After a rough few weeks on and off the court, the Wisconsin women's basketball team fell to Purdue 66-49 in West Lafayette, Ind., making it the fifth straight loss for the Badgers.
Wisconsin (4-9 Big Ten, 14-10 overall), led by Alyssa Karel's 16 points, trailed by just six points at the half, but came out for the second half and fell behind 52-30 with 10:21 left in the game.
We just came out of the locker room and couldn't put the ball in the basket for quite some time,"" Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone said. ""That's something where our spacing needs to improve a little bit. They really got some rhythm '¦ We gave up way too many points in a short amount of time to start the second half and we just couldn't get anything going.""
With junior forward Mariah Dunham missing from the roster, freshman Anya Covington stepped up in the post and finished the game with 10 rebounds and shooting 4-of-4 from the line with a total of eight points for the Badgers.
The Boilermakers (9-4, 16-8), coming off of a 59-47 loss to Ohio State last week, put up 30 points in the first half and continued to rattle the Wisconsin defense. Freshman guard Brittany Rayburn scored 13 while senior forward Lakisha Freeman contributed 12 for Purdue, who out-rebounded the Badgers 44-38.
While the Badgers were down by just six at the half, they hit a wall in the second and couldn't get the ball in for more than four minutes until Karel hit a 3-pointer to end the drought. Karel scored three of Wisconsin's four 3-pointers.
""We showed some strength and some will. We talk about breaking things down media [timeout] by media [timeout]. In the first half, after the first two, we were leading in my opinion,"" Stone said. ""We had some good looks at the basket, only nine turnovers in the first half which is not too bad, but we were strapped by a little bit of foul trouble in the post.""
The Badgers have struggled with turnovers this season and finished with 16 that led to 21 points for the Boilermakers. In the first half Wisconsin shot just 9-of-28, but Purdue struggled as well, shooting 10-of-32. Purdue junior guard Jodi Howell made two 3-pointers, however, as the Boilermakers fashioned a 10-0 run to increase their lead to 21 (50-29) with 11:24 left.
While Wisconsin was able to break the Boilermaker run in the second half, they couldn't stop Purdue for the rest of the game. The Badgers couldn't get closer than 16 points after that, even though they finished off the game with six points in the last minute.
""They were better than we were today, that's just the way it is,"" Stone said. ""They scored, we didn't get out and contest. There are some things we can address both defensively and offensively and we're getting stronger.
""We played with a lot more will than we did a week ago, and this is one that we'll go back and clip because there are some teaching points defensively. Offensively, we need a little bit better spacing and the ability to attack that zone that they had. We got some good looks in the post but just couldn't capitalize.""
Wisconsin has now lost 21 consecutive games at Mackey Arena and has not beaten Purdue since 1984.
The Badgers will look to finally rebound from their losing streak as they prepare to host Penn State at the Kohl Center Thursday at 7 p.m.
- uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
