The losing is getting old.

Kansas has lost four games in a row, five of its last six, and junior forward Danielle McCray is fed up. The Jayhawks have lost games they were expected to lose and games they should have won. They’ve lost because of poor shooting and they’ve lost because of turnovers.

But junior forward Danielle McCray said all the losses — including Saturday’s 73-60 loss to Texas A&M — share one trend. In all the games, the Jayhawks have beaten themselves.

“You can find some positives but when you lose because of yourself you can’t take anything positive from that,” McCray said. “I mean, I don’t know. Right now, at this point in time, you can’t look at the positives. You just have to find a way to win.”

After missing two and a half games with a Grade 2 concussion, junior guard Sade Morris started on Saturday against Texas A&M. Morris played 40 minutes and scored 11 points against the Aggies, but she did commit seven turnovers.

“She just penetrates and creates,” Henrickson said. “We just play differently than when we don’t have her in.”

Saturday’s game at No. 7 Texas A&M is the most recent example of Kansas’ miscues costing the Jayhawks a victory. On the road, against a top 10 team expected to compete for the Big 12 title, the Jayhawks controlled nearly every facet of the game for 32 minutes.

Kansas led 35-29 at halftime and perfectly pieced together coach Bonnie Henrickson’s game plan. For 32 minutes, the Jayhawks played better defense, shot the ball at a higher percent and outrebounded the Aggies.

“They turned it up at the 10-minute mark,” Henrickson said. “And when they did, we didn’t have the toughness to handle the pressure.”

The flaw that has most haunted Kansas, and the one that the Jayhawks said couldn’t persist if they were to compete in the Big 12, returned on Saturday.

Perhaps as much as any game this season, turnovers played a role, if not the role, in Kansas’ loss. A week after committing a season-low 10 turnovers against Kansas State, Kansas had 26 miscues — the second highest total this season — against Texas A&M.

“It was like the whole play in the first half kind of went down the drain,” McCray said. “We were playing so well and then all the turnovers ... we didn’t give ourselves a chance.”

In the first half, both teams turned the ball over at a rather high rate: Kansas had 12 turnovers before halftime; Texas A&M had eight. In the second half, though, the Aggies’ ball handling sharpened while the Jayhawks’ seemed to get sloppier.

That Kansas committed 14 turnovers in the second half is bad. That those turnovers sparked Texas A&M back into the game is worse. Three Kansas turnovers late in the second half fueled a decisive 11-0 run by Texas A&M.

“They turned up the heat,” Henrickson said, “and we didn’t respond.”

There’s little doubt that Kansas played better than Texas A&M for the majority of the game. But, down the stretch, the Jayhawks carelessness with the ball halted any chance at sneaking away with a victory.

On a night when Kansas made 56 percent of its attempts, the Aggies managed 17 more second-half shots than the Jayhawks — a stat that clearly reflects the impact of Kansas’ turnovers.

“Sometimes you just can’t control certain things,” McCray said. “But we can control these things. It’s just very frustrating. If we were just to focus a little more, we could control it.”

— — Edited by Realle Roth