The UW women’s basketball team, coming off a huge road victory in Indiana Friday, was unable to pick up its first back-to-back victories of the season this weekend. Although they played a tough, physical game and held the lead throughout most of the contest, Arizona (12-5, 6-3) and their star point guard Dee-Dee Wheeler proved to be too much down the stretch as the No. 19 Wildcats came away with a 62-55 victory Sunday.
Yesterday’s game was Wisconsin’s fourth game in seven days, but the Badgers were still able to play great defensively, coming up with 14 steals and five blocks.
UW head coach Jane Albright was pleased with her team’s effort against Arizona, at the defensive end in particular, as the Badgers were able to force more turnovers than the heavily favored Wildcats were able to force.
“We forced more turnovers than we had today, which is a real positive … defensively we hadn’t been able to do that,” Albright said. “We actually had 14 steals.”
Arizona’s two major scoring threats, Dee-Dee Wheeler (16.5 ppg) and Shawntinice Polk (17.8 ppg), were held in check for most of the game due to UW’s outstanding team defense.
Polk finished with just nine points, and Wheeler, with the exception of some late free throws, struggled to find the bottom of the net all day.
“We think Polk is one of the better players we’ve defended all year, and we played really good team defense on her,” Albright said. “Obviously to hold her to nine points was really one of the key things that we felt we needed to do.”
Although the Badgers were able to play great at the defensive end, one of the areas that led to their demise was boxing out and rebounding.
Wisconsin gave up a number of second-chance baskets and, despite having one of the tallest front lines in the country, was out-rebounded by an overall margin of 31-41.
“We got out-rebounded badly; that was the key stat,” Albright said. “If I was disappointed in one thing, that would be what it was. They out-rebounded us by 10, and that’s something that we just really need to be more consistent with. We have the tools do that, but we were not able to do that today.”
The Wildcat that gave UW the most trouble in the rebounding category came from an unlikely source. Despite standing just 5-foot-6, Dee-Dee Wheeler was able come up with eight rebounds, four of which came at the offensive end. Her ability to gain position and crash the boards plagued the Badgers all day long.
“Wheeler really bothered us with her offensive boards … she had eight boards, and that was a real key,” Albright said.
The coaching staff decided to make a switch defensively to address the problem with keeping Wheeler off of the boards, but it proved to be too little, too late.
“We switched off and put Stephanie [Rich] on her (Wheeler), and Stephanie did a great job of keeping her off of the offensive boards,” Albright said. “But I think she already had four at that point when we made the switch.”
The team will travel to Northwestern to battle the 6-12 Wildcats Thursday before returning home and playing host to Michigan (11-5, 2-3) Sunday. If UW hopes to pick up a “W” in either one of their upcoming games or finish strongly in the Big Ten, they will need to improve their rebounding and continue playing with same defensive intensity.
