The Badgers become the first 13-seed in conference history to win a conference tournament game.
INDIANAPOLIS — An athletic, off-balanced layup on the first possession of the game was followed up by a strong and-1 conversion, both by Wisconsin freshman Imani Lewis. As it turned out, those first two possessions of the game would be a proper summary of the game as a whole: Wisconsin catching some breaks when they needed them and out-dueling the Lady Lions in the paint.
Wisconsin led from start to finish in a 65-57 victory over Penn State in the first round of the Big Ten women’s basketball conference tournament.
“You’ve got to credit the kids”, said third-year Badgers head coach Jonathan Tsipis. “We talk about experience all the time with them. We play a tournament at Thanksgiving to simulate playing three games in three nights. You don’t want them coming in here thinking this is something they haven’t done before.”
“Our staff did a great job preparing. This is the second straight year we get someone for the third time. I felt like the first two games against Penn State we had opportunities to win the game, we just didn’t finish it out. But I think the win today started about halfway through the third quarter against Michigan (last week). Down 26, 3:30 left, it would have been easy to pack it up, get on the bus, and head to the Big Ten tournament. But our kids fought.”
As for the aforementioned Lewis, she had 11 points and seven rebounds at halftime before finishing with 17 and nine, an impressive showing for the New Jersey native in her first career Big Ten tournament game.
“Before the game, my dad talked to me and told me to just play hard and give everything I have,” said Lewis after the win. “The seniors said, ‘we don’t want this being our last game.’ And I told them, ‘I got you! This won’t be your last game.'”
Things got a bit dicey for the Badgers in the three quarter when Lewis picked up her third foul with 8:17 left in the quarter. Opting to sit her for the duration of the third, Tsipis saw his team’s lead shrink from12 all the way to 5 by quarter’s end. In fact, Penn State put together a 9-0 run over a three minutes span that stretched into the fourth quarter, putting the Badgers on their heels.
“We were still trying to mix defenses up and I thought they caught us a little bit in the zone,” said Tsipis. “When they made that run, that was the one time I felt like they got a couple of good pushes in transition. One thing I didn’t think we gave up was offensive rebounds, so that’s kind of why I liked keeping both posts in the game.”
For the game, Wisconsin out-rebounded Penn State 45-37 and outscored them in the post by a huge 38-16 margin.
Lewis, who was on the bench for a lot of the Lady Lions’ run, had a simple message for her team during their offensive dry spell.
“I told them, ‘you guys just have to go out there and be yourself. There’s no need to be worried; it’s just basketball… just do what you do.”
The win is the second Big Ten conference tournament win under Tsipis (2017 over Rutgers) for the Badgers who will now take on #5 Ohio State, a team who they are 0-2 against on the season.
“Coach McGuff and his staff, who I think was a real strong candidate for Coach of the Year, have done such a good job all year,” said Tsipis. “We’ve got to rebound the ball, which we didn’t do well in either game against them earlier. We both played a lot of man and a lot of zone, so we just have to be ready and adjust.”
“I think we’ve just got to take the opportunity and know, hey, we’ve got a game under our belt. A lot of people say, “you get the bye and you get to rest.’ But we’ve been on that floor. We’ve gone through a battle. We’ve got to make sure our kids utilize that from a positive standpoint.