Sports

Balanced scoring attack leads Badgers over Falcons

With four players scoring in double digits, the Wisconsin women's basketball team exhibited a balanced scoring attack en route to a 74-60 win over Air Force at the Kohl Center Sunday.

Sunday's game was an example of the team play that Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone had been looking for all season. With the game being delayed due to travel difficulties for Air Force — it was originally scheduled for Saturday — the Badgers had to overcome more than just the Falcons.

"[The game being postponed] does have an effect, and I'm not a person who makes excuses, but I did think it had an effect on our team," Stone said. "We were very sharp and crisp yesterday, and it had an effect here today, but again, I give our team a lot of credit. We had some good people off the bench, and some good energy."

The Badgers looked strong in the third game of their long five-game home stand, and took control of the game right from the start.

Wisconsin jumped out to an early 15-6 lead with 15:51 left in the half to set the tempo for the game, getting every player involved on the offensive end of the court. The Badgers took advantage of eight Air Force turnovers to take a 10-point lead going into halftime.

Danielle Ward stepped up for UW in the first half, leading the team with 10 points before the break. Jolene Anderson and Tara Steinbauer each added nine heading into the break.

"One of the biggest things is [that] we were going to try to keep Jolene Anderson under her average," Air Force head coach Ardie McInelly said. "It looks like we did that, but allowed other people to step up and play really well."

Air Force came out in the second half looking to fix its lack of defensive adjustments and displayed its shooters' talents, bursting out of gates with a 10-6 second-half run to cut the lead to 49-43 with 13:55 remaining.

Nevertheless, Wisconsin showed Air Force and the Kohl Center crowd the extent of its ability to score from every angle of the court.

Defense was the problem for UW to start the second half, but Stone’s team quickly adjusted. After Air Force cut the lead to six points, the Badgers stepped up their defensive play to bring their lead to as many as 18 points.

"I think that Lisa Stone just decided, 'Hey, this isn't going to work. You guys better pick up on the defensive end,'" McInelly said. "They did, and I think that certainly we didn't do a very good job of executing our offense against their pressure."

Wisconsin played consistently toward the end of the game and maintained its significant lead to eventually win by a 14-point margin.

Air Force had three players record double figure point totals, led by forward Alecia Steele with 14.

"We made it much more competitive," McInelly said. "Our team is getting better and we got better today as we played this game, and hopefully we can continue to move on and improve on some of those areas that cost us the game."

Though Air Force was not looked at as an easy win after the game, Anderson was unimpressed with the Badgers' play, addressing things her team needs to change heading into conference play.

"You've got to give credit to Air Force; they came in here ready to battle," Anderson said. "I was pretty disappointed with the way we played, the way we played offense. It's just something that we've got to pick up especially going into this last week [of the home stand] before we enter the Big Ten season. Once we get into the Big Ten, teams aren't going to back down for us."