After an emotional loss in the opening game of the season, Wisconsin headed south to Miami to knock off Hampton, 49-38, and Butler, 61-46, and won the Conesto Coconut Grove Thanksgiving Classic, improving to 2-1 on the young season. The wins gave the Badgers their first tournament title since 2001 and the first two wins of Lisa Stone’s career as UW head coach. Last season, the Badgers were unable to post wins in more than two-straight games.
The Badgers will try for a number of firsts Monday as they return home to face the Westerwinds of Western Illinois. Both the team and coach will look for their first home win of the season in hopes of extending their winning-streak to three.
Western Illinois finished last in the Mid-Continent Conference season with a 21-9 record and a first place finish in the league. Despite winning their conference, the Westerwinds were still left out of the NCAA tournament and settled for a first round WNIT appearance.
This season, Western Illinois looks for its third postseason appearance in school history. However, the road will be much tougher. The Westerwinds will not play a home game until their seventh game of the season, and thus far Western Illinois has been up and down on the road. They began the season falling to previously No. 8-ranked Kansas State, 76-48, before running out of gas at Cleveland State, 52-50.
Saturday, Western Illinois defeated the Badgers first opponent of the season, Northern Illinois, 61-56, and will head to Madison with a 1-2 record.
Senior forward Tiffany Cornelius leads the Westerwinds’ attack with 17.5 points and seven rebounds per game. Sophomore center Zane Teilane contributes 10.0 points and a team-high eight rebounds per game. At 6-foot-7, Teilane matches up well with Wisconsin’s tall front line, which imposes a strong inside presence.
In the heartbreaking loss to Cleveland State, Teilane had 12 rebounds to go along with a season-high seven blocks. The Westerwinds force their opponents into 21 turnovers a game, but themselves commit over 24, including a game-high 35 in the Kansas State loss. The Westerwinds, however, have dominated their opponents on the boards, including a 35-20 edge against Northern Illinois.
The Badgers, like their opponents, return to Madison with momentum. Several unlikely sources assured the Badgers would be returning from sunny South Florida on a two-game winning streak. In Friday afternoon’s win over Hampton, with few Badger players unable to find the range, sophomore guard Ashley Josephson notched a career-high 18 points, including 2-4 from beyond the arc. UW’s leading scorer Stephanie Rich was held to seven points on Friday and had a mere three points in the Badgers’ drubbing of Butler. The Badger bench, held scoreless against Northern Illinois, gave the team valuable minutes down the stretch over the weekend. In particular, sophomore forward Jordan Wilson, who notched career-highs with 15 points and 13 rebounds in the win over Butler.
“I’m very proud of my players,” UW head coach Lisa Stone said. “We put in a new (zone) defense in 15 minutes at a shoot-around today, and we really absorbed it and executed it well. When we can win a game against a good team like Butler with (our leading scorer) Stephanie Rich having three points and Ashley Josephson with four that says a lot. Our post players gave us some scoring, but I can not say enough about Jordan Wilson. She changed the whole game; she came in and gave us energy, intensity, and she gave us rebounding like there was no tomorrow.”
History will be on the Badgers’ side when they face the Westerwinds tonight, as they have won nine of the teams’ ten meetings, including nine-straight. UW has not faced Western Illinois since 1995 and has already lost to a team from the Northern part of that state.
