Less than 48 hours ago, senior shooting guard Kyle Black and her teammates were celebrating a one-point, final-minute victory over unranked Marquette, a victory Black sealed by nailing a lay-up 19 seconds before time expired.
Now, with a game against North Carolina State scheduled for noon Saturday, Black says that by defeating Marquette — a game in which Wisconsin erased a 17-point second-half deficit — the Badgers have renewed their confidence in time for a meeting with the Wolfpack.
“We’re going to carry that win over to the N.C. State game,” Black said. “We can come back from anything. We have persevered through almost a losing game, and now we’re 6-1.”
For the past week, Black has carried Wisconsin in games against Holy Cross, Pittsburgh and Marquette. After making only six of her first 23 three-point attempts through the Badgers’ first four games, Black has responded by drilling 16 of 24 three-pointers in the last three games.
Black traced her rejuvenation to a late-night shooting session with assistant coach Kate Peterson.
“After the Cleveland State game, I stayed in the gym and shot for about an hour after the game, and I couldn’t figure out why the ball wasn’t going in the basket,” she said. “My coach Kate Peterson said, ‘Just don’t bring the ball down.’ That’s all she said, and from then on, I’ve been just bringing it in my shot pocket and shooting it, and it’s felt great.”
Clearly N.C. State, ranked 10th by the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Top 25, represents the best competition that Wisconsin will have faced so far. The Wolfpack’s only loss came Nov. 28 against No. 2 Tennessee, and their 6-1 record includes victories over two top-25 opponents.
Against Wisconsin, Black said she expects N.C. State to accelerate quickly to full throttle.
“I just think it’s going to be a more up-tempo-paced game,” Black said. “They play the same tempo that we do; they push the ball as hard as they can every single possession. It should be a really high-scoring game, in my opinion, when it comes right down to it.”
Despite Black’s anticipation, chances are that Saturday’s game will revolve around the power-forward matchup between UW’s Jessie Stomski and N.C. State’s Carisse Moody, who both lead their teams in points and rebounds. Recently Stomski has played better, with four consecutive double-doubles.
Although the game Saturday marks the first-ever meeting between N.C. State and Wisconsin, it won’t be the first time Stomski and Moody have met. In tryouts last summer for the U.S.A. Basketball University Games team, Stomski sprained her ankle on the first day of camp and watched as Moody won the jersey that may well have belonged to her if she had stayed healthy.
“Both of us play a power game but have quite a different variety of moves and can shoot from the midrange,” Stomski said. “So, it will be a challenge, and you know, maybe by her and I having similar playing styles, I’ll know how to defend her a little bit better.”
At least the teams can take cover behind their top-rate defenses. Nationally, N.C. State ranks 11th in scoring defense; on average, the Wolfpack allow less than 58 points per game. Wisconsin isn’t far behind them, with slightly less than 64 points allowed each outing. And since the regular season started, each team has given up more than 75 points only once.
“We’ve drilled our defense so much this season; that’s the one thing we have to fall back on,” Black said. “Last night when our shot wasn’t falling, we had to fall back on our defense.”
But as long as Black keeps draining threes, that won’t be necessary for Wisconsin.
