In its final exhibition game of the season, the Badger women’s basketball team played host to Lithuania Thursday night.
Although the Badgers came up with an 84-72 victory over their foreign counterparts, Lithuania proved to be anything but a pushover, as the two teams exchanged leads all night.
Stephanie Rich’s 13 points led the Badgers’ offensive attack in a first half which was fraught with sloppy passes and careless ball-handling, as each of the two teams turned the ball over 13 times.
“In the first half I know we definitely had more turnovers than assists,” UW head coach Jane Albright said. “Turnovers are something that we obviously identified with going into halftime.”
Early in the second half, Lithuania’s Neringa Zakalskiene and V. Sakalauskiene were able to knock down a few key three-pointers, some of them being launched from well beyond the arch, and the Badgers found themselves trailing 42-49 with just under 18 minutes left to play.
The Badgers, however, then rallied behind Lello Gebisa and her strong interior play from that point on to come away with the victory. Although playing in just her second game in a Badger uniform, Gebisa finished the game with a double-double, scoring 20 points and pulling down 16 boards.
After the game, Gebisa was more critical of her play than satisfied, as she was quick to point out the things she needs to work on before becoming the type of player she’d like to be.
“After sitting out last year, I was really excited to help the team win,” Gebisa said, “but I had five turnovers in the last game, and I did poorly at the free-throw line. Those were things that I really wanted to improve on in this game, and I didn’t.”
Another key contributor in this contest was Lello’s younger sister, Ebba. Acting as a twin tower force in the middle, the two siblings were able to dominate the paint and force Lithuania to shoot from the perimeter, which ultimately led to a Badger victory.
Ebba chipped in 20 points, was 5-9 from the field, missed just two of her 12 free-throw attempts and pulled down six rebounds to help the Badgers find themselves in the winner’s circle.
“I was really pleased with Ebba at that three spot,” Albright said. “Having someone that can slash in and get to the free-throw line really helped us gain a lead.”
Although turnovers seemed to plague the Badgers in the first half, UW successfully addressed the problem after halftime and only coughed up the ball four times in the final 20 minutes of play. Freshman phenom Ashley Josephson, Leah Hefte and Stephanie Rich took great care of the basketball and routinely found open teammates. The three accounted for nine of the team’s 19 assists.
“The guards being able to have more assists than turnovers is really encouraging for us,” Albright said. “Once it became an open-court game, our assists really flowed. I thought we had [assists] from a lot of different people … it was a real combined effort.”
The Badgers will be heading to Northern Iowa Friday, Nov. 22, to open their regular season. They hope to build on the things they did well in their exhibition matchup with Lithuania this Thursday.
According to Albright, the team will be concentrating its focus on playing sound defense, not turning the ball over, and consistently knocking down free throws this week in practice. Albright’s Badgers seem to be gelling better every day, and the sky is the limit as far as what the Gebisa sisters and the team can accomplish this year.
