[media-credit name=’MEGHAN CONLIN/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]Apparently eight is not enough.

The last time the UW women's basketball team played against Penn State, head coach Lisa Stone only had eight available players, and her quote before the game was, "Eight is enough."

However, the Badgers were not able to rally around Stone's saying and suffered a 69-54 defeat.

This time around, however, it was the Lady Lions who only had eight available players as junior starter Charity Renfro did not travel with the team due to a concussion.

Just like Wisconsin, Penn State was not able to achieve victory with a shorthanded roster, as the Badgers cruised to a 66-56 win behind a strong second half.

The game was neck-and-neck through much of the first half, but a Rashida Mark put-back bucket at the buzzer gave Penn State a two-point lead at intermission. Following the play, Stone was clearly upset with her team's mediocre play.

"When we play the way we did in the first half — you know, spotty and just not finishing and kind of playing like there's a snowstorm outside — you need to get upset a little bit," Stone said. "And they answered and played very well in the second half."

Wisconsin began to break away in the second half behind the hot shooting of senior Ashley Josephson, as she was a perfect three-for-three from beyond the arc after half-time.

"I tried to forget about what happened in the first half, and then it's a new 20 minutes," Josephson said. "So I had to go out there with a fresh mind and just stroke the ball."

While Josephson's shooting in the second half helped propel Wisconsin to its first Big Ten home victory since New Year's, Penn State head coach Rene Portland felt that it was Danielle Ward's presence inside that made the difference.

"The effectiveness of Ward (was the key)," Portland said. "They got the ball inside. She was able to stand and get position for a long time in there, and our kids didn't handle that."

Ward's improved play has been evident as of late, as she has gained more and more experience in just her sophomore year.

The secret to her recent big games — most notably the Michigan State loss this past weekend, when she posted a 10-point, nine-rebound and six-block performance — is actually quite simple.

"I just play," Ward said. "There's nothing about confidence or anything specific. Sometimes I just go into a zone and I'm just playing where I'm not worrying about anything — not worried about a turnover, not worried about a foul, not worried about the other team scoring or anything."

In Thursday night's victory, Ward was all over the place with her physical style of play, scoring a game-high 16 points on 7-of-14 shooting with six rebounds and three blocks.

She was simply too much for the Lady Lions.

"I don't think our kids handled the physical play, to be honest," Portland said. "I obviously took a technical foul. … The frustration from that carried into how bad they played."

But it wasn't just Ward or Josephson that made the difference; Wisconsin led a balanced scoring attack all around, with each starter scoring in double figures.

With the win, Wisconsin started its three-game home stand to finish the season on a high note, and, with only two games and the Big Ten tournament remaining on the schedule, the question of what the team is capable of remains.

"Anybody's capable of anything," Josephson said. "You see upsets all the time, so if we come out and play the basketball, anything can happen for us, so we just got to stay confident and keep playing the way we are and we'll see what happens."