Badgers Rout Kansas 68-41
December 03, 2006 | Women's Basketball
The Wisconsin women's basketball team improved to 8-1 on the year with a 68-41 win over Kansas Sunday at the Kohl Center. Junior teammates Jolene Anderson and Janese Banks led the Badgers with 15 points apiece.
Wisconsin shot a solid 45.5 percent (25-of-55) from the field while limiting Kansas to just 30.2 percent (16-of-53) shooting. The Badgers also won the battle on the glass with a 40-33 rebounding advantage. Anderson led UW with nine boards while classmate Danielle Ward added eight.
The Badgers continued its solid defensive effort against Kansas. The squad forced 20 KU turnovers and converted those miscues into 24 points. The Jayhawks also converted just 2-of-10 from 3-point land.
It was an even-keeled scoring effort all around for UW, who is an undefeated 4-0 at home this year. Rookie Teah Gant pitched in nine points while Mariah Dunham had eight, Caitlin Gibson had seven and Ward finished with six.
Wisconsin, who led 29-21 at halftime, came out strong in the second half. The Badgers started off the second stanza on a 24-4 run over the opening 11:10 to blow the game wide open. The Badgers, who led by as many as 33 with 5:34 to play in the game, also committed just six turnovers in the second half.
Sade Morris led Kansas (4-2) with 10 points.
Wisconsin welcomes Illinois-Chicago for a 7 p.m. game Thursday at the Kohl Center.
Post-Game Notes
'Junior Jolene Anderson was recognized in a pre-game ceremony to celebrate her gold medal with USA Basketball last summer in Mexico City. Anderson was also honored for being the fastest Wisconsin basketball player, male or female, to score 1,000 points.
'Today's attendance was 5,252.
'The Badgers are 2-1 all-time vs. Kansas with its win today. The only other win over the Jayhawks came in the first round of the 1995 NCAA Tournament.
'Wisconsin is an undefeated 5-0 at home this season. The 2004-05 Badgers also started off 5-0 on their home floor.
'The Badgers are on record pace in allowing opponents the fewest points scored in program history. The lowest season average was 53.3 during the program's first season in 1974-75. Following the game with Kansas, Wisconsin is allowing 51.0 points per game.
'Wisconsin set a season-best with eight blocks against the Jayhawks. The previous mark was five.
Post-Game Quotes
Wisconsin Head Coach Lisa Stone
Opening Comments: 'I'm very pleased with this basketball team. Defensively, that was our best performance yet this year, against a very, very good Kansas team. Our defense was spectacular; a lot of contributions from a lot of different people. Offensively, I thought we made some adjustments in terms of getting free in the wing. They play very, very aggressive man-to-man defense on our wings, and we adjusted and found some ways to score via transition; also through good cuts, screens and good teamwork. I thought Danielle and Caitlin came out of the locker room with a lot of energy on the boards and helped us with the deficit we had at halftime on the rebounding end of it. We took better care of the basketball in the second half, we only had six turnovers. Again some stellar performances by all that are sitting up here with me along with the ones in the locker room. It 's a great team effort. The kids are really excited. They've bought in tremendously to the defensive philosophy we put in. Offensively, we're starting to really share the ball and find some easy ways to score from the swing offense. '
On her halftime talk: 'We knew that they were going to make a run at us. They did it last year. We were up 18 at their place, and then down 14. Time and score, better decision-making on our shots, better shot selection. As the game started we found Jolene wide-open on the baseline for a three, followed by two transition baskets. Our best offense is our best defense. The defense spear-headed the offense into two transition baskets, which got us real excited and confident. When we're scoring our defense is better. A lot of those things go hand-in-hand. We talked about the fact that we want to have a strong start the second half, keep it going and continue to build our defense and have it be an even better second half. '
On the defense change in the first half: 'I'm not sure we're totally unstoppable yet. We still have a lot to work on. We haven't had enough practice time. We've been on an NBA schedule where we've been doing scouting reports every other day. Day off, scouting report, game. It'll be nice now to have two days off and actually have two days of practice. You'll see us tune up that match-up defense as well as our man-to-man defense. And that is our bread and butter. You're going to see more of that. And I thought today it was pretty effective.'
Kansas Head Coach Bonnie Hendrickson
Opening Statement: 'I thought in the first half we battled and at least the good news was that it was an eight point game. The bad news was defensively, we allowed them to score in transition. Offensively we were abysmal ' bad shots in transitions and turnovers in transition allowed them to shoot lay-ups in transition, but it was still an eight-point game. I felt if we could adjust and work on some things that we could control that defensively we could try to cut the gap by the first media (timeout) and make it a game and hang around. Obviously we didn 't do that. We didn't answer Wisconsin's run and didn't answer with any intensity or toughness, and those are some things that this time has got to learn, whether it's at home or on the road. You can't let someone just throw the knockout punch and stay in there dazed, and that's about what we did. '
On Wisconsin's defense: 'I thought more ball pressure and better presence in the passing lane and honestly, from the film we've seen, probably the best pressure that we've seen. They got out and played passing lanes well and we didn't respond. We picked the ball up off the dribble with the pressure and we didn't work hard to get into a passing lane for the next pass. And to give them credit, the more we became tentative, the more aggressive they became and it wasn't certainly the right result on our end offensively ' just too many turnovers at transition lay-ups.'
