Slow start, turnovers bury Wisconsin women's basketball against No. 11 Maryland
MADISON – Maryland is one of the Big Ten’s best teams when it comes to hitting the three-pointer. The University of Wisconsin women’s basketball team saw that firsthand Thursday night.
Sparked by four first-quarter threes, the eleventh-ranked Terrapins jumped out to a double-digit lead during the first 5 minutes and never looked back on the way to a 77-64 victory over the Badgers in front of a crowd of 2,746 at the Kohl Center.
The contest marked the second straight for UW against a top 10 opponent and the games unfolded in similar fashion. On Sunday Indiana, like Maryland, jumped on the Badgers early and forced UW into a game of catch-up it couldn’t win.
Senior Avery LaBarbera finished with 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting for the Badgers, who dropped to 6-13 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten. Junior Brooke Schramek added 13 points on 5-for-11 shooting and grabbed six boards. Freshman Serah Williams posted 12 points.
Sophomore guard Shyanne Sellers posted 21 points and hit nine of 12 shots for Maryland, which improved to 15-4 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten. Diamond Miller, a senior guard, added 19 points and was six for 12 from the field.
Those two combined for five of seven from beyond the arc. Sellers had 3 threes during that early game run that gave Maryland a 16-6 lead with 5 minutes 22 seconds left in the first quarter.
“I don’t think we did a good job – I’ll go back and watch the film – but from what I remember when we started out in man, we didn’t do a great job communicating on our switches, getting hands up and finding shooters," Badgers coach Marisa Moseley said. "Also our transition defense. They got quite a few threes on transition defense as well.”
Box score:No. 11 Maryland 77, Wisconsin 64.
Wisconsin was pretty productive from three-point range, too. It hit 10 threes, its third-highest total of the season, and shot 41.7% from that distance.
The Badgers, however, hurt themselves with turnovers. Their 22 turnovers led to 19 points for the Terrapins. Six of those came during the first 6½ minutes and helped Maryland build a 22-6 advantage.
At that point the deck was stacked against UW’s young team.
“Coach always says we have to have strong starts as well as strong finishes, but when we’re down it takes a lot of energy out of all five of us, people on the bench, the coaching staff as well because it’s a constant uphill battle,” LaBarbera said.
Wisconsin cut Maryland’s lead to 10 on two occasions in the second quarter and during the final minute had a couple of chance to cut into that deficit even more, but a putback by Sellers pushed the Maryland lead to 39-27 and a three-pointer with 2 seconds left made it a 15-point game at the break.
UW pulled no closer than 13 in the second half, though it might gain some consolation in making Terrapins coach Brenda Frese feel like the Badgers had the better second half of the two teams.
“They play hard.” Maryland head coach Brenda Frese said. “They’ve already got two great wins when you look at the Minnesota win and Michigan State. You saw they were going to compete until the buzzer sounded.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Slow start buries Wisconsin women's basketball against No. 11 Maryland
