GREEN BAY — Playing on the road in front of an energized crowd of more than 3,700 fans Wednesday, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team defeated UW-Green Bay 59-47 to extend its winning streak to nine games.
The Badgers used a strong shooting performance early to quiet the crowd, jumping out to a 9-0 lead while holding the Phoenix scoreless in the first three-and-a-half minutes of play. With all the energy that comes with a big intrastate game, UWGB couldn’t find a rhythm early and failed to stop Wisconsin from getting open looks at the basket.
“For whatever reason, we were just really tight to start the game,” UWGB head coach Matt Bollant said. “I don’t know if it was the big crowd, or if it’s Wisconsin and just being so excited to play them, but it not only hurt us on the offensive end, it made us a step slow on the defensive end.”
Wisconsin (9-1) got a strong early performance from guard Alyssa Karel, who scored all nine of her points in the first 10 minutes of play. But, in the end, it was the play of junior forward Mariah Dunham and sophomore forward Tara Steinbauer who carried the Badgers the rest of the way.
Dunham led all scorers with 16 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including 2-for-3 from beyond the arc, and Steinbauer added 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting and 3-for-4 from the line.
“Our high-low was effective in the first half,” UW head coach Lisa Stone said. “[Tara] and Mariah were able to be the receivers, and kept us in there scoring-wise.”
The Badgers extended the lead to 32-12 with 5:43 to play in the first half, but the Phoenix fought back, going on an 18-3 run over a nine-minute stretch to cut the Wisconsin lead to 35-30.
Unfortunately for UWGB, Dunham hit a 3-pointer on the next UW possession, and the Phoenix would never get any closer in the final 16 minutes of play.
Green Bay (7-1) was led offensively by sophomore guard Celeste Hoewisch with 15 points on 5-of-12 shooting. Also in double figures for the Phoenix was senior Lavesa Glover with 10 points, going 3-of-8 from the field and 4-of-6 from the charity stripe.
Hoewisch led the Phoenix rally over the last six minutes of the first half and first three minutes in the second half, but was unable to overcome the surprisingly the slow start for UWGB.
“It’s always disappointing to start your game the way we did,” Hoewisch said. “We’ve just got to learn from it. I think we might’ve made this game bigger than what it really was [and] paid attention maybe to what was on the front of their jersey. I don’t know what it was.”
The biggest problem for Wisconsin in the game was a familiar one: foul trouble. UW had five fouls before the first media timeout of the game and finished with three forwards — Dunham, Steinbauer and Lin Zastrow — with four fouls apiece.
As a result, the Badgers were forced to utilize some of their depth at the forward position, with senior Caitlin Gibson seeing the floor for the second time this year, playing seven minutes and putting in a pair of shots while grabbing an offensive rebound.
“We’re bringing a lot of forwards in there, and I like it,” Stone said. “I just told our team, I’m very, very proud of Caitlin Gibson. She hasn’t played a whole lot this whole year and she came in and gave us quality minutes in crunch time.”
Wednesday’s game marked the first time this season that Karel — the Badgers’ leading scorer — has failed to reach double digits in scoring, but it showed that opposing defenses cannot focus on one player to shut down the Badgers’ offensive attack.
“[For] this team, like any other team I’ve been on, it doesn’t matter who comes out and scores,” Dunham said. “That’s the threat of this team — you don’t know who’s going to be the leading scorer. Alyssa, she had an off game, but at the same time, she played very well on the defensive end.”
Defense again proved to be a strong point for the Badgers, as they held the Phoenix to 47 points on 38.6 percent shooting from the field and just 23.1 percent from beyond the arc. For Bollant, the strength of Wisconsin’s defense appeared to come from the players’ desire to play well defensively and a knowledge of the importance of defensive play.
“They take a lot of pride in it,” Bollant said. “They realize that they’ve got to defend every possession to give themselves a chance to win. It’s really a team thing. … They’ve all bought in to the team defense.”