It's March and the women's basketball team hopes will look to provide a little madness of its own when it travels down to the Conseco Field House in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Women's Tournament. The Badgers (5-11 Big Ten, 11-15 overall) open play Thursday at 2 p.m. against the Indiana Hoosiers (3-13, 10-17) and will have the opportunity to avenge a Feb. 3 defeat earlier in the season at the hands of IU.
The Badgers enter the Big Ten Tournament as the No. 8 seed and will face the Hoosiers for the third straight opening round match-up in the 8/9 game. The last two seasons Indiana has come out victorious with a close 52-51 victory in 2003 and a drubbing of UW last season 57-39.
\Now we've only seen them once this season. Last year saw them three times but they're no different,"" head coach Lisa Stone said. ""There's not a magical change they're going to make. They're not going to switch out on screens. They're going to play fundamental, help-side defense. We need to be patient and find ways to score.""
Wisconsin has had plenty of problems scoring against IU and the loss in Bloomington earlier this season is fresh in the minds of the Badgers. Although UW managed to tie the Badgers' highest scoring mark under Stone against IU in February, Wisconsin dug themselves an 18-point halftime deficit. The Badgers scored only 39 points in two contests last season in the state of Indiana'?-at Bloomington and in the Big Ten Tournament.
""It's not so much the element of revenge, but maybe more motivation,"" senior guard Stephanie Rich said about the struggles against IU of late. ""We thought we should have won that game in Bloomington this year, but that won't matter to us or them Thursday.""
Rich and fellow senior, forward Ebba Gebisa, will most likely be putting on the cardinal and white for UW in their final collegiate games this weekend. At 11-15, the only chance of post-season play for the Badgers would be if they are able to win the Big Ten Tournament and receive the conference's automatic bid.
""We know that we need to make a run here if we are going to play postseason,"" freshman guard Jolene Anderson said. ""We have to take it one game at a time, but we know that we need to win more than once to continue playing.""
If the Badgers are able to knock off Indiana, they would play the top seed and No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes Friday at 11 a.m. The Buckeyes, led by Big Ten Player of the Year Jessica Davenport, handled the Badgers with ease in their only meeting this season, an 86-67 Buckeye victory at the Kohl Center Jan. 27.
