MILWAUKEE – The Wisconsin women's basketball team fell to Milwaukee (3-1) during Tuesday night's in-state rivalry game, 80-63, at the Klotsche Center.
 
The two guards for Milwaukee stole the show as senior Sierra Ford-Washington poured in 27 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field, with 16 of those coming in the second half. Junior Henny Lindner notched a double-double in the opening minutes of the third quarter, on her way to 28 points and 11 rebounds.
 
"We gave up 55 points to two players," UW Head Coach Jonathan Tsipis said. "That can't happen.
 
"They've got three really, really good scorers. They were versatile, they could put the ball on the ground, they could stretch it out. We just can't put ourselves in that deficit in the first half."
 
For the Badgers (1-4), Cayla McMorris also earned a double-double, leading the team with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
 
Sophomore Marsha Howard joined McMorris in reaching double-figures for Wisconsin, scoring a career-high 10 points during her first collegiate start.
 
"I thought she would be able to move her feet and match their aggressive mentality a little bit," Tsipis said.
 
Wisconsin hit 37.9 percent (25-of-66) from the field, and finally connected on its first 3-point attempt with just 46 seconds remaining in the contest to finish 1-of-10 from behind the arc.
 
Although the Panthers did not fare much better from the field on 41.7 percent (25-of-6) shooting, they hit 24-of-26 free throws (92.3 percent) and maintained a double-digit cushion for most of the game.
 
Turnovers also hurt the Badgers, as the squad gave up the ball on 17 different occasions, allowing Milwaukee to jump out to an early lead in the first quarter which they did not relinquish the rest of the game.
 
"You're not going to win a lot of games when you give up 80 points," Tsipis said. "It's unacceptable.
 
"We can win games like we did the other day when we keep teams in the fifties and be able to get through some type of drought. One of the strengths of our team is the ability to get to the free-throw line, and I thought we backed away from that in the first half."
 
The Panthers led 18-13 after the first period but outscored Wisconsin 11-4 to open the second quarter, taking a 29-17 lead with 5:26 to play in the half. UW cut the lead to six (31-25) behind four points from Gabby Gregory with just over three minutes to play but Milwaukee went on an 8-2 run to close the half.
 
The Badgers went into second half down 39-27, but a quick 5-0 run to start the second half cut the lead to 39-32 with 8:22 on the clock. Unfortunately, UW missed its last 14 field goal attempts of the period as Milwaukee went on a 16-6 run to lead 55-38 at the end of three periods. Wisconsin was not able to get the Panthers lead to less than 11 points the rest of the game.
 
"We've got to do a better job," Tsipis said. "We tried to change people and defenses, but we've got to do a better job as a staff of executing the game plan for our kids, and our kids have got to have more pride in that part of things to not let one person hurt us the way that they did."

Despite the loss, the Badgers still hold a 19-2 record against the Panthers in the all-time series.
 
UW heads to Las Vegas for the Lady Rebel Round-Up hosted by UNLV this weekend with a matchup against Ole Miss set to tip-off at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. Wisconsin faces either UNLV or Tennessee State on Sunday to conclude the tournament.