After just suffering a devastating loss at Indiana (4-7 Big Ten, 15-9 overall) a week ago, the Wisconsin women's basketball team (5-6, 16-8) will seek revenge tonight as they host the Hoosiers at 7 p.m. at the Kohl Center.
Last Thursday, Indiana was able to explode right out of the gates, pulling ahead of Wisconsin by 19 points before the Badgers could even get a point on the scoreboard. With the Hoosiers having such a cushioned lead, Wisconsin was unable to tighten the score throughout the course of the game.
When asked what her team needs to do differently from tip-off, Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone said: ""We played as poor as we possibly could have played [last Thursday], so we're going to do a lot of things different. One, play better defense; two, attack offensively; and three, just flat out play better...Because that wasn't us and we hope to be a much different team this Thursday.""
Despite the loss, junior guards Jolene Anderson and Janese Banks each posted double-double's in last week's contest. The rest of the team, however, found it difficult to find weaknesses in Indiana's zone pressure, forcing Anderson and Banks to go through desperate measures just to keep the Badgers rolling.
According to Stone, Wisconsin hopes to depend more on other players and truly show the depth of its bench.
""You'll see us getting scoring from other players,"" said Stone. ""We addressed some things, we recognized some areas of the Indiana zone that we can get better shots at, and we hope we will maximize those opportunities.""
One player who has made obvious strides since the beginning of the season is freshman forward Brittany Heins, the newest addition to UW's starting line-up. Heins is contributing by doig the little things that may not show up in the box score, but definitely do not go unnoticed.
""[Heins] is amazing. She works very hard, she is a very unselfish player, she's a brilliant student, she's a student of the game, she's a sponge in terms of learning the game, and she earned her stripes because of all that,"" Stone said.
Five of Indiana's players posted double-figure scoring games last week, led by junior guard Nikki Smith and senior center Sarah McKay, who scored 22 and 18 points, respectively. McKay also pulled down 11 rebounds against the Badgers.
According to Heins, the only thing Wisconsin is concerned about is just doing everything differently to catch Indiana offguard on the Badger's home court.
""We really got deflated early [against Indiana] that game,"" Heins said. ""It will be really nice being home, having our home crowd, our home court, and our home surroundings...We take it one game at a time.""
""We're in the hunt right now to make a push for a better seed in the Big Ten tournament...We've got to come ready to play,"" Stone said.
