Women's Basketball Comeback Falls Short
December 08, 2005 | Women's Basketball
The Wisconsin women's basketball team (4-4) fought back from a 21-point deficit but fell to South Dakota State, 68-65, Thursday at the Kohl Center. Wisconsin sophomore Janese Banks tallied her first career double-double with 15 points and a personal-best 12 rebounds to lead the Badgers, who dropped their fourth straight game.
Wisconsin went on a 19-0 run and held South Dakota State scoreless for more than eight minutes to overcome a 21-point deficit in the second half. The Jackrabbits broke the scoring drought with a pair of free throws by Sarah Meckley with 6:21 remaining.
The Badgers would come within two, 56-54, with 7:02 to play. SDSU would get a key 3-pointer from Andrea Verdegan to take a five-point lead, 62-57, at 5:17. Two baskets by Jolene Anderson (Port Wing, Wis.) and a pair of free throws by Banks (Indianapolis, Ind.) brought the Badgers within one, 63-64, with 2:04 left in the game. Following a Wisconsin foul, Megan Vogel hit two free throws to extend the lead back to three. Banks would hit a key basket with 56 seconds left to bring the game within one for the second time.
A Jackrabbit offensive foul gave the Badgers possession with 29 seconds left to play. Ashley Josephson missed a 3-point opportunity, but SDSU failed to connect at the charity stripe and Nelson pulled down the board. Wisconsin got the ball inside to Ward on the next possession, but it bounced off the rim and the rebound went to South Dakota State. Jennifer Warkenthien nailed a pair of free throws to take a three-point lead, 68-65. Wisconsin had one last scoring opportunity but Banks' 3-point shot failed to hit the rim as the buzzer sounded.
Banks was one of four players to score in double figures for Wisconsin. Danielle Ward (Milwaukee, Wis.) put up 12 points while Caitlin Gibson (Jefferson, Wis.) added 11 and Anderson pitched in 10. It was the eighth double-digit scoring game for both Banks and Anderson.
Sophomore Shari' Welton (Calumet City, Ill.) set a career-high with seven points and Chris Spencer (Traverse City, Mich.) provided a spark off the bench, hitting her first career 3-pointer.
South Dakota State used a pair of scoring runs to take a 42-26 lead at halftime. The Jackrabbits took their first lead at 17:22 and went on an 8-0 run to lead 14-7 with 16:56 to play in the half. The two squads would trade baskets before SDSU went on another run, this time of 7-0, to lead 32-18 with 4:31 remaining. The largest lead of the half was 16 at 3:03 following a 3-pointer by South Dakota State's Megan Vogel. Each team would hit two more buckets to close to half. Shari' Welton led the Badgers in the first half with five points.
Andrea Verdegan led South Dakota State (5-2) with a game-high 19 points while Vogel added 15 for the Jackrabbits.
Wisconsin will battle Kansas at 1 p.m. Sunday in Lawrence, Kan.
Wisconsin (4-4) 65, South Dakota State (5-2) 68
Kohl Center
Madison, Wis.
Attendance: 4,670
Game Notes
' South Dakota State claimed the first meeting between the two teams and lead the series 1-0.
' The Badgers are 2-2 in the Kohl Center this season.
' Janese Banks tallied her first career double-double with 15 points and a career-high 12 rebounds. Her previous best on the boards was nine against Santa Clara last season (12/16/04).
' Shari' Welton also set a personal-best with seven points. Her previous high was six against Cleveland State (11/20).
' Chris Spencer tied her season-best with three points, coming off her first career 3-pointer in the second half.
' The Badgers had a season-high 26 turnovers.
' Wisconsin went on a 19-0 run from 14:35 to 6:21 in the second half, holding SDSU scoreless for more than eight minutes. The Jackrabbits' largest lead was 21 points (56-35) at 14:35.
' South Dakota State used two scoring runs (8-0 from 17:22 to 14:47 and 7-0 from 6:14 to 4:31) to take a 16-point lead at the half (42-26).
