For all the talk of three-quarter court traps and complicated motion schemes, basketball remains a pretty simple game — if a team fails to put the ball in the basket with any frequency, it is going to be hard pressed to be successful.
For the Wisconsin women’s basketball team on Thursday night, it was this basic failure which led to a 54-43 loss to Penn State.
“We could not get any flow,” UW coach Lisa Stone said dejectedly after the game. “Offensively we sputtered. Although we only had ten turnovers, we had poor shot selection tonight — quick shots — and that ended up resulting in a very poor percentage.”
A hair over 28 percent to be exact — a season low — on 16-of-57 shooting, including just 3-of-13 from three-point range. In addition, the poor shooting from the floor was compounded by poor shooting at the free throw line, where UW managed to go just 8-of-15, compared to 9-of-10 by Penn State.
Although the Badgers knew a defensive battle could very likely manifest in a match-up that pitted the Big Ten’s No. 1 scoring defense in Wisconsin against its No. 1 in defensive field goal percentage, they did not expect a first half where they would be held to just 18 points, also a season low.
They probably also didn’t expect to have a game where they turned the ball over a season-low ten times (for the second straight game) and neutralized a vaunted up-tempo attack (Penn State managed just five fast break points), yet lost.
But despite the dreadful shooting which doomed them, Stone gave credit to the Penn State defense.
“I will not take anything away from Penn State because I thought they played very good defense,” she said. “They’re big, they’re physical, they’re athletic and they are a very good team. They played very well tonight.”
Well enough to limit Wisconsin to the sixth-least field goals in a game in program history and a season-low (yes, another) in points.
However, while the Badgers were having a nightmarish outing on the offensive end, their own typically stout defense kept the team within striking defense. In the first half, UW forced a Penn State team that averages over 69 points a game to post just 21 on less than 30 percent shooting.
Of particular note, senior guard and tri-captain Teah Gant held Nittany Lion star Tyra Grant, a reigning first-team All-Big Ten selection and the No. 2 scorer in the conference, without a basket in the first half. In the second stanza, though, Grant rung up 14 points on a series of drives and off-balance jumpers, keeping her streak of double-digit performances alive at 30.
“That was totally a credit to Wisconsin’s defense,” Penn State coach Coquese Washington said of Grant’s early struggles. “They stifled her every time she put the ball on the floor. You know, there were four, five pairs of hands around the ball and it took her a half to really figure out what to do.”
Unfortunately for the Badgers, she figured it out, going 6-for-10 in the final 20 minutes, to end the Wisconsin win streak at four and secure PSU in second-place in the league for now.
Besides the team’s woes shooting on this iron unkind night, the team also appeared to lack its trademark energy, an absence which senior guard Rae Lin D’Alie said was especially hard to swallow — and something they’d be sure to correct when they get back on the floor.
