MADISON, Wis. - Making its return to the court after a 14-day gap, the University of Wisconsin women's basketball team fell to Illinois, 79-63, Thursday night at the Kohl Center.

Julie Pospisilova paced the Badgers in points (18), rebounds (8) and assists (6) for the second straight game. Maty Wilke also reached double figures with 15 points, while Brooke Schramek added 11.

The Fighting Illini started out hot, going 3-3 from the behind the 3-point line and took an early seven-point edge at the end of the frame. Serah Williams had the hot hand to start, adding eight points on 3-3 shooting and all five starters got on the scoreboard.

The Badgers heated up offensively in the second quarter as Schramek paced a 9-0 run to make it a 30-29 game with 3:30 left in the half. Illinois countered and took advantage of free throws to pull ahead 38-32 at the break.

Illinois started the second half with an 11-3 run and the Badgers were unable to cut the deficit to single digits for the remainder of the game.

Straight From The Court
Head Coach Marisa Moseley
"I think we started off a little bit slow but then we were able to cut it to a six-point deficit at the half. I was really proud of a lot of the different things that we did tonight, but we didn't do a very good job taking care of the ball."

"I think we actually executed our game plan for the most part, but we have to keep them off the free throw line, they got to the free throw line 23 times."

Up Next
Wisconsin will hit the road again and head to West Lafayette to face Purdue on Sunday, Jan. 1.