Jane Albright, head coach of the UW women’s basketball team, doesn’t want the other teams to find out about the Badgers’ new pressing defense.
“You won’t see that,” Albright said. “We’re trying to keep that a secret. We’re scared there’s spies around.”
Turns out the Badgers didn’t need to press. In Wisconsin’s first game of the new season, senior power forward Jessie Stomski scored 25 points and swiped 10 rebounds to lead Wisconsin to a 98-86 victory against the Wisconsin AAU Select 2001 team, a team composed of former Badger players and state of Wisconsin all-stars.
In addition to Stomski’s double-double, small forward Tamara Moore’s 14 points and 11 assists helped the Badgers win their seventh opening game in the last eight years.
Wisconsin combined a fast-tempo attack with old-fashioned accurate jump shooting to produce its fourth-highest point total since 1997. When the Badgers’ initial attempts at running the floor failed to produce easy shots, their half-court offense worked well enough to create open jump shots from 15 feet and out.
“We had a very good personality today,” Albright said. “I think that was the main thing I told my team, that I wanted them to show a personality.”
Playing against the Select team’s zone defense for most of the first half, Wisconsin
