Sports

Women’s hoops takes aim at ending losing ways

The Wisconsin women’s basketball team will look to snap a four-game losing streak when they return home to the Kohl Center to face Penn State Thursday night.

After suffering two losses in overtime during that stretch — most recently to the conference leader Ohio State — the Badgers (8-9, 1-6) will have another opportunity for their second conference win against the Lady Lions (13-6, 4-3).

Following a difficult blow against the conference-leading Buckeyes, falling 79-74 in overtime, Badgers head coach Lisa Stone mentioned that her team played well despite the loss.

“[The improvement] was certainly nice to see, especially with Lin Zastrow — who, you know, we’ve been waiting all year for that,” Stone said. “Tara Steinbauer also gave us great energy, got eight boards for us and played very physical in an environment that’s not easy.”

Senior Jolene Anderson hopes to use the overtime loss as a building block for the team’s future games, including Thursday’s matchup against Penn State.

“We really just needed to pay attention to details and as a senior captain, I take responsibility for what happened [in the loss],” Anderson said. “I’ll learn from it, as well as my team, and we’ll just move on.”

Before setting the career scoring mark for a UW women’s basketball player, Anderson posted several nights in which she scored far below her average of nearly 20 points per game, even failing to break double digits late into the nonconference season. In Big Ten play, however, Anderson has been able to score more than 30 points on multiple occasions, including Michigan and Iowa.

Penn State visits the Kohl Center coming off a win over Michigan that snapped a two-game losing streak, led by a 14-point, eight-assist, four-rebound performance by junior Brianne O’Rourke. Not including O’Rourke, the Lady Lions have three more players averaging more than 10 points a game.

With the Badgers sitting last in Big Ten scoring defense and the Lady Lions just above in 10th place in scoring offense, Thursday’s contest could prove to be a shootout.

Under a new coaching regime, Penn State is now led by Coquese Washington, whom Stone holds in high regard.

“She’s brilliant. She’s been under a great coach in Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame, eventually taking over for [McGraw] when she became ill,” Stone said. “She’s got great patience. She’s certainly no-nonsense and a very good disciplinarian.”

Senior Janese Banks remains confident on the outlook for the remainder of the season, admitting that her team needs just an added bit of effort to pull off wins in the close games.

“I think we’re heading towards [team identity] and I think we’re heading towards the toughness, but I think we just gotta get to that point where we get stuff done,” Banks said. “I think those past few games we’ve played harder and fought harder and showed some signs of toughness, but still, it’s a loss. We don’t want any sympathy wins or anything like that, but I think that we’re working harder and everyone on the team is trying.”

The last meeting between these teams was the only time the two met last season, with Penn State pulling off a 70-61 victory at the Bryce Jordan Center in Happy Valley. As close games have been the trend this season for the Badgers, Stone hopes her team can handle the little things at home to pull off a much-needed victory.
“We’re watching a lot more film right now, doing a lot of teaching through the details in terms of offense and defense. We had more defensive breakdowns than offensive breakdowns,” Stone said. “Our team is getting stronger through adversity, and I know that sounds funny, but our team is getting stronger.”