The Wisconsin women’s basketball team ends its exhibition season this Sunday when the Badgers host the Minnesota State-Moorhead Dragons at the Kohl Center. The Badgers will look to rebound after last weekend’s exhibition loss to the Wisconsin AAU team.
“The main thing for us is to learn from our first exhibition game and make that step forward that I know we can make,” said Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone. “The things that we did wrong in our first exhibition game are correctable and our team, with practice, has already made some good adjustments.”
The Badgers struggled last weekend with turnovers and free throw shooting against the AAU squad. With this being the last exhibition game of the year, the Badgers will aim to improve on both facets of their game.
“I wasn’t as disappointed with the turnovers as many may have thought,” said Stone. “We’re running up-tempo this year, and we’re going to turn it over a little bit. Free throws were a big disappointment for me, and they had to shoot 500 right after the game.”
“We definitely all did our 500 free throws. You remember that too. When you have to do 500 free throws, its sticks with you and you don’t forget it,” said senior forward Ebba Gebisa. “But I think one thing we need to remember for the next game is that our defense has got to feed our offense, so it has got to start on defense and then we’ll have more opportunities for offensive breaks.”
And the Badgers will need a stout defensive effort against the Dragons. Moorhead averaged better than 70 points per game last year, while giving up only 63 points per game. Despite the loss of several seniors, including two of there top three scorers from last year in center Liz Klukas and guard Kris Wilson, the dragons will continue their high scoring trend from last year.
The Dragons are led by senior forward Dana Weibel. Weibel, a four-year starter for the Dragons, was second on the team in scoring last season and led the team in assists. Weibel will be joined by fellow returning starter, senior point guard Jackie Doerr. Doerr, also a four-year starter, averaged 7.9 points per game last season and paced the team in free throw percentage, shooting 84 percent from the charity stripe.
Much like the Badgers, the Dragons also showcase a youthful squad this season. Ten of the 16 members on the current roster are freshmen, while the Badgers have six freshmen currently on their roster. Both teams rely heavily on their youth for the success of their squad.
“If we can play a lot of young kids, I’d like to do that,” said Stone. “I think whenever you have youth, patience needs to be involved and our kids will do whatever we emphasize.”
This will be the final tune-up for the Badgers before they begin their regular season schedule against IUPUI at the Kohl Center, Nov. 19.
“We are looking at this as a great opportunity to play against somebody different,” said Stone. “But we’re getting ready for Nov. 19, our opener. This is a game where we need to get better than we were our last outing, getting used to things and game situations.”
