Sports: Women's Basketball
After win in home opener, UW ready for Milwaukee
Women’s basketball team looks to polish offense vs. Panthers
LEAH BELLACK/Herald photo
Alyssa Karel hopes to lead Wisconsin past in-state rival UW-Milwaukee.
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Also by Mike Fiammetta:
- There will be blood as Wisconsin, Minnesota meet in Border Battle (February 4, 2010)
- Women's hoops in search of better D (February 2, 2010)
- Offensive rhythm lacking for Badgers against NU (January 31, 2010)
- Pro Bowl solution finally discovered (January 29, 2010)
- Badgers hoping to bounce back at IU (January 28, 2010)
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In essentially all sports, a season-opening win is all it takes to generate a significant amount of excitement for that upcoming season. Fans rush to make those all-too-common “this is our year” proclamations, the media rev up their proverbial hype machines, and coaches rush to manage their players’ expectations.
Quite frequently, those expectations end up being overzealous. However, this season, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team has reason to hold some high expectations after its season-opening 68-43 win over the North Dakota Fighting Sioux last Sunday at the Kohl Center. The Badgers will look to build an early hot streak Thursday night in Milwaukee as they travel for the first time this season to face the UW-Milwaukee Panthers (2-0).
“I think it was a great first game because it shows that we’ve got a lot of things to work on, yet our principles are very, very good,” Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone said of her team’s first victory. “And it’s going to continue to get better. We’ve just got to be sharper and stick to what we do and do what we do well.”
What the Badgers did well last weekend was defend the ball and force turnovers. With defense always the main priority of Stone’s teams, Wisconsin was able to score 26 points off 26 North Dakota turnovers. Additionally, North Dakota was held to only 26.5 percent shooting from the field.
Meanwhile, the Badgers will look to shore up their rebounding efforts against the Panthers. While they did win the rebound battle over North Dakota 44-38, there were several that seemed to get away.
“Their biggest asset, or their biggest strength, is rebounding,” junior guard Alyssa Karel said of Milwaukee. “Against North Dakota, we missed a lot of rebounds and missed a lot of box outs, so I think that’s one of the things we’re really going to have to focus on. They shoot a lot of outside shots, but they all go hard to the boards, and I think if we’re not able to rebound and keep them off the boards, we might have some trouble with them.”
To match Milwaukee’s shooting output, Wisconsin will look to build on its offensive effort last weekend, where the Badgers shot an impressive 41.7 percent from the field. This past offseason, Stone and her coaching staff implemented a new four-out, one-in motion offense in place of the old swing scheme. Much of the focus surrounding the team coming into this season was about that new offense; however, the Badgers have yet to test it out very much. While Stone employed it in her team’s exhibition rout of UW-Oshkosh on Nov. 8, she had to resort to a zone scheme to attack North Dakota’s zone defense.
“It’s very comfortable,” Stone said of her team’s mastery of the new system. “We didn’t play it all on Sunday, but it gives us good spacing, ability to drive the ball, ability to read, just really to play basketball … touch the post. Even with North Dakota in the zone, we found really good shots . … A lot of it has to do with spacing, timing, solid, crisp passing; just your basic fundamental basketball.”
Aside from perfecting the new offense, the Badgers have been focusing on maintaining their competitiveness for the entire game. In both the exhibition against Oshkosh and last weekend against North Dakota, Wisconsin never trailed. Yet against their in-state rival, the Badgers know they will have to be at their best for a full 40 minutes.
“Milwaukee is an [intrastate] game, you throw the record books outside the door, people compete when we’re down there,” Stone said. “They’re going to be a team that’s got really good shooters in Ashley Imperiale and Lindsay Laur, and they’re their two best players … they play hard, they’re very active. They’re 2-0, they got two games under their belt. They’re a little younger than they’ve been in the past, but sometimes with that, when you’re young, you just go out and play. They’re a very good rebounding team, they’ll switch defenses on us, and they’ll try to get us in some foul trouble.”
After they battle Milwaukee, the Badgers will return home to face Cleveland State Sunday afternoon at the Kohl Center. While the Badger players may be unfamiliar with Cleveland State, assistant coach Oties Epps will not be. Epps was an assistant coach there for four seasons, and helped the Vikings to their first NCAA bid in 2008.
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