It was Senior Day at the Kohl Center for the Wisconsin women’s basketball team, and it wouldn’t have been more fitting for one of the three active members of the senior class to be the hero.
AnnMarie Brown had that opportunity, but she couldn’t convert a layup in the waning seconds of overtime, as Wisconsin fell to Northwestern 86-83 Sunday afternoon.
“It’s like any other shot, you have basically a 50-50 shot of making it,” Brown said. “And that one didn’t seem to go in. I can’t do anything about it. I tried. I did what I could.”
The Badgers (8-18, 4-12 Big Ten) were down by eight with 59.7 seconds left during the overtime period, trailing 80-72. A layup from junior guard Dakota Whyte, followed by a three-pointer from Brown and another three from fellow senior Jacki Gulczysnki off a Wildcat turnover made it 82-80 with 26 seconds remaining.
Northwestern’s Karly Rozer then sunk two foul shots to up the Wildcats’ lead to four, but Brown grabbed an offensive rebound and converted an and-one. Her free throw made it 84-83.
Junior guard Tessa Cichy immediately fouled Northwestern’s Christen Inman on the inbound. Inman, who had missed from the free throw line only once in Big Ten play this season, missed her first one but made the second, making it 85-83.
“It felt like we were in control in the overtime,” Northwestern head coach Joe McKeown said. “We were up seven, eight, nine, but they kept coming back and made plays. So you gotta give them a lot of credit.”
That set up the Badgers with an opportunity to win the game, and when junior guard Nicole Bauman drove down the lane and dished it to Brown all alone on the left block, the game was surely to be tied once again.
It did not work out that way.
Wisconsin had yet another chance after Northwestern (21-6, 11-5 Big Ten) went 1-2 from the line, this time with 2.8 seconds to go. Brown had the chance to be the hero once more with the possibility of a half-court heave to send the game to a second overtime, but couldn’t get the shot off before time expired.
“To the kids’ credit, they kept playing,” Wisconsin head coach Bobbie Kelsey said. “No one could say that the Badgers give up, or hang their heads.
“And I feel so bad for AnnMarie. She’s been through so much, and to miss that shot, which she makes all the time, she doesn’t miss a lot of layups around the basket. Maybe she was just so wide open she couldn’t believe it.”
Northwestern tied the game with 1.4 seconds left in regulation off an inbound, when Maggie Lyon drained a 12-foot baseline jumper, the first time the teams had been tied since 17-17. The possession before that Whyte made one of her two free throws, which gave Northwestern the chance it needed to tie the game without having to shoot a three. The Wildcats had originally missed two other attempts before a scramble for the ball resulted in a jump ball with the possession arrow in favor of the Wildcats.
“We’ve got some tough kids, like a Maggie Lyon or a [sophomore] Nia Coffey, who can just make a play,” McKeown said.
Coffey led the Wildcats in scoring with 21 points, while Lyon added 15. Three more Wildcats scored in double figures: Lauren Douglas and Ashley Deary had 12 apiece, while Inman scored 11.
Bauman led the Badgers scoring attack, pouring in 22, while Gulczynski had 19, going 5-10 from three. Senior Cassie Rochel had her fifth double-double of the season, scoring 12 points and grabbing 13 rebounds.
The Badgers led by as many as 15 in the second half, when Whyte hit a three from the far baseline. After Bauman hit a three with 5:32 remaining in regulation, the Wildcats keyed up a 8-0 run in the next two minutes and 30 seconds to cut the Wisconsin lead to 65-63.
“We just started kinda playing not to lose,” Brown said. “Rather than just keep shoving the ball down their throats and going for the win … We’ll bounce back. We know we’re there.”
Both teams struggled offensively in the first half, particularly Northwestern, a result of sloppy play and poor shooting.
The Wildcats last field goal of the half came with 8:29 to go and their only points came from two free throws the rest of the half. They shot 35.7 percent from the field, while Wisconsin shot 41.2 percent.
Wisconsin had nine turnovers in the half, finishing with 23 total, allowing Northwestern to score 25 points off turnovers in their seventh straight victory.
“It’s easy to get down when you’re losing, and say, ‘Let’s just pack it in,'” Kelsey said. “But we owe it to our seniors to play hard, and to ourselves, to keep fighting. Because you can build on fighting, but you can’t build on quitting. And they didn’t quit.”
