As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. If this old adage is true, then the Wisconsin women’s basketball team should be playing like it did earlier in the season, right?

“Well, I think we did everything we could do today in coming back and having one of our best practices of the year,” head coach Jane Albright said after practice Tuesday evening. “(The team) was very intense, they pushed each other in the areas that we had identified as weaknesses and were really able to sustain a very tough two-and-half-hour practice. Now the task will be doing that during the game time.”

That is exactly the task that the Badgers have been unable to do in their last four games, all losses, including Wednesday night’s agonizing 58-57 loss to Michigan State at the Kohl Center.

So what gives? If the Badgers are practicing well, as Albright keeps reiterating, that means they must be eliminating at least some of their mistakes, which is actually true, as they turned the ball over less and rebounded better against the Spartans than they had in their other three Big Ten losses.

Perhaps the reason is that after being moved up to No. 5 in the rankings and sitting on top of the Big Ten before the losing streak, the Badgers felt that they had already climbed the mountain, had no one to aim at and no more respect to earn in conference.

“We’re the aggressor again; we’re not in the top spot anymore. Purdue is. So now we feel like we’ve got a lot to prove, and I think we were much better at the beginning of the year when we had a chip on our shoulder,” said Albright.

“It just seems like once we got ranked and became one of the best teams in the country, it was like we had nothing else to fight for. We were never going to play those top four teams (above us),” said senior guard Kyle Black, who admits she doesn’t even pay attention to the rankings anymore. “It really felt like we let down after we got to that ranking.”

This Sunday, however, the Badgers will definitely be in the underdog position, fighting for respect and position in the standings against Purdue, who the Badgers now trail by a game and a half.

In the first meeting between the two, on Dec. 28 in Madison, the Badgers emerged victorious, 71-59, behind Black’s game-high 19 points. The only difference is that, in that game, UW was moving up the ladder, while in the game this Sunday, they’ll be trying to arrest their fall.

That could be difficult, since Sunday’s game will be in West Lafayette. Sophomore forward Shereka Wright, who currently leads the Boilermakers with 17.6 points per game, was held to just 14 points on 5 of 16 shooting in the game in Madison.

Purdue is also paced by six-foot-five junior center Mary Jo Noon, who averages 13.7 points and 6.0 rebounds per contest, and senior guard Kelly Komara, who pours in 12.8 points per game.

With an aggressive defense that holds opponents to just 59.3 points per game on 39 percent shooting, Purdue has been able to run through Big Ten competition, winning by an average of 10.9 points per game, including wins in their last five games, en route to a 7-2 conference record (17-3 overall).

The Boilermakers, however, do have one more game before they play the Badgers on Sunday: at Michigan State on Friday night.

Furthermore, with a big, aggressive front line, Purdue will match up well with Wisconsin’s post-up scoring style. They’ll try to take Badger forward Jessie Stomski out of the game, forcing Wisconsin to make outside shots, something the Badgers have struggled with in their losses to the tune of 43.4 percent.

The keys to beating Purdue this Sunday for the Badgers will be to shoot well from the outside, take care of the ball and rebound well. These three things are obvious in any game, but when playing a great team like Purdue, the Badgers simply have to take advantage of their opportunities and not give Purdue any second chances.

Sunday is Super Sunday, a day to revel in. But for the Badger basketball women, it won’t be unless they can beat Purdue, which would get them right back into the race for the Big Ten title, the team’s goal from the beginning of the season. The players are making it clear that, despite recent struggles, the goals remain the same.
“Our goals are very much the same,” Black said Tuesday. “We have a very hard Big Ten schedule ahead of us, so we’ve put ourselves in a little bit of a hole. It’s not the end of the world. We didn’t place ourselves out of winning the Big Ten.”