Familiar struggles plagues the UW women’s basketball team yesterday in their fifth loss in a row.

Washington (5-11, 1-5 Pac-10) discovered their offense a little too late in their 90-82 loss to USC (10-7, 4-20).

The return of freshman guard Kristi Kingma helped spark the Huskies’ 82-point effort.

“I honestly think that Kristi being in the game has a different element,” Washington head coach Tia Jackson said in a radio interview.

Junior guard Sami Whitcomb agreed, saying on radio that the presence of Kingma took pressure off of the other UW scorers.

“We were getting good shots, we were getting good looks, and they were starting to finally drop for us,” Whitcomb added.

Four Huskies scored in double figures: Whitcomb had 26 points, Kingma had 19, forward Mackenzie Argens, 10, and guard Christina Rozier, 10.

“This was totally, totally a team effort on the part of the players out there,” said Jackson of the UW offense.

The Huskies also seemed to have put their rebounding demons behind them. Both Jackson and Whitcomb said that USC is a good rebounding team, and the Dawgs out-rebounded the Trojans 50-42.

Despite the positives, the Huskies lost their fifth straight game, and the failure to get off to a quick start was a big reason why.

Right off the bat, the UW allowed the Trojans to score eight quick points in the first three minutes of the game, once again putting themselves in a quick hole.

By the end of the first half, the Huskies trailed 43-28, although the Dawgs attempted several comebacks to cut into the Trojan lead.

With 15:34 remaining in the first frame, the Huskies cut the Trojan lead to 10-7, the closest the Huskies came to a lead.

For every Husky chip-away, though, the Trojans struck back just as hard.

“The first half, we were giving them way too many easy shots,” Whitcomb said.

Failed UW uprisings were all the rage in the second half as well, when the Dawgs rallied to get within six points twice, the latest coming at 60-54 with 10:00 remaining.

However, the Trojans subsequently put away the Huskies for good with a 12-2 run late in the half.

“We talked a lot about putting two halves together; that’s one of the biggest things for us,” Whitcomb said of Washington’s competitiveness throughout the game. “I think we just got to come out the way we do in the second half, a little bit looser.”

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.