WBB: Bruins blast Badgers by 30

The Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team took the Kohl Center court for the last time this regular season on Wednesday night and got run out of the gym by the No. 2 UCLA Bruins, 91-61. This game, featuring one of the most talented teams in the nation and also the Badgers, was projected to be a blowout and it was. Not much more to say than that!

Here is my full breakdown and analysis:

Final Score

Wisconsin Badgers (13-15 overall, 4-13 Big Ten): 61
No. 2 UCLA Bruins (27-1 overall, 15-1 Big Ten): 91

Four Factors

eFG%: 41.7
Turnover%: 16.7
Off. Rebound%: 28.2
FTA/FGA: 28.3

Key Stats

FG%: 38.3 (23-of-60)
Opp. FG%: 55.2 (37-of-67)
3P%: 25.0 (4-of-16)
Opp. 3P%: 40.0 (10-of-25)
FT%: 64.7 (11-of-17)
Opp. FT%: 87.5 (7-of-8)
Points Per Possession: 0.924
Opponent Points Per Possession: 1.379
Rebounds: 31 (11 offensive)
Opponent Rebounds: 39 (10 offensive)
Turnovers: 11
Forced Turnovers: eight

Team Leaders

• Serah Williams: 22 points (8-of-15 FG), five rebounds (one offensive), one assist, one steal, -25
• Carter McCray: eight points (3-of-9 FG), nine rebounds (six offensive), three assists, -18
• Ronnie Porter: 13 points (5-of-10 FG, 0-of-1 3P), three rebounds, three assists, -27
• Alie Bisballe: seven points (3-of-4 FG, 1-of-2 3P), one rebound, -7

UCLA Team Leaders

• Lauren Betts: 26 points (11-of-12 FG), 10 rebounds (three offensive), one assist, one block, one steal, +25

• Londynn Jones: 13 points (5-of-10 FG, 3-of-8 3P), two rebounds, two assists, one steal, +23

• Timea Gardiner: 14 points (5-of-9 FG, 4-of-6 3P), 10 rebounds, two assists, +22

Three-ish Thoughts

1. Serah Williams won the tip over Lauren Betts and the Badgers scored first in this one and, uh, it was pretty much all downhill after that. Trying to slow down Betts is a nearly impossible task but the Badgers were uniquely equipped (with Williams and Carter McCray) to give her issues.
   
   However, it didn’t really play out like UW hoped. Betts spent most of her time guarding McCray and playing drop coverage on pick and rolls to clog the paint, protect the rim, and dare McCray to shoot jumpers. She was 0-of-2 on jumpers, 3-of-9 at the rim, and didn’t score her first points until the fourth quarter so this strategy mostly worked for UCLA.
   
   The Badgers needed to take advantage of the times when Betts was on the bench and, to their credit, they did so in the first half. Betts sat the final 2:30 of the first quarter and Wisconsin was +1 and then she sat for three and a half minutes in the second quarter and UW was +4. That was good…but wasn’t nearly enough to offset the damage UCLA did when Betts (+25) was on the floor.

2. You know what really grinds my gears? When coaches auto-bench players who pick up two first half fouls. McCray got called for her second foul with 3:24 to go in the first quarter (UW down 16-9) and didn’t check back in until there was 3:50 to go (UW down 35-25) in the second quarter.
   
   Do you know how many fouls McCray ended the game with? The same two she got in the first quarter! McCray was fouled out for an entire quarter by her own coach!! GAHHHHH!
   
   Serah Williams’ experience was a little less drastic, but she sat from 7:16 to go in the second quarter to 1:54 to go after picking up her second foul. If you had to guess how many fouls she ended the game with and guessed “also two, just like McCray” you’d be very good at following leading context clues in a basketball blog. BAN THE AUTO-BENCH!

3. A little over halfway through the first quarter Ronnie Porter heaved up a deep three as the shot clock expired and, incredibly, it went in! The crowd and team were juiced as the miracle shot cut UCLA’s lead to two.
   
   However, upon further review at the next stoppage the three was (correctly) waived off for NOT beating the shot clock and that seemed to suck the energy out of the Badgers. UW went on to miss layups on four consecutive possessions after that and only scored three more points (one made field goal) the rest of the quarter.
   
   Marisa Moseley and Porter discuss the play below:

   I’m sure it was deflating for the team to lose those three points, but it can’t torpedo the entire rest of the quarter like that. Wisconsin was, against all odds, hanging with the Bruins to start the game but leaving the first period down double digits effectively put this one to bed early.

4. Over on X, The Everything App, I posted a little thread before the game trying to suss out one (1) area that Wisconsin could exploit to beat UCLA. This was quite difficult because, as you saw, the Bruins are really, really good at basketball. I thought that the three-point line, a classic spot where upsets start brewing, could be used to the Badgers’ advantage and said as much.
   
