SPORTS
Banks stands out in preseason win
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Also by Michael Poppy:
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- Guard tandem leads UW (November 14, 2006)
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by Michael Poppy
Monday, November 7, 2005
All of the off-season hype surrounding the Wisconsin women's basketball team was about 2004 Big Ten Freshman of the Year Jolene Anderson.
Sophomore point guard Janese Banks was lost in the shuffle, but made a name for herself Sunday in the team's season exhibition opener.
Banks led the way for the Badgers in their 98-56 win over the UW-Parkside Rangers with 30 points, five rebounds and three assists.
Even UW-Parkside head coach Jenny Knight admitted she knew little about Banks coming into the game, but was more than impressed with the impact she made.
"I didn't know much about (Banks) to be honest coming into the game besides a couple of films that I watched," Knight said. "She's a much better basketball player than she was last year, a better more complete player. She did a great job at the point guard position for them, really handled the ball well on the offensive end, was able to knock down open shots.
"On the defensive end she's so athletic and quick that she's able to put a lot of pressure on whoever she's guarding so she's a complete player," Knight continued.
While Anderson was the team's leading scorer a year ago with 17.8 points per game, she was still looking to get the ball in the hot hands of Banks.
"When you have Janese (Banks) over there going 11-for-15, she was kind of on fire," Anderson said. "Janese was shooting the ball well so (my goal was) to keep getting her the ball and have her go off."
Anderson displayed her strong passing skills in getting Banks the ball, and on a number of other passes, as she dished 6 assists.
Wisconsin ran into some trouble early in establishing its post presence with senior forward Annie Nelson collecting two quick fouls, but sophomore Danielle Ward stepped in off the bench and gave the Badgers the boost they needed on the block.
"I wanted to make sure I made a presence for the post players and to be able to go in there and box out, rebound, and get the ball to the guards," Ward said. "Just post up and make good moves, and be able to move around, and go to work without the ball and also with the ball."
Ward scored the team's first four points as Wisconsin went scoreless for the first three minutes, but then never looked back after capitalizing off of points in the paint (57-14), points off of turnovers (36-4), and fast break points (18-0).
"It's been a long time since we've shot over 55 percent from the floor and that came from attacking the basket as well as some defensive pressure," head coach Lisa Stone said. "We're trying to be more aggressive on the ball, our close outs still need a little bit of work, hands need to be up in the air, no coach can be satisfied this early in the season, yet I thought we rotated fairly decent, our help was there — it's early, but some good signs to work on."
In these first two exhibition games, Wisconsin will be trying to work their way into the new "swing" offense and while the Badgers' run-and-gun transition game in the victory may have overshadowed the offensive set, Stone is still stressing to get the ball into the post.
"A lot of our offense early on was off of defense," Stone said. "We went into transition, scored off of lay-ups, and got to the rim. We are charting post touches and the post doesn't have to be Danielle (Ward), it could be Jolene (Anderson) or Janese (Banks), just getting the ball in the paint. The whole thing is that our points in the paint can come from a lot of different people."
For Banks, the new "swing" offense may be what helped her most in achieving her career-high scoring game.
"(The swing) gives you a lot of versatility just to play on the wing and to go inside," Janese Banks said. "You know how your post players feel sometimes when you got to bang inside and you know how it feels on the perimeter. I think this has been implemented to help everybody's game, use everybody's versatility, and use what you've worked on all summer."
