Wisconsin athletes dominated the UW women’s basketball game Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, many of those athletes were playing for the visiting AAU team.
The AAU Velocity Red defeated the Badger women 85-72 in front of a sparse Kohl Center crowd of UW faithful.
The AAU team dominated the affair from start to finish with its smooth array of jump shots, passing and defensive prowess. Niagra, Wis., native Anna Deforge led all scorers with 21 points, while UW graduates Jessie Stomski and Tamara Moore added 13 and eight points, respectively.
The Badgers were led on offense by four double-figure scorers including Kristi Seeger who recorded a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds. The leading scorer for the Badgers was center Emily Ashbaugh, who went 11-12 from the free-throw line in scoring 17 points. Junior transfer Lello Gebisa scored 16 points in 24 minutes of play, also recording 8 rebounds and 3 steals, while sophomore Stephanie Rich scored all 16 of her points in the second half as she led the Badger charge to reduce the huge Velocity Red lead.
“When you talk about a team that lost so much experience we’ve got a lot of basketball players on this team,” Coach Jane Albright said. “I saw them do some things to make other people better, to give them open looks, and I saw a lot of real positive things, particularly with our second efforts.”
The Badgers started the game very rusty, with sloppy play and turnovers present from the onset. After keeping the game relatively close throughout the first five minutes the AAU team went on a 36-10 run over the next 10 minutes and put the game out of reach with a 48-30 halftime lead.
“We had some offensive illegal screens, we shuffled our feet a lot, we hesitated, we weren’t really sure, but there were certainly signs that we’re going to be the team we want to be,” Coach Albright said.
The Badger defense allowed Anna Deforge to shoot a perfect 6-6 from the field and 3-3 from the three-point line in the first half. The Velocity Red, as a team, saw open shots for the most of the half and converted on 9-11 (81.8 percent) three pointers.
“I would have expected our ball pressure to be better, we’ve really worked a lot on that, and I would have thought that we would have been defensively better on the ball,” Albright said. “You can’t play the game like the way we want to play it if we don’t do that.”
The Badgers came out in the second half as a much calmer and more prepared team. Even after the AAU team stretched their lead to 30 points at 67-37 the Badgers went on a 9-0 run and would close the gap to 12 points near the end of the game.
“In the second half I think we outscored them 42-37,” Albright said. “We seemed to have more of an offensive rhythm, and it wasn’t just our post players scoring. I thought [Rich] did an exceptional job in the second half.”
Rich did score 16 points in the half, however the guard’s five turnovers hurt the Badgers and contributed to the Velocity Red’s 16 points off of turnovers. In all, the Badgers committed 24 turnovers, with three players committing five a piece.
One of those players was Lello Gebisa, who in her first game as a Badger scored a career-high 16 points. Gebisa recognized the fact that her turnovers really hurt the team effort and although she scored 16 points she understands that that is not the only thing that matters.
“I think Lello is being a little modest; I think this is her career high,” Coach Albright said. “She can say what she wants to about improving, and I know that she will, but she had some very, very good plays today.
Another positive performance by a new Badger came with the extended playing time of Ashley Josephson. The freshman did a good job of protecting the ball, and although she had no points to show for her effort, she contributed to the improvement of the Badger offense in the second half.
“I thought Ashley passed up some shots toda,y and one of the reasons we recruited her was to shoot, and she’ll get that. She just was looking to try and go inside and do some things,” Albright said. “I thought for her first game, playing against people that are a lot older, I thought both of them (Josephson and Rich) did OK at the point spot.”
Although tri-captain Emily Ashbaugh led the team in points, her 3-of-10 performance from the floor was anything but dominating.
“I think I really rushed a lot down low, I just needed to get my bearings down low and get use to the contact and the different defenses. I think that will come around eventually,” Ashbaugh said. “It was frustrating, but with as many young players out on the court and as many different things as we’ve got flying around you don’t have time to get down on yourself or lose your focus.”
The Badgers hope to have come away from this game with at least a little better understanding of what they need to work on before the start of the regular season. They will take on the Lithuanian national team Thursday in their final warm up before opening the season at Northern Illinois on Nov. 22.
“We all feel like we have a long way to go, but we have one under our belts, and we have time on the court, and we all have the jitters out,” Ashbaugh said. “I think that’s a good thing, and we’re ready to move on.”
