In her weekly press conference Monday, women's basketball head coach Lisa Stone addressed her team's play in recent weeks, as well as her team's next game against No. 10 Michigan State (6-2 Big Ten, 18-3 overall).
On Sunday, the team beat Northwestern 62-50, and with that win, the Badgers (7-2, 12-9) are currently tied for first place with Penn State in the Big Ten , with their next opponent Michigan State sitting a half game back. The last time the Badgers led the Big Ten standings at the midway point of the season was in the 1994-'95 season.
The Badgers' lead of the Big Ten conference is not the only significant milestone, though. Sunday's win at Northwestern put head coach Lisa Stone at one win shy of 500 for her career. Stone is in her twenty-sixth year of coaching (eighth with the Badgers) and has a career winning percentage of .684.
Coach Stone started off the press conference by explaining the key to her team's success against Northwestern, as well as the whole year, has been the play of her seniors, especially Alyssa Karel and Lin Zastrow.
""[We are] really leaning on our senior leadership, and that was certainly a testament to that yesterday,"" Stone said. ""I thought Alyssa and Lin really put the team on their back in the second half, both offensively and defensively, and allowed us to get out of there [Northwestern] with a win.""
Looking at the stats, it is easy to see why the Badgers lean on their senior leadership. The four senior Badgers, led by Karel and Zastrow, combined to score more than 60 percent of the team's points this year. Karel is tenth in the nation in scoring with 14.6 points per game and is tied for fourth in the nation in minutes played. Zastrow is second in the nation in field goal percentage (.558) and is in the top ten in both rebounds and blocked shots.
The Badgers did not have Zastrow in January 6's loss at Michigan State due to a concussion. Despite the loss of Zastrow, the Badgers were only down one point at half time, but went on to lose the second half by 18 points.
""[Michigan State] are the best offensive rebounding team in the league and our leading rebounder is not playing,"" said Stone of the loss at Michigan State. ""Certainly not making excuses, but we didn't respond, we knew they were gonna come out with a bigger punch [in the second half] and they did, and we didn't respond.""
The Badgers will have Zastrow this game, an essential comeback if they are going to stop Michigan State's two best players, forwards Kalisha Keane and Lykendra Johnson. Keane leads the team in points with 15.8 per game and Johnson is the Spartans's leading rebounder with 8.9 rebounds per game.
This time, the Badgers will battle with the Spartans at the Kohl Center. Hopefully that will give them an extra boost, as the Badgers stand at a perfect 4-0 at home in Big Ten play this year.
