The Wisconsin women's basketball team, appearing in its first NCAA tournament game since 2002, had a strong amount of momentum heading into Sunday's first round matchup against Vermont. However, the Badgers ran into a Catamount team with veteran leadership, strong poise, and stellar shooting, and fell to Vermont, 64-55.
Led by senior guards Courtnay Pilypaitis and May Kotsopoulos, Vermont played even with Wisconsin for the first 11 minutes of the game, trading scores with the Badgers. With 9:19 left in the first half, however, Vermont went on a 10-0 run that propelled the team to an eight-point halftime lead.
Wisconsin came out of the locker room strong, opening the second half with a 12-0 run. The Catamounts remained poised, though, and fought back to tie the contest at 39 with 10:35 remaining in the game. Vermont then went ahead by two at the 9:24 point and never looked back. The Badgers never came closer than four points down in the final five minutes of the contest.
Junior guard Alyssa Karel led the Badgers in scoring with 13 points and added five rebounds. Karel, Wisconsin's leading scorer on the season, fouled out of the game with a minute and a half remaining. Junior forward Lin Zastrow was the only other Badger who scored in double figures, contributing 11 points while leading the team with seven rebounds.
Meanwhile, playing her final game as a Badger, senior guard Rae Lin D'Alie managed just five points in the contest before also fouling out in the closing seconds. Fellow senior guard Teah Gant added nine points in the effort.
Wisconsin finished the afternoon with five 3-point shots, but managed just 36 percent shooting overall and only nine free throw attempts. The Badgers also turned the ball over 15 times and suffered from a poor performance off the bench in the second half. Usually a strong weapon for Wisconsin, the bench scored just two points for the Badgers after halftime.
For their winning efforts, the Catamounts also featured just two players scoring in double figures. However, Pilypaitis scored a game-high 25 points while Kotsopoulos contributed 14.
For a team that came in with a 3-point reputation, shooting over 35 percent on the season, the Catamounts made just three attempts from beyond the arc. But 40 percent shooting from the floor and 19 converted free throws were more than enough push Vermont to its first ever NCAA Tournament victory.
""They just hit some big shots,"" Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone said. ""I thought our defense was much better in the second half. We played our kind of defense. We settled down, but it came down to them making big shots and they hit them.""
While certainly disappointed, the Badgers will hold their heads high knowing they far exceeded the expectations of many critics entering this season. Projected by many to finish the season as low as 10th in the Big Ten, Wisconsin ended the year with a 21-11 overall record, a third place conference finish and the program's first NCAA bid in seven years. 21 victories also marks the second-most in program history.
Wisconsin loses two seniors in D'Alie and Gant, but will return four of the team's top five scorers in Karel, Zastrow, junior forward Tara Steinbauer and freshman guard Taylor Wurtz. The season ended sooner than the team had hoped, yet the Badgers have plenty to look forward to in the 2010-'11 season in just eight months.
—uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
