SPORTS
Badgers hope to end recent skid
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by Michael Poppy
Thursday, December 8, 2005
The Wisconsin women's basketball team will seek to snap their three-game losing streak Thursday as they tip off against South Dakota State at the Kohl Center.
Though the Badgers have struggled in their past three games — against Big East teams DePaul, Marquette and Notre Dame — they will be looking to put the losses behind them and get back on track when they play a scrappy Jackrabbits team.
"They're not down about the losses," head coach Lisa Stone said. "They're excited to get back out there and I think having played the competition we've played thus far, you start off with four and now we've dropped a couple in a row, no one likes to lose, but they're reminded by the fact that they want that not to happen."
While the team has been banged up with three starters limited in practice — Janese Banks (head), Ashley Josephson (hip) and Kjersten Bakke (knee) — Stone is hoping the team heals soon, but now knows that her bench can step up if need be, as they did this past weekend.
"I think sometimes we can wallow in our sorrows with people being out," Stone said. "Injuries happen in athletics in every sport there is … we're not making any excuses. We're taking this as a positive and hopefully inflict our team with, again, more momentum."
Freshman forward/center Caitlin Gibson is ready to step up again if called upon, as she did in her start against Notre Dame. Gibson knows the injured starters are working hard to get back into the lineup this week.
"The girls that are out are working hard to get back in," Gibson said. "We're just stepping up and trying to fill their roles as best we can, but we want them back as soon as possible."
For Stone, the game against San Diego State will be a reunion with a close friend — SDSU head coach Aaron Johnston.
"Before they became a Division I program two years ago, he and his staff came up to visit with us," she said. "We see them out recruiting. They recruit the Midwest similar to us … and we've just become friends over the last few years."
Having known Johnston from recruiting, clinics and such, Stone knows what to expect from his team.
"He works hard and his players are very blue-collar," Stone said. "They work very, very hard. They all can shoot the three outside of [Christina] Gilbert and it'll be similar in a lot of ways I think to the Idaho State game and our preparation for that game out in Hawaii."
Judging from the scouting report, Gibson would concur.
"I know that they're a run-and-gun, quick, little team," Gibson said. "We faced a team kind of like them out in Hawaii with Idaho State; we've kind of compared them to them. They're just going to be quick and they've had a really awesome season so we have to be ready for them."
While the aforementioned Gilbert can't shoot the three, she is a force down low as she currently leads the Jackrabbits in rebounding with 6.5 per game as well as chipping in 7.7 points per game.
Junior guard/forward Megan Vogel, on the other hand, is completely capable of shooting from behind the 3-point arc as she has connected on 10-of-22 three-points so far this year and leads the team in scoring at 14.3 points per game.
Simply put, South Dakota State — a team that handily beat Nebraska in Omaha — will be a tough matchup for the Badgers, but will be a good barometer for Stone as Wisconsin prepares for Big Ten play.
"It's a game in that we need to play," Stone said. "They're an up-tempo, 3-point shooting team; they'll resemble certainly some of the shooting teams in the Big Ten."
Everything else aside, snapping their three-game losing streak is the Badgers' top priority Thursday.
"We're ready [to snap the losing streak]," Gibson said. "We want to win."
