. “Win or lose, no matter what. It’s really important to me and I know it’s important to my team, too.”