Postgame Quotes
Wisconsin Head Coach Lisa Stone
On the team's season-high 26 turnovers:
'It was lot of turnovers. We just had a horrendous time handling the basketball in the first half. We've talked about how hard South Dakota State plays and truly, they do. They play their butts off the whole game. They 're relentless in their defense. They're relentless in their penetration and kick for 3-point shots. They caused our perimeter players a heck of a time. It was a courageous battle for us to come back, obviously, but it was too little too late. We had two missed opportunities to take the lead at the end but we missed a couple of shots and got a put-back that just didn't go down. Our kids didn't give up, they kept playing.'
On Chris Spencer:
'I thought we got a nice little lift from Chris Spencer. That's probably the silver lining of the second half. We just have to find a way to win and that's the long story short.'
On South Dakota State:
'They built (their lead) to 26 points. They know how to win. They were undefeated two years ago with a national championship. (Head coach) Aaron (Johnston) does a great job. They've taken out a lot of division one opponents. There's no question that they'll do very, very well. They're used to winning 20+ games a year and as we continue to grow and we continue to learn how to win, these games will go the other way. We've got a short turnaround again and we have another tough opponent in a 7-0 Kansas team on Sunday. It doesn't get any easier but I'm just disappointed in our play, we didn't show up in the first half and had to fight back. It was just too little, too late.'
South Dakota State Head Coach Aaron Johnston
On the game:
'It's a mentality that you can come and play and not necessarily win all the time, but you can come and play and do what you want to do offensively and defensively and really try to get to your level. I think our team has always believed that. When you hear our players talk, they talk a little bit about execution and passing and making shots, but more they talk about playing tough, and playing with pride and passion.
"I'm really please that we have a team that plays to the level of what they do to accomplish some of these things. They just showed great energy. I was pleased that we held on in that run. It was a big run ' a lot of it had to do with their (Wisconsin's) defense, their offense. A lot of it had to do with us missing some shots. We had few uncontested lay-ups in there that would have eased that 19-0 run a little bit more, but we just showed a lot of poise for still a pretty inexperienced team in the big picture of things to get this one on the road.'
On the 22 points off of Wisconsin's turnovers:
'Defensively, one of the things we try to do is be really distracting. Our players know this and I think they would admit it. We're not always going to be the quickest and most athletic team out there, but we have a style and a system that really requires us to try and disrupt other offenses. We feel like if we just allowed Wisconsin to go through their half court offense and execute and have to try and stop those guards, it would be really hard to do that. They're fantastic players and I think that translates into our offense, too. I'll be the one to tell you it 's somewhat a plan, but we play on the edge of chaos all the time on offense, and there'll be some times that we take shots that other people would say boy, that 's too quick or that's too early. But for us a good open shot is good no matter when it happens, and some of those 3's that were going in in the first half were really big for us, so I think offensively and defensively we try and be disruptive. I wouldn't say just a run and gun team, but we try and be disruptive with our offense and our defense, and I think that really helps us against these kinds of teams, because they're very deliberate and all of a sudden they've got players that have to run to the three-point line and rotate and do different things, and I just think sometimes that's been a benefit for us.'
On the difference in building a 21-point lead in the first half and Wisconsin's run in the second half:
'I think the big difference was that in the first half, they (Wisconsin) were a little bit tentative offensively, and we did force some turnovers and then some unforced turnovers where they just maybe mishandled the ball, and the same thing happened on the opposite side in the second half. They got out and forced some turnovers. They got at some block shots. They really recovered hard defensively in the second half and we had some unforced turnovers and missed shots. So really I thought they were a flip-flop of what happened. We had a pretty good start in the first half and the beginning of the second half. If that run would've started right away with 20 minutes to go, would we have held on' I don't know. But we had a good three or four minute start that really had a bit of a cushion and got the team going in the right direction and I thought that start was really important.'
