Even though the Wisconsin women's basketball team (7-8 Big Ten, 18-10 overall) got off to an explosive start, senior All-American candidate Katie Gearlds of No. 15 Purdue carried her team by scoring a career-high 41 points, as the Boilermakers triumphed at the Kohl Center Sunday 69-60.
Gearlds' scoring was an all-time Kohl Center opponent high for the Badgers. On the Badgers' side, junior guard Jolene Anderson also made it in the record books as the fastest player in UW women's basketball history to reach 1,500 career points.
From tipoff, Wisconsin played with confidence, heart and hustle. During the first half, it was able to pull ahead by 12 points with around 8:30 left before halftime due to its defense forcing the Boilermakers into numerous turnovers.
Eventually, Gearlds took it upon herself to get the ball rolling for Purdue and led it on a 19-4 run as the Boilermakers pulled ahead of the Badgers at the end of the half, 32-29.
""I saw a different kind of emotion today, and I liked it,"" Purdue head coach Sharon Versyp said. ""We kind of got a little upset and we showed it out on the court in a positive way, meaning that we didn't like what was going on and we made a change.""
The entire second half of play was neck-in-neck between both teams. The biggest scoring gap was when Purdue grabbed an 11-point lead with just under eight minutes left, which was quickly narrowed when the Badgers found some scoring momentum. With only 2:30 left on the clock, Wisconsin was trailing 60-57.
Gearlds scored the last nine points for her team to earn Purdue the much-needed victory in the Big Ten Conference.
Sunday's game marked only the fourth time this season Wisconsin was out-rebouned by its opponent. In the post-game press conference, Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone remarked, ""I'm going to give Purdue some credit defensively. They notched it up just a bit ... They made an emphasis on the boards and really crashed the boards hard the second half ... They forced us to take quicker shots.""
""We fought hard and shot the ball pretty well in the first half,"" Stone added. ""We didn't give up and we continued to battle, but [Purdue] is a good basketball team, very solid, very long, and again I give my team credit for not backing down.""
Freshman forward Mariah Dunham led Wisconsin with 16 points, and junior forward Danielle Ward added 12. Anderson also finished in double figures with 11 points on the game.
Besides Gearlds scoring over half of Purdue's total points and going an impressive 12-of-13 from the free throw line, freshman guard FahKara Malone was the only other Boilermaker to reach double digit scoring with 10 points, as Purdue advanced to 12-2 in the Big Ten and 23-5 overall.
Wisconsin will travel to Iowa to finish off its regular season schedule Feb. 25.
