WBB Recap: Badgers beat UW-Stevens Point in exhibition game at the Kohl Center
In what may be the first time ever, an exhibition game contained some good things AND some bad things for the home team.
The Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team took the court for the first time in the 2024-25 season on Tuesday night and bested the UW-Stevens Point Pointers by 31 points in an exhibition game at the Kohl Center. 14 different players saw the floor for UW, including seven for the first time in the cardinal and white. Here is the full recap of a game that saw a number of good things happen, but also plenty that Marisa Moseley’s squad has to work on:
Final Score
Wisconsin Badgers: 72
UW-Stevens Point Pointers: 41
Four Factors
eFG%: 44.6
Turnover%: 19.4
Off. Rebound%: 38.6
FTA/FGA: 44.6
Key Stats
FG%: 41.5 (27-of-65)
Opp. FG%: 24.1 (13-of-54)
3P%: 16.7 (4-of-24)
Opp. 3P%: 35.7 (5-of-14)
FT%: 48.3 (14-of-29)
Opp. FT%: 62.5 (10-of-16)
Points Per Possession: 1.000
Opponent Points Per Possession: 0.554
Rebounds: 45 (17 offensive)
Opponent Rebounds: 42 (15 offensive)
Turnovers: 14
Forced Turnovers: 28
Team Leaders
Jovana Spasovski: 11 points (5-of-11 FG, 0-of-2 3P), five rebounds (two offensive), three assists, one block, one steal, +21
Serah Williams: 16 points (6-of-7 FG), seven rebounds (three offensive), one assist, seven blocks, +19
Carter McCray: 10 points (5-of-8 FG), nine rebounds (five offensive), one assist, one steal, +9
Halle Douglass: three points (1-of-1 FG), three rebounds, four assists, two blocks, three steals, +19
UW-Stevens Point Team Leaders
Alexa Thomson: 12 points (3-of-10 FG, 2-of-2 3P), 16 rebounds (seven offensive), one assist, three steals, -11
Ava Loftus: eight points (4-of-13 FG, 0-of-1 3P), four rebounds (one offensive), three assists, -20
Three-ish Thoughts
When the Badgers posted their starting five for this game on Twitter there was one name that immediately stood out, that of Serbian freshman Jovana Spasovski. The 20-year old wing got the surprise start after impressing Marisa Moseley in fall training and, quite frankly, didn’t look out of place even a little bit.
Spasovski ended the game with 11 points, five boards, three assists, one block, and a steal over 24 minutes. She didn’t have the most efficient game shooting (but neither did anyone else on the team) but she did look like a player who has some professional experience under her belt.
Her movement off the ball was incisive and she appears like a player who might have one of the highest basketball IQs on the team. Spasovski was stout on defense, although I still do worry a bit about her foot speed, and useful on the glass too. Will she start the first game of the regular season too? Who knows, but it looks like she’ll be a key part of Moseley’s rotation this year.Serah Williams was dominant in the paint and I think she was sporting some improved post moves too. One of the ones I noticed was a long step-through that Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx showed off this season. She had great defensive timing on blocks too, racking up seven swats on the game, and did so while only picking up one foul.
Now, to be clear, the Pointers are not what I’d call a “tall team.” Their tallest player is 6-foot-0 and Williams was clearly several levels above any of their players in talent. That being said, Williams dominated like she should and looked good doing it. Except for one key area…Holy shit does this team need to practice free throw shooting!
The Badgers attempted an impressive 29 free throws on the night but only made 14. I’m no math whiz, but that is less than half! That stinks!! Williams was the leading culprit, making only four of her 12 attempts, but she was not the only one. Spasovski was 1-of-3, Carter McCray missed her one attempt, Halle Douglass was 1-of-3, and Tess Myers made 1-of-2. Shout out to Natalie Leuzinger and Gracie Grzesk, who were both 2-of-2, and D’Yanis Jimenez, who made 3-of-4 freebies. I foresee a lot of time spent at the charity stripe in practice the rest of this week for Wisconsin.
The Badgers were also brutal from beyond the arc on Tuesday night, making four of their 24 long-range attempts. Transfer sharpshooter Myers was 0-of-6, Lily Krahn was 1-of-4, Jimenez was 1-of-3, and Spasovski, Ronnie Porter, Leena Patibandla, and Reese Jaramillo combined to go 0-of-5. Leuzinger led the team with two makes…but it took her six attempts.
While those numbers are dreadful, I’m not THAT worried about them because they were getting good looks. They just didn’t make ‘em. Wisconsin regularly made the correct skip pass when UWSP went to a zone and it was nice to see the ball moving like that. The shots will go down eventually…right?Here are a few quick hitters of things I noticed: Tess Myers is a better defender than I assumed; Jimenez looks confident running the offense as a backup PG, but she is still a second too late on some of her reads when passing the ball after getting in the lane; it was nice to see Halle Douglass play without a brace on her leg; freshman big Alie Bisballe looked good in space on defense and showed off some nice post moves; McCray’s rebounding and post presence is “as advertised,” which is to say…it’s good; Ronnie Porter had trouble with fouls, but didn’t turn the ball over in 19 minutes of run; it was fun to see the team get out and run on transition opportunities; UWSP turned it over a whopping 28 times, but not all of those were due to anything Wisconsin did on defense as the Pointers had multiple “caught the ball with a foot out of bounds” turnovers and a few “dropped passes out of bounds” as well
Final Thought
My final thought is a simple one: it was great to watch a Wisconsin basketball game on my TV again for the first time since March. See everyone in a week for the start of the regular season!
Next Game: Tuesday, Nov. 5; vs. Wright State Raiders; 6:30 p.m. CT; B1G+; Kohl Center