Badgers Beat Ole Miss in Pepperdine Tourney
November 23, 2007 | Women's Basketball
The Badgers evened their record at 2-2 with a 74-57 win over the University of Mississippi (2-2) in the semifinals of the Pepperdine Tournament in Malibu, Calif. The Badgers will meet Texas-Arlington Saturday at 3 p.m. CST in the championship final. UTA was a 64-54 winner over the host Waves.
Senior guard Jolene Anderson made what might have been a close game into a laugher hitting three-straight 3-pointers to give the Badgers a definitive 33-14 lead with 5:59 left in the first half and put the Badgers in cruise control to the championship final.
Anderson's 3-pointers followed one by Lin Zastrow, who could not have found a better time to score her first collegiate points. The 6-4 freshman forward entered the game at the 15-minute mark of the first half after senior Danielle Ward got her second foul. Zastrow finished the half with seven points and seven rebounds. She had career-highs of 11 points and nine rebounds for the game.
Wisconsin took it at Ole Miss from the jump forcing nine early turnovers and collecting eight points off them while doubling up the score to lead 14-6 with 13:50 in the first. Mariah Dunham scored 10 of her 14 points in the first stanza and added eight rebounds. But it was Anderson who, although double-teamed, shook the Lady Rebels for 15 first half points and a game-high 19 points for the game and led in assists with five. It is the 93rd game in 97 career games she has scored in double-figures. Janese Banks was the fourth double-figure scorer for the Badgers with 11.
The Badgers led 47-18 at the half, and ran up a 35-point lead, 58-23, with 15:44 left in the game. The Ole Miss press and Wisconsin's liberal subsitutions helped close the gap to in the second half to the final 17-point difference, 74-57. Kayla Melson led three Lady rebels with 16 points.
The Badgers held a season high 58 rebounds to 34, and held the opponent to 33.9 percent. This is the fourth time in the past five years the Badgers have played in the championship final of their Thanksgiving tournament.
Quotes from Coach Stone:
"I'm very pleased with our team's focus, our decision-making, and our ability to take on a very athletic SEC team; commit ourselves to the boards and win the game. We got scoring from more than one, and contributions on the boards and scoring from Mariah (Dunham) and Lin (Zastrow).
"It was a little coming-out party for Lin in a good way. She has a lot of skill, a lot of gifts, and the more confidence she gets, the better she's going to be. She is a presence defensively, she's on the boards, she hit a big three, went inside, she can do a lot of different things. It's just a matter of time before she gets loaded with confidence and can take over. Danielle got in early foul trouble. I think she sat 15 minutes of the first half, so it's very important we get that contribution out of Lin and that she continues to grow both offensively and defensively."
