The Badgers women's basketball team continued to use size to its advantage as it continued on a positive note in its inaugural year under new Head Coach Lisa Stone. A modest crowd of just less than 5,500 was on hand to see the second win of the 2003-'04 season as UW defeated the WI AAU Select Viking Club in dominating fashion, 84-58.
UW came out using the visible height advantage to take an early lead and never trail again. It was clear in the opening minutes this was to be a Badger victory. Senior center Emily Ashbaugh and junior guard Stephanie Rich led all scorers in the first half with 16 and 10 points, respectively, and were aided by strong defensive performances by Ashbaugh and senior center Lello Gebisa, each with seven rebounds, allowing the Badgers to take a 40-27 lead into the half.
Despite the lead, the Badgers still showed hesitancy with the ball in the paint. While the team shot 43 percent, it managed only eight offensive rebounds and the strong defensive performance on the glass can mostly be attributed to a 25.7 field goal percentage by WI AAU.
\By them playing a zone sometimes that takes the intensity out of your offense and indeed it did that the first half. We were tentative,"" Stone said.
Wisconsin showed little fatigue coming out of the break, scoring six points before the Viking Club made its first field goal of the second half. With 16:16 left to go in the game, the Badgers coasted to a 52-30 lead.
The second half continued to produce strong performances out of Ashbaugh and Rich and with the addition of sophomore forward Jordan Wilson, the Badgers shelled out three players scoring in double points, the first two also achieving a double-double.
Stone came down on freshman guard Kandace Evans after a foul resulted in her receiving a technical for disagreement with the referee. Stone sat Evans for the remainder of the game after a brief four minutes of play, on what Stone admitted was a lesson for Evans.
After playing against the Badgers for two years, WI-AAU Head Coach Keith Noll said the team has improved light-years since he saw it play last, and is prepared to see good things from this year's squad, touching on the play of Ashbaugh, Rich and sophomore guard Ashley Josephson.
""After playing them the last two years, I see quite a difference in how hard they play,"" Noll said. ""I was just really impressed compared to a year ago how they long and the way they look today ... it's light-years.""
The Badgers take some time off, which Stone said she plans on working on some areas that UW continues to struggle on from last year, in particular turnovers. Wisconsin had 21 turnovers, allowing WI AAU to score 21 points off of those turnovers. Stone said she will take the win, but they have a lot of issues to go through until the next game Nov. 23 against Northern Illinois.
""We'll take the 'W', but we're going to go back to work on Thursday,"" Stone said. ""I thought second half we did a much better job. I got after them a little bit at half time and they responded very well. But when you have that kind of height advantage and that kind of skill ... we've got to be able to use that.\
