MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – The Wisconsin women's basketball team dropped its Big Ten Conference opener, falling at No. 12 Minnesota, 74-56, Friday night at Williams Arena
It was a slow start for both teams, going scoreless for the first minute and a half of the game until a Minnesota jumper connected with the basket at the 8:22 mark of the first period. Wisconsin (9-4 overall, 0-1 Big Ten) was held to two points until sophomore
Niya Beverley sank both free throws (4-11) with 1:58 left in the first quarter.
The Badgers used a 7-0 run early in the second quarter to cut the Gopher lead to six (20-14) with 7:03 on the clock. Wisconsin kept the score within 10 points at the half (32-22) but four turnovers in the third quarter helped Minnesota take a 55-34 lead after three periods. UW cut the lead to 13 (61-48) off a
Kelly Karlis 3-pointer but that was a close as the Badgers would get.
UW shot 35 percent (21-60) from the field and outshot the Gophers from beyond the arc hitting 5-15 (33.3 percent) while Minnesota hit 39.7 percent (27-68) from the field and 25 percent from deep (4-16).
UW struggled from the free-throw line, shooting just 42.9 percent (9-21) while the Gophers hit 61.5 percent (16-26) from the charity stripe.
Wisconsin dominated off the bench with 24-9 points and out blocked the Gophers 6-3. Minnesota edged the Badgers 46-45 in rebounds.
The Badgers tallied 20 turnovers in the game as Minnesota had eight steals. The Golden Gophers had 13 giveaways as UW also had eight steals.
Gilreath led UW with nine points, all from beyond the arc. Freshman
Imani Lewis had team-high seven rebounds while junior
Kendra Van Leeuwen led the team with five assists.
Minnesota was led by senior Annalese Lamke, who shot a game-high 20 points, and junior Kehinde Bello with a game-high 16 rebounds.
Notes to know
- Minnesota scored a UW opponent season-high 74 points.
- The Golden Gophers picked up 20 points for the 2018-19 Border Battle.
- Junior Suzanne Gilreath scored her 500th career point in her home state
Straight from the court
"I felt that in the first six minutes we got good shots, but we weren't able to finish. We got shots inside five feet with shoulder's square. We have to be able to capitalize on those. I thought it kind of went up and down. We have to be able to finish on contact, especially on the road, it is the Big Ten. I thought that was the biggest difference in the second quarter. We continued to take the contact that helped us to the line. The zone was good to us there too that forced them to more perimeter shots.
"The turnovers really hurt us, obviously 20 turnovers and 10 assists, that is not what we have been about.
"We talked at the beginning of the fourth quarter that we could sit there and just start looking at Purdue or we can figure out how to win the quarter and play better basketball to carry that momentum into the next game. I thought they responded and we rebounded better in the fourth quarter."
-Head coach Jonathan Tsipis
Up next
The Badgers return home to the Kohl Center facing, Purdue on Monday for their last game of 2018. Tip time is 2 p.m.
