For the majority of Wednesday night, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team (2-12 Big Ten, 9-18 overall) made it a competitive game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (7-7, 19-9). The Scarlet Knight’s toughness, grit, determination and senior leadership proved to be too much for the Badgers in the second half, as they secured their first lead midway through the third quarter and never looked back and won 63-50.
In the first half the Badgers jumped out to a 17-to-nine lead in the first quarter, led by Marsha Howard who scored the first four points of the game. UW also held Rutgers leading Tyler Scaife to only four points early.
“I thought we executed on both ends of the floor in the first quarter, we, as a team, were a little shocked to see Tyler Scaife coming off the bench to start the game,” head coach Jonathan Tsipis said.
In the second quarter Rutgers responded by not allowing Wisconsin to score in over a seven minute span, while also dropping nine points on the other end to close Wisconsin’s lead to only one.
“What really hurt us in the first half I thought, was their offensive rebounding and our inability to get second chance points, even though we were up five going into half,” Tsipis said.
C. Vivian Stringer, the hall of fame coach for Rutgers, came out of halftime with a plan for her team as it responded by going on a eight-to-two run to take the lead with five minutes remaining in the third. Rutgers would battle throughout the remaining five minutes of the quarter before solidifying their lead with a pair of back-to-back 3-pointers in a 30 second span to close out the third.
“In the second half I thought the overall toughness was the main issue, we allowed negative plays whether they were missed shots, turnovers, inability to get stops to take away our confidence,” Tsipis said. “You could really see it in our body language, could see it in how strong we played, and you could see Rutgers gained confidence from the poor body language.”
The fourth quarter got chippy as Rutgers’ toughness and grit that they showed throughout the game finally wore on the Badgers. When junior forward Marsha Howard drove down the lane she appeared to be fouled, but the refs determined that junior forward Caitlin Jenkins had secured a jump ball after a brief standing scrum for the ball that was squirting around.
When the whistle blew Jenkins ripped the ball out of Howards arms causing an exchange of words between the two. As Jenkins walked away she extended her arms upwards and elbowed Howard in the face inadvertently.
“I did not see it, we will watch it on film and see what happened, anytime there is any unsportsmanlike call its usually never one sided,” Tsipis said. “We have to do a better job to keep our head in those situations, Rutgers is very aggressive team and you really can not allow your emotions to get the best of you.”
Although Howard received a technical foul, for the majority of the night she was cool headed, as she was the Badgers’ leading scorer on the night with 12 points.
Senior guard Cayla McMorris, who played in her last home game Wednesday night, was tasked in stopping Rutgers’ leading scorer Tyler Scaife throughout the night. McMorris only managed to score seven points on the night and seemed not to be herself after receiving a pretty heavy knock to her lower body after a foul in the first quarter.
“I think Rutgers credit to them are a really good team, they are a really well coached team and they are taught to be aggressive but personally I just think I did not have one of my best games,” McMorris said.
For Rutgers their redshirt senior guard Tyler Scaife stole the show tonight away as she went off for 25 points.
“Scaife is just a really good player, she’s always hunting her shot,” McMorris said.
“She does a good job with the ball I think, in the first half we tried to keep a second person near her late in the shot clock, but she does a great job with her dribble to create open shots for herself,” Tsipis said.
Junior forward Stasha Carey also stepped up for the Scarlet Knights in the second half and scored 10 points and helped secure her teams’ 13-point victory.
“I think she played off of Scaife, when the attention was drawn to Tyler Scaife she got a couple of easier looks with us changing defenses from man, to zone, to the junk, she got a couple of good angles and some easier looks,” Tsipis said
Wisconsin will go on the road to Iowa City, IA. Sunday afternoon as it faces the Iowa Hawkeyes (8-5, 20-6), a team the Badgers will look to avenge a loss to.
