As the Wisconsin women’s basketball team opened its Big Ten season Monday, it had a similar result to its actual season opener at South Dakota State: a loss.
Despite rallying back from a 20-point deficit, the Badgers could never get closer than within nine points in the second half as Iowa defeated Wisconsin 73-63 at the Kohl Center.
Monday’s loss was the Badgers’ first at home and their first since losing at SDSU, snapping their 10-game winning streak.
“This is one game, and it’s one game that we’ll learn from,” UW head coach Lisa Stone said. “We made a valiant effort late, it’s just that we started playing good basketball too late [and] we dug ourselves too big of a hole.”
The game was back-and-forth early, with the Badgers trailing 9-7 at the first media timeout. They would never get closer, however, as the Hawkeyes used a 9-0 run from that point to take control of the game.
After Wisconsin cut the lead to 18-13, Iowa went on another run, a 7-0 run, giving them a 25-13 lead with 6:48 remaining in the half. The teams would go back and forth the rest of the period, with Iowa taking a 12-point lead to the locker room at 35-23.
The difference in the first half came down to shooting percentage. The Badgers hit just 10-of-33 (30.3%) from the field in the period compared to 13-of-23 (56.5%) for the Hawkeyes. Iowa also held a 6-1 advantage from the free throw line, hitting on all six of their foul shots.
“I thought we executed pretty well and got some good looks early on,” Stone said. “We may have rushed some…but as [Wendy] Ausdemore catches it and it’s going off her hands before she catches it and down it goes, you want to go back and get it back in a hurry.”
Ausdemore, a senior forward and Iowa’s third leading scorer, led all scorers in Monday’s game with 20 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field, including 4-for-5 from beyond the arc.
The Hawkeyes had four other players reach double figures Monday. Center Megan Skouby added 14 points, guard Kristi Smith had 13 and forward JoAnn Hamlin added 10 points.
In the second half, Wisconsin came out strong, with the hopes of cutting the lead in half before the first media timeout. The Badgers were only able, however, to cut the lead to 11 points as the Hawkeyes continued to shoot well.
Over the first nine minutes of the second half, Iowa outscored Wisconsin 21-13 to extend its lead to 20 points, its largest of the night at 56-36. Following the second media timeout of the period, the Badgers finally found their defense, taking control of the game on an 11-2 run to cut the lead to 58-47.
Following that run, the Hawkeyes reeled off six in a row to push the lead back to 17 points with just under 4 1/2 minutes remaining. The Badgers picked it up again, going on an 8-0 to cut the lead to just nine points with two minutes remaining.
However, a Skouby jumper on the next Iowa possession killed the momentum for UW, allowing the Hawkeyes to come away with the 10-point victory.
“We kind of felt like our momentum was finally going to switch our way,” UW guard Alyssa Karel said. “Whenever a player hits a big shot like that, it always gets you down a little bit and wee couldn’t turn it around again."
"The game is a game of momentum and we wanted to keep the momentum going our way more than their way and tonight we just couldn’t get it done.”
Karel was one of three Wisconsin players to reach double figures Monday, contributing 11 points on 5-of-12 shooting and 1-for-4 from three-point range.
Forward Lin Zastrow led the Badgers with 18 points, hitting 6-of-11 from the field and a pair of threes; forward Mariah Dunham added 14 points for UW on 4-of-11 shooting and 2-for-6 from beyond the arc.
As a team known for its defensive ability, to give up 73 points in a game is never desirable. Following a week off for finals, the Badgers were unable to stop the Hawkeyes, who won Saturday at Drake, from hitting their shots.
Similarly to the SDSU loss, Wisconsin will go back after a few days off for Christmas and work on a reemphasis on its defense as it gets ready for Minnesota on December 29.
“It felt very similar [to South Dakota State],” junior guard Rae Lin D’Alie said. “[We need to] come back and just reemphasize our defense and just regroup and let each other know that our defense, that’s our identity."
"Plain and simple, if we’re going to win some games, our defense has got to show up.”
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