IOWA CITY, Iowa – Sophomore standout
Sydney Hilliard continues to produce for the Wisconsin women's basketball team, breaking her career-high in points in back-to-back games. The 5-foot-11 guard led all players with 26 points in the Badgers' (1-1, 0-1 B1G) 85-78 Big Ten Conference-opening loss at Iowa on Saturday afternoon.
The duo of Hilliard and junior
Imani Lewis kept the game within single digits for most of the game, including tying the game at 41 in the third quarter. Lewis recorded her first double-double of the season with 17 points and 11 rebounds on the afternoon.
Wisconsin trailed by 14 points (35-21) with a little under five minutes to play in the second quarter before going on an 11-0 run over the next three minutes to cut the Hawkeyes' lead to 35-32 with 1:59 to play in the half. Freshman
Kate Thompson and
Brooke Schramek were key in the run, scoring four and two points respectively. Iowa got its lead back up to eight (40-32) with 13 seconds to go before graduate transfer
Estella Moschkau put the Badgers within five at halftime with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
The Badgers pulled even with Iowa (41-41) with under eight minutes to play in the third quarter but the Hawkeyes went on a 20-10 run to lead 61-51 after three periods. Iowa continued its rally, leading by as many as 19 points (74-55) with 5:49 left on the clock before Wisconsin started a comeback. Behind the play of sophomore Julie Pospisilova, who went three-for-four from the 3-point line in the second half, UW cut the lead to nine with less than a minute to play. It was too little too late as even a late basket by Lewis wasn't enough for the win.
Wisconsin held the Hawkeyes much below their season average of nearly 100 points per game but Iowa still managed to shoot 47.2 % (34-72) from the field, including 39.3% (11-28) from the 3-point range. The Badgers shot a season-best 43.5% (30-69) from the field, but just 19% (4-21) from deep. UW won the battle of the fouls, going to the free-throw line 19 times, making 14 for 73.7%, while Iowa shot just 54.5% (6-11).
The Badgers outrebounded Iowa 49-33 behind Lewis. Wisconsin scored 17 second-chance points as it pulled down 17 offensive rebounds.
Hilliard and Pospisilova both finished with near double-doubles. Hilliard added nine rebounds and assists while Pospisilova finished nine points and nine rebounds while contributing three assists.
UW turned the ball over 17 times, allowing the Hawkeyes to score 23 points off turnovers.
Straight from the court
"I'm proud because it was probably about the same spread in the fourth quarter a year ago and it ended up being a 26-point game (last season). We have to keep fighting until the final buzzer and I'm proud of the way our kids continued to do that. I liked our resiliency. We gave up some easy baskets I thought in the first quarter but then fought back to get it to five at halftime. You know Iowa is so potent offensively, they're going to keep coming.
"I'm really proud (that) we got some great contributions from some of our freshmen today. Halle's (Douglas) first opportunity on the floor, I thought
Kate Thompson gave us some good minutes especially in the first half, and
Brooke Schramek as well.
"Obviously we need Imani and Syd Hilliard to score it but we need other people to step in too. We did a great job on the glass."
- Head coach Jonathan Tsipis
Up next
The Badgers continue Big Ten action when they take on Rutgers at home at the Kohl Center on Friday. Game time is TBA.
