WBB: Badgers dig deep first quarter hole, can't get out in time to complete comeback against Gophers

Minnesota's victory ends Wisconsin's four-game Border Battle win streak.

The Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team dropped the first iteration of this season’s Border Battle to Minnesota on New Year’s Eve afternoon, 59-50, at the Kohl Center. The Gophers had lost four in a row to UW, but a dominant first quarter (in which Minnesota raced out to a 20-point lead) led UofM to a win.

While Wisconsin never held a lead in the game, they did outscore the Gophers by 10 points over the final three quarters. Here is my full recap and analysis:

Final Score

Wisconsin Badgers (10-4 overall, 1-2 Big Ten): 50
Minnesota Golden Gophers (14-1 overall, 2-1 Big Ten): 59

Four Factors

eFG%: 39.6
Turnover%: 21.2
Off. Rebound%: 12.9
FTA/FGA: 18.9

Key Stats

FG%: 35.8 (19-of-53)
Opp. FG%: 39.0 (23-of-59)
3P%: 23.5 (4-of-17)
Opp. 3P%: 28.6 (6-of-21)
FT%: 80.0 (8-of-10)
Opp. FT%: 46.7 (7-of-15)
Points Per Possession: 0.758
Opponent Points Per Possession: 0.937
Rebounds: 32 (four offensive)
Opponent Rebounds: 37 (10 offensive)
Turnovers: 14
Forced Turnovers: nine

Team Leaders

• Ronnie Porter: 13 points (4-of-12 FG, 1-of-6 3P), eight rebounds, four assists, two steals, -5

• Serah Williams: 16 points (7-of-15 FG), 11 rebounds (one offensive), one assist, three blocks, one steal, -7

• Tess Myers: six points (2-of-6 FG, 2-of-4 3P), two rebounds, -17

• Halle Douglass: eight points (3-of-5 FG, 0-of-2 3P), three rebounds, two assists, +8

Minnesota Team Leaders

• Amaya Battle: 13 points (6-of-14 FG, 1-of-4 3P), six rebounds, two assists, one steal, +3

• Grace Grocholski: 12 points (5-of-13 FG, 2-of-5 3P), five rebounds (one offensive), two assists, two steals, +9

• Tori McKinney: seven points (3-of-10 FG, 0-of-3 3P), four rebounds, six assists, two steals, +8

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Three-ish Thoughts

1. If you are reading this or, to be perfectly honest, simply existing in the world right now…you made as many field goals in the first quarter of this game as the Wisconsin Badgers did. That’s right folks, you too could be on a Big Ten basketball team at this rate!
   
   UW was 0-of-12 from the field in the first 10 minutes of the game, managing a mere four free throws as a team, as they fell to an insurmountable deficit just as the Border Battle got started. Minnesota scored eight seconds after the ball was tipped and literally led the final 39:52 of the game. Wisconsin’s highest win probability of the game came at, uh, tip-off and was a mere 16%.
   
   The Gophers stretched their lead to 23 early in the second quarter and, despite Wisconsin clawing back into things, the game was pretty much over with more than half the game left. Wisconsin’s first field goal OF THE GAME came when Jovana Spasovski hit a three-pointer at 8:19 of the second quarter. Woof.
   
   Marisa Moseley’s team has shown a propensity for comebacks this year, but being down 20 points in the first quarter is, frankly, inexcusable for a team playing at home, let alone in a rivalry game that is important for potential postseason bids. The Badgers, speaking of comebacks, did outscore the Gophers by 10 points over the last three quarters but, again, the first period was an abject disaster.

2. Lily Krahn, one of Wisconsin’s top shooters and a key bench piece, left the game in the third quarter with an apparent left leg injury. There isn’t an update as of press (lol) time but we’ll get the Big Ten mandated injury report ahead of the Oregon game this weekend to see if it is a serious injury. Either way, I hope Krahn gets well soon.

3. While some of this just comes with the territory of being the offensive focal point and highest usage player on the team, Serah Williams has seen her turnover numbers trending in the wrong direction over the past four games.
   
   In UW’s first four games of the season, Williams had three turnovers combined while in Tuesday’s game she had six. She is averaging 5.5 turnovers per game over her last four outings and has had a turnover rate north of 30% in her last two, which she hadn’t done in any other game this year.
   
   Overall, her turnover numbers are still at career best marks but, and this is still a small sample size, her conference-only numbers are currently the worst they’ve been in her three years in Madison. Her offensive rating and free throw rate are both down in B1G play too. A simple solution to all three of these problems? Take the ball to the rack and draw some fouls!

4. QUICK THOUGHTS: rough outings for Carter McCray and Natalie Leuzinger, who combined to go 1-of-8 from the field for two points, three rebounds, and two assists; Tess Myers hit another couple of three-pointers and has hopefully shaken out of her shooting slump; Halle Douglass was 3-of-3 at the rim (and is 7-of-8 over her last four games) which is nice to see because she has struggled to finish close to the basket historically; freshman Jovana Spasovski gave the Badgers some solid minutes off the bench and it would be nice to see more of her moving forward; there are things to be critical of when talking about D’Yanis Jimenez’s game, but only giving her four minutes of run, in a matchup where her athleticism and aggression could’ve helped, is an odd choice to say the least; Ronnie Porter didn’t shoot particularly well, but I think she played much better against Minnesota, overall, than she did against Indiana

Final Thought

I know this will come off as sour grapes, but it’s my newsletter and I don’t care! This Minnesota team is not any good. They are 14-1, sure, but as they say “they ain’t played nobody!” The B1G+ announcers were trying to make some point at the end of the game about strength of schedule and how Wisconsin hadn’t really proven anything this year, while glossing over the fact that the Gophers have one of the worst strength of schedules in the country!

• Wisconsin’s opponent’s average win%: 53.9%, 106th nationally

• Minnesota’s opponent’s average win%: 34.5%, 349th nationally

The Gophers are also missing their best player (Mara Braun) for the foreseeable future and they just don’t look like a team that has the juice to make any noise in the Big Ten this year.

You look at the split box score of the game between Wisconsin and Minnesota and the stats are nearly identical. The Gophers shot 39% from the field…Wisconsin shot 36%. The Gophers shot 29% from deep…Wisconsin shot 24%. The Gophers shot 47% (gross) from the charity stripe…Wisconsin shot 80%. Minnesota had five more rebounds and five fewer turnovers. Wisconsin had more second-chance points, more bench points, and only two fewer points in the paint.

If the Badgers had just played terribly in the first quarter instead of catastrophically bad in the, they probably would’ve won this game and extended their winning streak over Minnesota to five! Alas, the Gophers understood what time the game tipped off and were ready to go from the jump and that’s why they earned a nice conference road win.

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Wisconsin has a chance to rewrite their early Big Ten season narrative against a balanced and battle-tested Oregon team on Saturday, but they certainly won’t be favored to win out west. Unlike the Gophers, the Ducks have played one of the hardest schedules (6th) in the country this year and sit at 10-4 with top-75 wins over Baylor, Grand Canyon, and Auburn. Their four losses are all to top-50, NCAA Tournament caliber teams and most of them have been close well into the fourth quarter.

Another chance for UW to make a statement that this year’s team is different…will they actually make it this time?

Next Game: Saturday, Jan. 4; at Oregon Ducks; 2:30 p.m. CT; BTN; Matthew Knight Arena, Eugene, Ore.