The UW women’s basketball team saw its three-game conference winning streak snapped with a 58-43 loss to Michigan State last night at the Kohl Center.

“We win together, we lose together,” UW head coach Jane Albright said. “Usually we follow our game plans real well, but I think it was a real hard thing to do tonight because we got in such quick foul trouble.”

The Badgers were able to stay with the Spartans throughout the first half largely due to the play of Lello Gebisa. Gebisa posed matchup problems for the Spartans as she went 4-for-6 in the first half and scored nine points.

Lello converted on a three-point play early in the half to put the Badgers down 8-5 and then hit a hook shot to close the gap to 10-13. It was with 4:30 left in the half that Gebisa hit her biggest shot, a layup that put UW up for the first time at 23-22.

Sophomore guard Stephanie Rich scored eight points in addition to Lello’s nine, but the Badgers still lacked an offensive rhythm.

“I don’t think we ever had any momentum,” coach Albright said. “Stephanie kept getting some buckets for us, but we really never had much rhythm or momentum in the game.”

Even the insertion of freshman Kjersten Bakke, which brought a lot of energy to the court, failed to get the Badgers on track. Bakke had two points, two rebounds, and an assist during five minutes of play in the first half.

Foul trouble eventually resulted in Lello Gebisa fouling out with 4:39 left in the game and posed a problem for the Badgers all night.

“I think Emily [Ashbaugh] was able to play four minutes in the first half. Ebba [Gebisa] picked up those fouls real early,” Albright said. “We just never seemed to get in any type of rhythm.”

Rhythm was something the Badgers definitely lacked at the beginning of both the first and second half. On their first three possessions in the first half, the Gebisa sisters were responsible for three UW turnovers.

“We haven’t done that in awhile,” Albright said. “I just think we lacked a real keen sense of purpose tonight.”

After closing an eight-point lead to five with a Stephanie Rich three-pointer, the game got away from the Badgers when Lello Gebisa was called for a personal foul and then a technical foul after swatting the ball down the court.

“I definitely didn’t mean to hit the ball like that,” Gebisa said

Scoring on three of four free-throw attempts, the Spartans went on a 10-0 run that ended with 8:30 remaining in the game.

UW seemed unable to match Michigan State’s intensity on the boards, losing the rebounding battle 36-33.

“I thought it was a well-fought-out battle,” Michigan State head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “I thought we rebounded well. I thought we were aggressive there, and that’s important to do, particularly on the road.”

“There’s no accident that they’re the third leading rebounding team in the country,” Albright said. “They really just in traffic rebound the ball so well.”

However, the Badgers played strong defensively. Liz Shimek fell one point short of a double-double, finishing with nine points and 11 rebounds, while Lindsay Bowen scored 15 points.

“The first couple shots weren’t falling,” Bowen said. “Everyone tells me to keep shooting and to work it inside out, and once we go inside and kick it back out, it’s good.”

The Spartans came into the game leading the Big Ten in three-point shooting, making 42.3 percent of their attempts. The Badgers held them to 35.3 percent form behind the arch and 39.3 percent on field goals overall.

“We played good defense,” Rich said. “We just couldn’t capitalize on the offensive end.”

The Badgers shot a woeful 34 percent from the floor, 25 percent from behind the arch, and 46.7 percent from the free-throw line.

“Our obvious plague tonight was we couldn’t score against their zone,” Albright said. “It was a night when we didn’t get many breaks. I just don’t think we played like we want to play.”

Rich and Lello Gebisa were the only Badgers to score in double figures, offering what little resistance the team had against the Michigan State zone defense.

It was an inside-out defense, but we certainly had to respect Stephanie Rich,” McCallie said. “I think she’s an excellent three-point shooting guard, and we were always concerned with where she was.”

Rich was the Badgers’ most persistent player on defense, as she hustled for loose balls and prevented the Spartans from scoring with a career-high four blocks.