EVANSTON, Ill. — In its first Big Ten Conference match-up of the season, the Wisconsin women's basketball team was outmatched by Northwestern and unable to complete a second half comeback before falling, 61-49, Sunday afternoon.

In a game similar to the Badgers' (2-7, 0-1 B1G) last outing against Virginia Tech, Wisconsin found themselves in an early hole thanks to a strong Northwestern (7-3, 1-0) shooting performance in the first half. The Wildcats shot 40% (8-20) in the first period compared to Wisconsin's 2-12 (16.7%) to lead 17-7 after the first period. UW trailed by only three (10-7) with 2:22 to play in the first but NU outscored the Badgers 7-0 over the last two minutes for its lead. Wildcat forward Caileigh Walsh scored 11 of her 14 points in the first frame.

In the second half, the sophomore duo of Brooke Schramek and Halle Douglass did everything they could to keep the Badgers in the game. The Wildcats led 43-27 with 3:22 to play in the third quarter before Schramek scored five straight over the final three minutes of the third quarter to make it a 43-32 score at the end of three. 

Schramek continued her scoring drive into the fourth quarter, hitting another bucket before Sara Stapleton added a basket to make it 43-36 with 7:36 to play. A 5-0 Northwestern run gave the Wildcats a 47-36 lead with 5:58 to play. Two free throws from Schramek and a basket from Douglass cut the lead to 51-43 with 3:15 to play but that was as close as the Badgers would get. For the second-straight game, UW outscored its opponent in the second half, finishing with a 31-28 edge over Northwestern.

Schramek finished with a team-leading and career-high 18 points, shooting career bests of 6-9 from the field and 5-7 from the free-throw line. Douglass also dropped a new career-high finishing with 10 points, shooting 3-6 from the field and 4-5 from the charity stripe.

The Wildcats only scored 13 points in their offensive sets. All other scores came from points off of turnovers (21), fast-break points (15) and second-chance points (12). Wisconsin finished with a season-high 23 turnovers as Northwestern had 11 steals. NU also outrebounded the Badgers, 40-28.

Despite staying out of foul trouble the whole game, Wisconsin was forced to foul late as Northwestern shot 14-16 (87.5%) from the free-throw line in the fourth period to help seal the win.

Junior guard Julie Pospisilova was the other double-digit scorer for UW, finishing with 12 points while sharing the team lead with Stapleton with six rebounds.

As a team, the Badgers finished shooting 37.2% from the field (16-43), 21.4% (3-14) from the 3-point line and 70% (14-20) from the free-thow line. Northwestern shot just 33.3% (20-6), including 5-14 (35.7%) from behind the arc. The Wildcats finished 16-18 from the charity stripe for 88.9%.  

Straight from the court:

Head Coach Marisa Moseley

"I think we struggled a little bit finding outcomes. The pressure hurt us a bit in the first half and I think a lot of it was more things that we did to ourselves as opposed to what Northwestern did to us. I think we started to get in a rhythm a little bit in the second half=.

"I was really proud of our defensive effort and I'm really proud of Brooke Schramek. She was really carrying our team quite a bit tonight and for Halle Douglass to come off the bench and play well too. We just got to learn from this as we didn't shoot the ball particularly well so I think that will make a big difference."

Up next
Wisconsin opens its Big Ten home season against No. 12 Michigan in the Kohl Center Thursday at 8 p.m., live on the Big Ten Network.