It is the final stretch of the season for the Wisconsin women’s basketball team, and the stakes are high.
Each of the last four games is a critical test that will determine whether or not the 2010-2011 Badgers win their first ever Big Ten Championship.
Up first for the Badgers (14-10, 9-3), are none other than the Iowa Hawkeyes (19-7, 7-6), who the Badgers have not beaten in over four years. Wisconsin’s last victory over Iowa came at the Kohl Center in February 2007; this one is in Iowa City. The only conference opponent Wisconsin has a longer losing streak to is Ohio State, who the Badgers play in the season finale.
Iowa has won the past seven games between the two teams, and with Wisconsin in good position to win a conference title and with Iowa virtually out of contention, the Hawkeyes would like nothing more than to dash the Badgers’ dreams.
This year’s senior class of Badgers knows that they have never beaten the Hawkeyes. They also know that must to change if they are going to win that elusive championship.
“I think we kind of owe them a game,” senior guard Alyssa Karel said. “I know some of the girls on the team, so it’s kind of personal that way too. We definitely want to get out of here knowing that we beat every single team in the Big Ten team at least once.”
If Wisconsin beats Iowa, that will be nine Big Ten teams down and one to go.
Defeating Iowa will be a much tougher challenge than the Hawkeyes’ barely .500 Big Ten record would suggest. Iowa has spent most of the season ranked in the top 25 polls and just recently fell out due to back-to-back losses to start the month of February.
“They are as dangerous as ever. They have had a very tough schedule,” assistant coach John Barnes said. “It’s going to be a battle and hard to win there, but our game plan is good; we just have to go down there and execute it.”
Wisconsin’s most mystifying problem may be figuring out how to slow down Iowa’s offense, which boasts four starters scoring 10.7 points per game or more. The interesting and scary thing about Iowa is their second leading scorer, Kachine Alexander, is among 30 finalists for the Naismith Trophy, awarded to the best player in women’s college basketball, and not leading scorer Jaime Printy.
Alexander averages 14.4 points per game and leads all guards in the nation in rebounding with 9.5 per game. Printy averages 15.5 points per game, followed by Kamille Wahlin’s 12.1 points and sophomore center, Morgan Johnson’s 10.7 points per game.
In order to stem such an overflow of talent and explosiveness, Wisconsin is going to have to rely on the defense that has gotten the team to a half game out of first place.
The Badgers rank second in the Big Ten in scoring defense, giving up just 60.4 points per game, and field goal percentage defense, forcing opponents to shoot less than 38 percent from the floor.
The Badgers will also look to ride the wave of the momentum carrying over from two blowout victories against Indiana and Northwestern last week.
“The thing about the momentum that we have is that we haven’t done anything crazy,” senior forward Tara Steinbauer said. “We have done what’s worked for us, and we work really hard in practice every day, and it’s not one big thing that we’re doing it’s all the small, little things that have really added up.”
A matchup against a team you have never had success against in your entire collegiate career may seem like a daunting task, but at least one player is not backing down.
“This is obviously a game that I really look forward to,” Steinbauer said. “Iowa has got a great group of girls there…that are well coached, but we are going to bring it at them and we are going to give them the best that we got!”
