For the third-straight year, Wisconsin (11-15, 5-11) will begin its quest for a Big Ten tournament championship by facing Indiana (10-17, 3-13) in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, which kicks off Thursday.

In each of the past two years, Wisconsin and Indiana have met in the first game of the tournament, and each time Indiana has stopped Wisconsin short of a quarterfinal appearance. The Hoosiers took down the Badgers 52-51 in 2002 and 57-39 in last year’s matchup.

Senior point guard Stephanie Rich missed last year’s first-round game with a hand injury but will get another shot at the Hoosiers this year on a neutral floor.

“It’s a lot less painful, and just being able to help my teammates compete in the basketball game will be enough for me,” Rich said.

If the Badgers needed any extra motivation going into Thursday’s game, the Hoosiers have already beaten the Badgers in Bloomington, 71-66, exactly a month ago to the day.

“There definitely is some extra, added incentive since we went down there and lost the game earlier in the year that we felt we could have and should have won,” senior forward Ebba Gebisa said.

In that game, Wisconsin stayed close in the first half before the Hoosiers built an 18-point lead in the second stanza thanks to 61.9 percent shooting from the floor.

“We can’t dig ourselves a hole and it’s matter of preparing and being ready to play for 40 minutes,” Gebisa said.

The Badgers, though, chipped away at the lead and trailed by only four points in the final seconds, but the Hoosiers were able to hang on by converting four free throws down the stretch.

Indiana, like the Badgers, will have more on the line this time around. Besides trying to salvage a losing season, the Hoosiers were dealt a surprising blow when head coach Kathi Bennett announced this week that she will resign following the conclusion of the season. In five seasons as head coach, Bennett has posted a 72-74 record and guided Indiana to its first Big Ten tournament championship just three seasons ago.

“It’s going to be a tough situation,” Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone said. “If you think back to two years ago, if you want to compare, Wisconsin was going through the same thing. They head to the Big Ten tournament knowing their coach wasn’t going to be back. On the other hand, I need to be concerned about our team, and our focus, and our preparation.”

Since claiming the program’s first conference title, Bennett’s teams have endured three-straight losing seasons, with the worst record, 10-17, coming this season. The Hoosiers’ only conference wins this season were the win over the Badgers and two wins against Northwestern.

The struggling Hoosiers were dealt a major blow earlier this season, when they lost senior guard Jenny DeMuth to a knee injury — with 18.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game leaving with her. With DeMuth absent from the scoring column, Indiana has struggled to put points on the board, averaging a conference-low 50.9 points per game.

“Indiana’s a good team that we match up with — they’re a great defensive team,” Rich said. “I really didn’t want to play them because I didn’t want to have to look at the clips earlier from this year and bring back all those bad memories.”

Junior guard Cyndi Valentin leads the Hoosier attack with an average of 14 points per game. Valentin, an honorable-mention all-Big Ten pick, also averages 4.7 rebounds per game and leads the team in 3-pointers with 42 triples on the season. No other Hoosier averages double figures in scoring.

Senior guard LeeAnn Stephenson is the Hoosiers’ second-leading scorer, averaging just 5.9 points per contest. Senior forward Jamie Gathing averages 5.6 points per game, and junior forward Angela Hawkins and sophomore guard Annika Boyd each average 5.5. Hawkins also leads the team in rebounding with an average of 6.7 per outing.

The game will practically be a home game for the Hoosiers, who head from Bloomington to Indianapolis. The Hoosiers, though, had fewer than 1,000 fans at their February game with the Badgers, so the crowd will likely be a non-factor.

“I can’t imagine that their crowd from their home is going to travel that much to Indianapolis,” Rich said. “It’s not like they had sellout crowds every night at Assembly Hall. And our band out-bands any band, so we got the edge on the band.”

If the Badgers were to end their three-game losing streak to the Hoosiers, things would not get any easier as top-seeded and No. 3-ranked Ohio State and Big Ten Player of the Year Jessica Davenport wait eagerly in the wings. Davenport scored a career-high 36 points against the Badgers in the teams’ only meeting, which the Buckeyes won easily, 86-67, in Madison.

“It would be nice to see someone else besides Indiana in the Big Ten tournament, but if we get past them we have Ohio State, another red team to look forward to,” Rich said. Wisconsin is just 4-10 in its history at the tournament and has advanced to the semifinals just once, in 2002, when they beat Northwestern and Minnesota as a No. 6 seed.

“I’m a person that is not a big believer in streaks or historical records or anything like that,” Stone said. “It’s a brand new game and it will be a brand new day.”