WBB: Wisconsin loses 32nd straight game against Iowa, ends regular season on nine-game losing streak

A four-point halftime deficit quickly spiraled out of control for UW who couldn't keep up with the Hawkeyes in the second half.

On Senior Day at the Kohl Center, the Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team played a solid first half against rival Iowa but, unfortunately, everyone had agreed to play two halves in this game and the Hawkeyes ran away from UW over the final 20 minutes. This was Wisconsin’s ninth straight loss to end the season and, outrageously, their 32nd straight loss to Iowa.

Five Hawkeyes scored in double-figures on Sunday afternoon and 25 of their 35 buckets were assisted while only Destiny Howell recorded over 10 points for Wisconsin and only nine of UW’s 19 field goals received a helper. Plain and simple, this was a bloodbath. Iowa outclassed Wisconsin in every aspect of the game and I don’t know when that will change.

Here is my full recap and analysis:

Final Score

Wisconsin Badgers (13-16 overall, 5-13 Big Ten): 52
No. 9 Iowa Hawkeyes (24-5 overall, 15-3 Big Ten): 81

Four Factors

eFG%: 35.7%
Turnover%: 17.9%
Off. Rebound%: 28.9%
FTA/FGA: 12.7

Key Stats

FG%: 30.2 (19-of-63)
Opp. FG%: 53.0 (35-of-66)
3P%: 24.1 (7-of-29)
Opp. 3P%: 45.0 (9-of-20)
FT%: 87.5 (7-of-8)
Opp. FT%: 50.0 (2-of-4)
Points Per Possession: 0.776
Opponent Points Per Possession: 1.306
Rebounds: 34 (13 offensive)
Opponent Rebounds: 42 (10 offensive)
Turnovers: 12
Forced Turnovers: seven

Team Leaders

• Destiny Howell: 23 points (8-of-16 FG, 2-of-6 3P), three rebounds, -26

• Shay Bollin: two points (1-of-1 FG), six assists, two steals, one turnover, -10

• Ronnie Porter: six points (3-of-6 FG, 0-of-3 3P), four rebounds (one offensive), one assist, one turnover, -22

• Lily Krahn: six points (2-of-6 FG, 2-of-5 3P), two rebounds (two offensive), two steals, one turnover, -14

Iowa Team Leaders

• Ava Heiden: 16 points (8-of-11 FG), 14 rebounds (two offensive), one block, two steals, two turnovers, +21

• Taylor Stremlow: 12 points (6-of-10 FG, 0-of-1 3P), five rebounds (two offensive), nine assists, one block, one steal, +14

• Chit-Chat Wright: 14 points (5-of-9 FG, 4-of-7 3P), five rebounds, two assists, one turnover, +27

Three-ish Thoughts

1. You ever get your hopes up about something and then say something fanciful that you KNOW is probably stupid but, hey, stupid things happen all the time! Well, I never have so I can’t relate.
   
   ::aide rushes in with phone and shows me my posts from during the game where I said at halftime that if a couple of things go Wisconsin’s way they fourth quarter of the game could be interesting::
   
   Oh, hmmmmmm, I see. Well, in my defense the Badgers were only down four points at halftime even though the Hawkeyes shot 50% from the field and UW only shot 27.8%!!! Regressions to the mean seemed likely! Anyways, it very much did not go how I’d hoped.
   
   Wisconsin opened the third quarter with three turnovers and three missed three-pointers on their first six possessions while Iowa made four shots, three of them from beyond the arc, in their first six possessions and just like that the game was over. The 11-0 run by the Hawkeyes lasted until Destiny Howell made a shot at 6:36 of the third, to cut the lead to 13, and UW never got closer than that.
   
   Even if Iowa hadn’t scored a single point after their initial run to open the second half, they still would’ve won the third quarter by two points. The Badgers only had four turnovers in the first half but coughed it up six times in the third quarter and a couple more times in the fourth. UW had 10 fewer rebounds in the second half, they shot worse from three, and they only attempted two free throws (compared to six in the first half).
   
   I don’t know what was said in the locker room at halftime but Robin Pingeton should throw that speech out, set the trash can on fire, and send the flaming trash can out into the middle of Lake Mendota like a God damned viking funeral.

