The UW women’s basketball team opened conference play over break with an 86-55 loss at the hands of Penn State, the Big Ten’s top team.
The Badgers were never really in the game, down 25-50 at halftime as forward Lello Gebisa attempted to strap the team on her back, scoring 23 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. For Gebisa, the game marked her second-consecutive double-double and the second-straight career high in points.
The Badgers lost an overtime heartbreaker, 70-67, to the Lady Dons of San Francisco Dec. 30 in a game that saw Gebisa put up 18 points and grab 10 rebounds as well as the return of senior point guard and captain Leah Hefte.
“I thought Leah [Hefte] did a great job coming back for us. She was a spark for us in the first half,” head coach Jane Albright said. “In the second half, [San Francisco] really hit the offensive boards. They had a lot of quickness, and that really bothered us in a lot of spots.”
The in-state rivalry with Marquette was revisited Jan. 5, but the Badgers did not fair as well as they had hoped as Marquette shot a Kohl Center record 8-11 (.727) from the three-point arch in a 72-54 Golden Eagle victory.
“They out-rebounded us, they forced us to turn the ball over, they had a freshman who scored 17 points against our defense,” Albright said. “The last two games we’ve been out-rebounded, and that’s a mystery.”
Purdue came to the Kohl Center Jan. 9, and the Badgers jumped out to an early 12-0 lead. The Boilermakers, however, struggled back from that deficit and made key free throws down the stretch to steal a 59-53 victory from the Badgers. Center Emily Ashbaugh scored a career high 19 points in a loss that saw the Badgers attempt a record-low 39 field-goal attempts.
“Everybody on the team is doing an equal share of making sure that everybody is united,” Ashbaugh said. “When you’re losing, it’s really easy to disintegrate your team unity, and we’re working on the stuff that we know is going to make us better.”
UW looked as though they had worked on all the right things as they went into halftime down 33-34 at Illinois. In the end, it was 30 Badger turnovers that resulted in a 73-56 loss to the Illini. Forward Ebba Gebisa was the only Badger to manage a double-digit-scoring night, as she contributed 14 points and nine rebounds.
“I knew we would need some opportunity for some playing time,” coach Albright said. “I don’t know that I ever anticipated that our record would be this much of an indication of it.”
After the Illinois loss Jan. 12, the Badgers’ record was a dismal 2-11 overall and 0-3 in the Big Ten. The team had failed to put together two solid halves in any single game, and its youth and inexperience started to show.
“It’s a struggle for all of us, because we all want that one win, and once we get that win, we feel that we’re going to get on a roll and keep going,” freshman point guard Ashley Josephson said.
