In what was a night of back-and-forth play, as well as a night of comebacks, Wisconsin ultimately found itself with a nine-point loss when the final buzzer sounded.
No. 16 Ohio State (6-1 Big Ten, 16-1 overall) outscored Wisconsin 12-8 in the first quarter and 29-11 in the third. The Badgers (0-6, 5-14) gave it right back, outscoring the Buckeyes 20-12 in the second and 22-12 in the fourth, which was the peak of their comeback.
Wisconsin was able to make it a one-point game going into the half and also put together a 12-0 run in the fourth, but to no avail.
The Badgers trailed early into the first and let Ohio State build a 12-point lead behind redshirt sophomore guard Kelsey Mitchell. Mitchell ended the night with 24 points (8-for-17), four assists and two rebounds.
Wisconsin trailed by double digits until freshman guard Suzanne Gilreath, the leading scorer for Wisconsin, knocked down a three. Gilreath finished with 15 points.
“I think throughout the whole game we had great fight,” Badgers’ head coach Jonathan Tsipis told uwbadgers.com. “When you out-rebound one of the top teams in the country, I felt like the effort was really good.”
The downfall of Wisconsin came in the third when they allowed the Buckeyes to build a 29-point lead heading into the fourth, making a Wisconsin comeback extremely difficult.
"I challenged them at the third quarter and told them we can't go back and fix the third quarter, all we can do is play the best fourth quarter," Tsipis said.
Although Wisconsin took home the road loss, some positives did come out of the game, leaving this young team with some things to be proud of and others to work on. As Tsipis said, Wisconsin out-rebounded Ohio State, shot a better free throw percentage and had more bench points.
Sophomore Marsha Howard and redshirt junior guard Cayla McMorris each finished with eight points. Howard added six rebounds and McMorris grabbed five boards and three assists.
The Badgers will return to the Kohl Center this upcoming Wednesday to face off against Michigan State. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
