Down 0-13 five minutes into its game with Indiana (11-11, 4-8), the UW women’s basketball team (7-17, 5-8) came storming back, and with 12.5 seconds left the Badgers had the ball while down by only a point.

With the score in Indiana’s favor at 49-48, UW inbounded the ball to Stephanie Rich, who dribbled up the right side of the court and forced up a highly contested layup. The ball bounced off the backboard into the hands of Lello Gebisa, who turned and shot from about five feet away. The ball careened off the rim and a fight for the rebound resulted in the ball going out of bounds, last touched by Indiana.

“I was right there,” Gebisa said. “It should have gone in. I thought I had a good look.”

After a timeout, the Badgers inbounded the ball with six-tenths of a second left from underneath their own hoop.

“I thought they would lob it in,” Indiana head coach Kathi Bennett said. “I thought they would try and set up for Lello or whoever had the size advantage.”

Tough Hoosier defense broke up the Badgers’ idea to lob the ball towards Lello Gebisa and center Emily Ashbaugh, who were supposed to be standing next to each other. Instead, the ball was passed to Ebba Gebisa near the top of the key, and after a single dribble time had expired — UW had lost 49-48.

“I thought we played extremely hard and we had players hit huge shots at the end of the game,” Bennett said. “It was a great win for us.”

The game marked Indiana’s first road win of the season and the first time it has won in Madison since 1997.

The Hoosiers were led by freshman guard Cyndi Valentin, who scored 23 points in the game, which was two more than the Badgers scored in the first half. The freshman hit huge shots down the stretch, making all five of her free-throw attempts while grabbing four rebounds and racking up three steals.

“Valentin was single-handedly on a mission in the first half,” head coach Jane Albright said. “We gave her a lot of confidence.”

Led by Valentin’s 17 first-half points, the Hoosiers were able to build a 12-point first-half lead midway through the stanza.

Down 5-17, the Badger defense took over, not allowing the Hoosiers a point for five minutes. UW’s full-court press created steals, forced turnovers and required Indiana to use every second on the shot clock.

Meanwhile, the Badger offense began to heat up, and the Hoosier lead was cut to four when sophomore Stephanie Rich hit a 3-pointer to make the score 13-7.

In the closing minutes of the first half, the Gebisa sisters led the way for UW as Lello hit a layup, and Ebba had a steal and layup to end the first half with the Badgers down 21-26.

The Badgers once again stepped up their defense in the second half, holding the Hoosiers scoreless in the first five minutes.

“We were able to keep them off the offensive boards,” Albright said. “Lello and Emily had their best tandem rebounding job today, and I thought that was exceptional. On the other hand, we had three people that had four turnovers.”

Gebisa ended the game with her fourth double-double of the season, scoring a team-high 14 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Ashbaugh matched her rebounding effort while scoring 9 points.

The other Badger offensive threat was Rich, who scored 10 points while tallying four assists and three steals.

“In the second half we were just working together a lot better offensively and that’s what you need to do all game,” Lello Gebisa said. “We used each other to get each other open and we were a lot more successful.”

The Badgers were able to break a Hoosiers’ defense that had stymied them at the beginning of the game, and the last 10 minutes of the game didn’t see a lead larger than 3 points for either team.

“In the Big Ten, when you play teams twice, the second one is always tough,” Albright said. “I thought they came out with a lot of confidence, and really one thing we have not learned to do this year is defend our home floor.”

The Badgers currently have more road victories than home wins this season in the Big Ten, and after their win Thursday at Michigan, the team was unable to carry over much momentum into its game against Indiana.

As time wound down, Hoosiers junior guard Kristi Bodine was open on the wing for a 3-point attempt.

“I was coming off ready to score,” Bodine said. “I just thought that 3-pointer was going in, and I wanted to get the shot off.”

The 3-point attempt did go in with 1:01 left on the clock, and it proved to be the game-winning basket.

The Badgers missed four layups in the last minute of the game, failing to capitalize on any opportunity the Hoosiers provided.

“We got two good looks and just couldn’t nail them,” Albright said about the closing seconds. “All in all, they just closed the game and we did not.”