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UW, UI square off in 1st round

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Also by Jonah Braun:

UW, UI square off in 1st round (March 6, 2008)
Freshmen pick up slack (March 3, 2008)
Despite loss, Memphis passes test (February 28, 2008)
Badgers look to continue streak (February 28, 2008)
UW picks right time to get hot (February 22, 2008)

by Jonah Braun

Thursday, March 6, 2008

After ending the regular season on a high note, winning eight of its past 10 games, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team heads to Indianapolis to participate in the Big Ten Tournament. After failing to beat the eventual Big Ten champion Iowa Hawkeyes in the team’s final regular season game, the Badgers ended up as the No. 8 seed, and will face Illinois in the first round of the tournament.

Riding their recent hot play, the Badgers hoped to attain a first-round bye in the tournament, but fell just short with the loss to Iowa. Regardless, Wisconsin will take a similar approach to the tournament, despite having to play in the first round.

“I like our matchup,” Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone said. “I like the fact that the Big Ten Tournament is open for anybody. Our team is focused. We’re excited. … We’re playing great basketball at the right time of the year.”

The Badgers, despite playing well lately, must go deep into the Big Ten Tournament to give the bidding committee a reason to elect them into the NCAA Tournament. Winning the tournament and gaining an automatic bid may be the only way for Wisconsin to make the NCAA Tournament.

“I think we all kind of know what’s at stake,” freshman guard Alyssa Karel said. “We definitely want to be at the NCAA Tournament. … I think we all know that we’re going to try and do whatever we can to make it work out.”

After splitting the season series with Illinois, the Badgers look to win the rubber game between the two teams. In the last game, Wisconsin won on a controversial call as time expired.

“We won the game (against Illinois), but we didn’t play very well,” Stone said. “If we can put it all together, our defense should be much more solid.”

Now that the Badgers are in a deep hole, they need to play as well as they have been lately in order to be successful. However, even with a win over Illinois, Wisconsin would face No. 1-seeded Ohio State in the following round — a team that beat the Badgers in both meetings this season.

Nevertheless, the Badgers are not looking ahead. As each game poses individual challenges for Wisconsin, they will each be looked at separately.

“You can’t look too far ahead or you’re going to miss what’s at hand,” Karel said. “We have to get the job done against Illinois before we look at anything else.”

The Badgers will hope to rely on the stellar play of the freshmen that made themselves a factor in their close game with the Hawkeyes. In that match, all three freshmen led the team in scoring, making up for uncharacteristic performances by seniors Janese Banks and Jolene Anderson.

“Our three freshmen brought us back into that game (against Iowa),” Stone said. “That’s exciting for this tournament, the postseason this year and really exciting for the future.”

Though not in the situation they hoped to be in, the Badgers are in far better shape than they were through the first seven games of the Big Ten season. Starting off 1-6, the Badgers were in 10th place, but managed to fight back, beating several teams with better records in the process.

“It’s obviously not the situation that we wanted to be in,” Karel said. “But we have to be ready and get to the championship game anyways. … Coach Stone told us that no team that played on the first day made it to the championship game, so that sort of motivates us to get it done.”

The Badgers may need more than motivation to make it to the championship game of the tournament. Regardless, Stone and some of the players still think that a few good wins could put them over the top and into the mix for the NCAA Tournament.

“Even just going in there and doing the best we can, beating as many teams as we can, could be enough,” freshman forward Lin Zastrow said. “If we beat Illinois and Ohio State, that’s two good wins and even if we don’t make it to the championship, they’re going to have to look at us.”

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