   UCLA entered the game shooting 32.2% on threes, which was slightly above average nationally, while Wisconsin shot 33.7%. That was literally the only statistical category where I could find even a minor advantage for UW.
   
   Anyways, someone at UCLA must read my tweets because the Bruins used this bulletin board material and shot 40.0% from deep (10 makes) for the game and 50% (7-of-14) in the second half. What the hell?!?! It isn’t fair for a team to be able to just toggle a switch and all of a sudden become Good At Shooting.

5. Last week I wrote a post about Wisconsin’s freshmen and how they weren’t playing a lot. I suggested that it might be more worthwhile for players like Alie Bisballe to face some live action in games instead of just practice. Here is what I said:
   
   “It makes no sense to me that a player, especially a young player, can perform well enough in practice to get in at the end of some games, but not others. Also…how do you expect that player to get better if they aren’t facing off against real opponents in real games?
   
   This isn’t a video game where players just progress a little each year even if they don’t play! Throw Bisballe out there to get abused by Lauren Betts of UCLA or Hannah Stuelke of Iowa because she will learn infinitely more from those matchups than from running with the second team in practice again.”
   
   Well,,, Bisballe got A Lesson from Betts on Wednesday night. The All-American only missed one (1) of her 12 field goal attempts and went over and through Bisballe for buckets at various points during the game. To be fair, Betts has been held to single-digit points in a mere two games all season and has the 18th best field goal percentage (62.9%) in the nation.
   
   I think Bisballe, overall, acquitted herself nicely against the Bruins and this will be a prime learning experience for the freshman big as she heads into the off-season.

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6. Oh my God, dude, the Badgers had so many missed layups in this one. UCLA was an excellent 20-of-26 at the rim while Wisconsin was, drumroll please, a putrid 10-of-23. If there is an area on the margins that would help UW pull an upset you can almost guarantee that they suck at it.

7. UW’s transition defense is still embarrassing and since there is literally one game left in the regular season I guess it just “is what it is” at this point. The Bruins scored 10 points on the break (only one more than Wisconsin’s nine) but they aren’t really a team that pushes the pace (69.3 tempo; national average is 69.0) much. It also isn’t really the amount of points opponents score in transition that is the problem…it’s the ease with which teams gets those buckets and the seeming high level of confusion on Wisconsin’s end that is problematic. It is March tomorrow…this shouldn’t still be an issue.

8. QUICK THOUGHTS: Leena Patibandla had an impressive steal, using her length to snatch an entry pass out of mid-air; weird that a healthy D’Yanis Jimenez didn’t receive a second of playing time against an uber-athletic Bruins team; Halle Douglass’ shot wasn’t falling but she positively affected the game on the glass and with her defense; Carter McCray is such a physically strong rebounder and I love watching her battle on the glass.

Final Thought

One of my notes from Wednesday night was “the third quarter certainly happened,” so you can tell how locked in I was for the second half of this contest. The Badgers were down 10 after the first quarter, 17 at halftime, and 30 heading into the fourth quarter. This game went exactly as you’d expect it to go, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t still frustrating.

Wisconsin lost the battle on the boards, had their bench outscored by 20, and got swamped on points in the paint (also by 20) while letting UCLA shoot a slash line of 55/40/87.5. The Badgers have now lost three games by 30 or more points this season which, to me, seems bad.

UW now travels to Iowa City to face the Hawkeyes in one of the most hilariously lopsided series in the entire Big Ten. On Dec. 30, 2001, the Badgers won at Iowa, 68-61. Since then…Iowa has won 27 straight matchups against Wisconsin!

27 STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you were born during that game you have now grown up, gotten your driver’s license, graduated high school, gone to college, legally drank your first beer, graduated college, are currently doing your first adult job, and still haven’t seen a second Wisconsin victory over Iowa in women’s basketball.

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In five previous games under Marisa Moseley, the smallest margin of victory for the Hawkeyes over the Badgers has been 22 points. The other results: 44-point loss, 30-point loss, 31-point loss, and 34-point loss. Needless to say, even without Caitlin Clark, I’m fairly confident in an Iowa win on Sunday.

There is one game left in the regular season for Wisconsin and then a Big Ten Tournament appearance for the team to try and end the year on a high note. There is also the possibility of more postseason play, though. Will they accept an invitation to the WNIT this year after it ended up COSTING the team money to play in the tournament last year?

Next Game: Sunday, Mar. 2; at RV Iowa Hawkeyes; 3:00 p.m. CT; Peacock; Carver-Hawkeye Arena; Iowa City, Iowa