As the Badgers (9-15, 3-11) and head coach Lisa Stone prepare to close out the regular season Sunday at home against Ohio State (17-8, 9-5), several seniors will also bid farewell to the Kohl Center confines.
Senior post player Emily Ashbaugh has been averaging a career-best 10.2 points per game and leads the team in offensive rebounds with 2.4 per game. Fellow post player Lello Gebisa has returned from an ankle injury to add nine points per game inside and leads the team in rebounding with 6.1 per game.
Another senior, who does not get as much playing time or as many headlines but works equally hard in practice, is guard Abby Simmons. A walk-on, Simmons has been through it all for the Badgers and turned down several Division III basketball offers and Division I softball programs to attend Madison. Simmons has appeared in two games for Wisconsin this season and has scored her only point of the season against Northwestern.
Wisconsin would love to send its seniors out with a win, but to do so, it must knock off the 25th-ranked Buckeyes. The win will not come easy, as the Buckeyes look like they have returned to their true form.
The Buckeyes raced off to an 8-2 start in their non-conference season but dropped three straight at home to ranked opponents in mid-January and found themselves with a 2-4 record in the Big Ten.
Since, the Buckeyes have rattled off seven wins in their last eight games, including upsets over Minnesota and Michigan State. If Ohio State can win at Minnesota Thursday and take care of Wisconsin Sunday, it could finish the Big Ten season at 11-5, one game better than it did last season, in which it advanced to the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament.
The backbone of the Buckeye offense is junior guard Caity Matter, who has overcome tons of adversity to pull the Buckeyes out of a losing skid. In Ohio State?s upset at Michigan State, Matter was 7-for-11 from the field and 6-for-9 from 3-point range, less than 24 hours after her brother Ricky was killed in a car accident in Bluffton, Ohio.
Matter leads the team in scoring at 15.2 points per game and can expose a zone defense with her 3-point shooting ability. Matter hits 37 percent of her shots from behind the arc, good for ninth in the conference. While Matter is an opponent?s worst nightmare from 3-point land, she also gets herself to the free-throw line and makes opponents pay by hitting 76 percent of her attempts.
The last time Matter visited the Kohl Center, she tied an opponent record by hitting seven threes and scored a game-high 27 points. Wisconsin forward Ebba Gebisa, though, did not allow Matter many looks at the basket in the Big Ten opener; Matter finished with just seven points on 2-for-8 shooting.
Fifth-year senior center LaToya Turner adds 12.8 points per game and hits nearly 57 percent of her field goals. Point guard Kim Wilburn may be only a sophomore, but she plays like a veteran. She is third in the conference in assists with 5.3 per game and is even more of a threat on defense, averaging 2.6 steals per game. In January she forced Wisconsin point guard Steph Rich into six turnovers while dishing out nine assists of her own.
Reserve freshman center Jessica Davenport has exceeded expectations this season by averaging 12.5 points and 5.7 rebounds per game. Davenport, who could very well be a starter, is equally impressive on the defensive end, swatting away 2.4 shots per game. If that is not enough, Davenport leads the conference in field-goal percentage as well by making 64 percent of her shots.
Ohio State is relatively young all around, and while the freshmen are still adjusting to their roles this season, they have also have been an integral part of Ohio State?s winning streak. One in particular is starting guard Brandie Hoskins, who had 13 points against the Badgers in January but is most effective when dishing to teammates, as she averages 3.7 assists.
When the teams matched up for the first conference game in early January, it was a nip-and-tuck affair throughout the first half, with the Badgers breathing down the necks of the Buckeyes for 33 minutes. Ohio State outscored Wisconsin 17-3 down the stretch to post a 65-46 win — not indicative of how close the game actually was.
?With five minutes to go, we were down only seven and the ball wouldn?t go in the hoop for us,? UW head coach Lisa Stone said. ?They got some transition baskets, and we were unable to stop their scoring barrage.?
Ohio State coach Jim Foster has never lost to Wisconsin, as he is a perfect 4-0, including a 1-0 stint while at Vanderbilt that knocked the Badgers out of the NCAA Tournament back in 1996.
?Our kids are really focused right now,? Stone said. ?They?re believing right now. They?re believing that we?re playing the best basketball.?
Injury update: Wisconsin sophomore forward Kjersten Bakke injured her knee in practice Tuesday and did not travel with the team for its game at Illinois Thursday. Bakke remains questionable for Sunday. Bakke has started five of the last six games for the Badgers this season.
