Wisconsin Beats Illinois-Chicago 75-53
December 07, 2006 | Women's Basketball
The Wisconsin women's basketball team (9-1) had four players score in double figures to beat Illinois-Chicago 75-53 Thursday at the Kohl Center. Junior forward Danielle Ward paced the Badgers with a team-high 13 points. Ward also was just one rebound shy of her second double-double of the year.
Aiding Ward was Janese Banks and Mariah Dunham, who each scored 12 points for the Baders. Junior Jolene Anderson pitched in 10 points and dished a team-best five assists along with Rae Lin D'Alie.
Although Wisconsin struggled a bit on defense, its strong rebounding effort helped. The Badgers pulled down 41 boards and allowed the Flames to grab just 23 boards. The team 's shooting also was solid as the Badgers finished the contest with a 48 percent average from the floor.
Wisconsin led by 17, 36-19, at halftime. Illinois-Chicago would only get within 14 points with 17:38 to play in the game.
The Badgers jumped out to a 9-2 lead to open the game, but UIC fought back and scored six straight points to come within one, 9-8, with 14:34 to play in the first half. After that, Wisconsin answered with an 8-0 run to take a 17-9 lead with just over 10 minutes to play in the period.
Wisconsin freshman Brittany Heins also had a solid effort off the bench for head coach Lisa Stone, scoring a personal-best seven points. Heins also hit her first career 3-pointer against the Flames. Rae Lin D'Alie also finished with seven scores while Caitlin Gibson added eight points for the Cardinal and White.
LaShonda Grant led Illinois-Chicago (3-5) with a game-high 20 points.
The Badgers will play host to Albany at 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Kohl Center.
Post-Game Notes
'Tonight's attendance was 4,523.
'The Badgers lead the all-time series with Illinois-Chicago 13-5, including an 8-1 advantage in games played in Madison. The meeting tonight was the first since 1994.
'Wisconsin is an undefeated 6-0 in the Kohl Center this season. The last time the Badgers were 6-0 at home was the 2001-02 season. That team won its first nine games at home.
'With a 41-23 advantage on the glass against the Flames, Wisconsin has outrebounded all 10 opponents this year.
'The Badgers are on record pace in allowing opponents the fewest points scored in program history. The lowest season average was 53.3 during the program's first season in 1974-75. Following the game with Illinois-Chicago, Wisconsin is allowing 51.2 points per game.
'Rookie Brittany Heins hit her first career 3-pointer tonight and finished with a season-high seven points.
'It was announced prior to tip-off that sophomore forward Christine Spencer is scheduled to have hip surgery later this month and is out indefinitely.
Post-Game Quotes
WIsconsin Head Coach Lisa Stone
On the game being a good one and at a good time in the season: 'Well, lot's of teaching points (from the game). I mean, defensively we were disappointed. We gave up 53 points. We talked about keeping it under 50. We had no energy out there tonight and I don't know what it's like to see our team that way. Generally defense leads us to offense. Again, I just told the kids that we are 9-1. Remember where we are at right now, and we will go back to work tomorrow and be even better on Sunday. But the timing on this game was good. I give UIC a lot of credit. They disrupted us. They really did. They played really good defense. They rattled us up a little bit. They drove hard to the basket, and we had some difficulties in that regard. Also, I think we hit every screen they set. We ran into every screen. So we will look at this tape and take it as a teaching moment. But I'm proud of our kids. Jolene Anderson had the flu. She was out all day yesterday and we nearly had to have an IV put in her before the game, so she played pretty well. Again our team lacked a little energy, but we got the win and did some good things when we needed to.'
On her players being balanced from top to bottom, with four players hitting double figures tonight: 'And 19 assists. I mean we have 19 turnovers. But it's balanced because we had 19 assists and 19 turnovers. We made some poor decisions. And our kids need to know that we are not mad at them personally. It's time to teach and get a little bit better, and bring a little bit more energy. And again our kids are dealing with everything everybody else is from the rigorous schedule, to preparing for finals, to a lot of things. But, no excuses. We need to be better defensively and have a little bit more energy. Offensively we whipped the ball all over the place tonight and fortunately we were able to come up with some lucky breaks. Some of those passes just ended up in our hands and that is not always going to happen. So, we need to execute better offensively, take better care of the basketball and energize the defense just a little bit.'
On playing 10 games already and playing three more games before break: 'Well, we did that on purpose. Traditionally we had a game December 22 or 23 and allowed our fans a nice little holiday treat to come to the Kohl Center to watch us play. But it is at the end of finals, and remember I have eight brand new players. Six of them are freshmen, and they are going through their first round of tests, projects and finals. We need the break. So, we will continue on our NBA schedule and continue to get better. We will use that time'one, to make sure we prepare for finals, and two, to tune up a little bit and watch some film and do some individual work with our players. We keep encouraging them. Again they are a great group. They really are. And they are disappointed in their performance tonight from the standpoint of what they know they can do. And that's a good thing to come out with a `W' still on top of it.'
UIC Head Coach Lisa Ryckbosch
Opening Statement: 'It's tough to compete in a game when you give easy opportunities away, and really that's been the strength of this team (Wisconsin), I think. Looking at the Kansas game, I think 57 of their 68 points came off of transition buckets, second shots and turnovers, and coming into this game what we told our kids was (that) those are the three things you have to take care of to have a chance to compete. We didn't do that in the first half and dug ourselves a hole and did a little better job of that in that second half, which is why we were a little bit closer. But it's tough to do that when you give those easy ones away, and it's a credit to Wisconsin to be able to create those easy ones for themselves.'
On Wisconsin's balance being a strength: 'Their ability to go get easy baskets ' that comes to everyone on the floor. That's not just for Jolene (Anderson). The fact that they have that many weapons, certainly we're outmanned in terms of our size and to be able to have a front line like theirs, we're not going to really see that again this year. Certainly that makes it that much tougher to stop any one individual if you have that many people that can go score for you.'
