In search of its first home victory of the season, the Wisconsin women's basketball team welcomes Washington State to the Kohl Center Friday. The Badgers are coming off of a difficult 54-52 road loss at the hands of in-state rival Marquette Tuesday. Wisconsin (1-2) had a 49-46 lead with 2:37 to play, but the Golden Eagles scored eight of the last 11 points in the game to secure the victory.
Friday's game will not be Washington State's first against a Big Ten opponent this season. The Cougars lost 72-60 to No. 12 Penn State in State College, Penn., last week, but it took a 13-0 run by the Nittany Lions in the final seven minutes to put Washington State away. Washington State (1-1) will also face two other Big Ten foes, Michigan and Ohio State, later in its nonconference schedule.
Washington State returns four starters from last season's squad. The Cougars are trying to improve from a 2010-'11 season in which they finished with an 8-23 record. Six of those eight victories came in conference play, and that was the most conference wins in a season for Washington State since 2000-'01.
If Wisconsin hopes to pick up its first home victory Friday, the Badgers must do a better job of taking care of the basketball on offense. Wisconsin is averaging 22.7 turnovers a game, and its assist-to-turnover ratio is an unimpressive 0.6 through three games. The faster style of basketball which new head coach Bobbie Kelsey has implemented has lead to increased turnover numbers, but the team will need to learn to play fast while also taking care of the ball. This will be especially true against the Cougars, who forced 51 turnovers in their first two games.
There was a concern that the Badgers would struggle with point production this year after losing their three top scorers from last season, but there have been encouraging offensive outputs from a number of players so far this season. Sophomore guard Morgan Paige scored a career-high 16 points against Marquette Tuesday, and senior forward Ashley Thomas had a career-high 11 points against Oral Roberts on Sunday. On the season, junior guard Taylor Wurtz is leading the team with 15.3 points per game.
Kelsey will be more familiar with Washington State than the majority of Wisconsin's opponents this season because she spent the last four seasons as an assistant coach with Stanford, which plays in the Pac-12 Conference with Washington State. Stanford regularly blew out the Cougars over the past four seasons, so Kelsey will draw from those experiences as she looks to lead her team to its first home victory.
Tip off for Friday's game against Washington State is 7 p.m. at the Kohl Center.
