Coming off of their second conference win on Sunday at Illinois, the Wisconsin women’s basketball (2-8 Big Ten, 9-14 overall) returns home Wednesday night, as they welcome in their rivals, the Minnesota Golden Gophers (5-3, 16-5). In doing so, the Badgers will look to makeup for their loss to the Gophers that occured just 12 days ago in Minneapolis.
In their most recent victory against Illinois on Sunday, Wisconsin’s key offensive cogs, junior forward Marsha Howard and senior guard Cayla McMorris, were kept in check throughout the game. UW, however, found their spark when sophomore guard Suzanne Gilreath came off the bench and scored a career-high 27 points.
“I’ve been in the gym grinding and working hard and watching a lot of film with the coaches,” Gilreath said. “They left me wide open a few times so I decided to let it fly and I was just confident and it worked it out.”
12 days ago when the Badgers went on the road and played the Gophers, the main narrative of the game was the Badgers’ inability to slow down redshirt junior guard Kenisha Bell. Bell, whose aggressiveness in the first allowed her to get to the free throw line ten times and convert all of her chances, eventually led her team to 24 points on the night.
“Sometimes we got someone in front of the ball, but she has a great knack that if she can eye the rim she’s going to try to challenge that person to stay in front of her,” head coach Jonathan Tsipis said.
UW did an excellent job limiting Bell to only four points in the second half, but Minnesota senior guard Carlie Wagner stepped up for UM by scoring ten points and stifling any Badger comeback.
Although the final score, 90-65, indicates a blowout, UW still had four players score in double figures. The two main standouts were McMorris and sophomore forward Courtney Fredrickson.
McMorris dropped in 23 points on the night, which was due to her aggressiveness throughout the game as she got to the free throw line ten times and converted eight of her attempts.
Fredrickson added scored 15 points and grabbed ten rebounds, leading her to get her third double-double of the year.
“For sure I’m going to bring that same attacking mentality, they have a lot of good scoring guards and if we could get a couple of them in foul trouble that would be a great help,” Fredrickson said.
This will be the first home game in this rivalry in over two years for the Badgers,the first in the Tsipis era.
“I’m excited to have a chance to have them here, knowing it’s our main rivalry with the fact a lot of students from Minnesota come here to Madison for school,” Tsipis said.
Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m. at the Kohl Center Wednesday night.
