Badgers Come Up Short Against Western Illinois
December 01, 2003 | Women's Basketball
A second-half Badger rally fell short as the University of Wisconsin lost to Western Illinois University 64-58 in the Kohl Center this evening. The UW is still looking for its first home win of the season and drops to 2-2. The Westerwinds even their record at 2-2.
WIU used an effective inside-outside game throughout the contest to down the Badgers. The Westerwinds outrebounded UW by six and held a decisive 19-11 advantage on the offensive glass. On the perimeter, Western Illinois made 38% of its three-point attempts to stretch out the Badger defense.
'The defense and rebounding efforts that we had in Miami [at the Thanksgiving tournament] were certainly not displayed this evening,' said Wisconsin Coach Lisa Stone. 'That's not to take anything away from Western Illinois. They played their hearts out. The fact is that we got out-rebounded and we didn't play defense. When our team can commit to that and put a string of defensive and rebounding efforts together, then we're going to be in a position to win.'
UW had the hot hand early, though, making six of its first nine field-goal attempts to post a 14-9 lead after eight minutes of action. The Westerwinds, who missed 13 of their first 16 shots, found their outside shooting touch and quickly closed the gap with a 5-0 run to tie the score at 14 points apiece at the 9:16 mark. The two teams traded baskets the rest of the way, and WIU went into halftime with a one-point lead, 32-31.
Western Illinois came out of the locker room strong and outscored the Badgers 11-4 to take an eight-point advantage, 33-25, after six minutes of action. Wisconsin recovered and stayed close the rest of the way, never trailing by more than eight points.
The Badgers rallied in the closing minutes and used a 6-0 run capped by a Stephanie Rich steal and lay-up to close to within two points, 56-54 with 2:21 left on the clock. A three-point basket by WIU's Rita Castans, one of her four for the game, pushed the cushion back to five points. The Badgers managed to cut the lead to three points twice down the stretch, but WIU was 5-8 from the free-throw line late in the game to preserve the victory.
'The bottom line is, our team's got to get better, ' analyzed Coach Stone. 'We've got to fight. We've got to protect our home court and have a much better effort, much better performance when we return.'
Ashley Josephson was the only Badger in double figures with 12 points. Stephanie Rich contributed nine points and a game-high eight assists. Jordan Wilson corralled a game-high eight rebounds to go along with eight points. Emily Ashbaugh and Ebba Gebisa each chipped in with eight points.
Orinta Kavaliauskaite came off of the bench to lead WIU with 15 points. Castans finished with 14 points, while the Badgers held pre-season Mid-Continent Conference player-of-the-year selection Tiffany Cornelius to six points on 1-8 shooting. Cornelius added eight rebounds to lead Western Illinois.
Wisconsin hits the road to take on Notre Dame University this coming Thursday, December 4 at 6:00 PM.