2. After scoring 24 points total in Wisconsin’s last four games, senior wing Destiny Howell finally busted out of her scoring slump and poured in a game-high 23 points on Sunday afternoon. Howell shot well from the floor, attacked the rim consistently, and chipped in three rebounds as well.
   
   Most importantly…her defense was perfectly adequate! Was it good? No, it was not, but you know what else it was not?? Actively bad!!! I didn’t have one single note from the game where I even mentioned Howell’s defense and that is a massive improvement for her.
   
   For UW to pull off an upset in the Big Ten Tournament they are going to need Howell to be locked in and scoring. If she’s also aggressively neutral on defense…well, Wisconsin could shock some people.

3. Senior Day is always a bittersweet game for players, coaches, and fans. Leena Patibandla (graduated in three years like a show-off), Destiny Howell, Lily Krahn, Gift Uchenna, and Ronnie Porter were all honored ahead of the game for their myriad contributions to the Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball program.
   
   Howell and Uchenna were only in Madison for one year but both players integrated into the team seamlessly. Coming in with a new coaching staff and a host of other new players may have been helpful, but there was also never any sort of “old players vs. new players” divide that can crop up sometimes. While I’ve obviously had my criticisms and concerns of their play on the court, both Uchenna and Howell represented the Badgers exquisitely off the court.
   
   Howell, after having only been in Wisconsin for a few months, was picked to join Porter at Big Ten Media Day in Chicago this year. That’s an honor regularly bestowed upon veteran leaders who have been with the team for years. It shows how highly Pingeton and her teammates thought of her that she was selected to go before even playing one game for UW.
   
   Both players were thoughtful and engaging with the media and genuinely looked to enjoy playing hoops, especially with the group of women in their locker room. At the post-game press conference Howell was asked about her feelings on Senior Day and she responded, “I definitely just appreciate the opportunity I’ve had just being at Wisconsin.” I’d argue Wisconsin appreciates having the opportunity to have her and Uchenna on the team just as much.
   
   Porter, Krahn, and Patibandla were all holdover players from Marisa Moseley’s tenure but decided to stick around and play their final seasons with a new coaching staff at Wisconsin. That decision should never be forgotten by Badger fans because any success Pingeton has in Madison will be built on the foundation that those players, especially Porter and Krahn, laid. I would like to write more fully about these three in a separate post this off-season because they deserve it.

4. This won’t come as a shock to any of you who have followed along this season (or last season…or the season before that…or) but I have some questions about what Wisconsin was doing on defense against Iowa. To start the game, whoever was guarding Ava Heiden was apparently just supposed to stay anchored under the basket regardless of where Heiden went and no one in a Wisconsin jersey was supposed to guard the foul line/elbow area at all, lest they be arrested, which is the only logical explanation for why no Badgers contested shots there in the first quarter.
   
   After Heiden made a couple of shots from there Wisconsin stopped playing her that way, but did allow other Hawkeyes players to continue shooting mid-range jumpers which, honestly, worked pretty well. Iowa was 9-of-24 (37.5%) on mid-range twos according to Torvik’s box score with Journey Houston going 4-of-11 and only attempting shots from that range.
   
   Unfortunately for Wisconsin, Heiden remembered she could also score close to the basket and no one could stop her. She was a perfect 6-of-6 at the rim and routinely got excellent position in the post and dropped in layups with limited resistance. The Badgers tried an aggressive double-teaming strategy on Heiden, which held her to her lowest field goal attempt total in five games, but also left the UW defense scrambling when Heiden passed it out.
   
   The Wisconsin defense, often prone to scrambling in normal circumstances, rarely recovered properly and Iowa got a lot of open threes because of it. The Badgers tried a “double big” lineup with Gift Uchenna and Dorja Zaja on the court at the same time, they tried a lineup with Shay Bollin as the “big” and hard double-teams from players like Laci Steele or Kyrah Daniels, they tried voodoo at halftime (presumably), but nothing worked. Heiden dominated and, honestly, so did 6-foot-5 freshman Layla Hays who was thrust into a larger role since Hannah Stuelke was out with an elbow injury.
   
   Uchenna and Zaja both had poor games, picking up fouls quickly and providing little on offense. Uchenna was 2-of-8 for four points and Zaja missed all five of her field goal attempts. Even worse, BOTH players were baited into attempting three-pointers by Iowa simply ignoring them on the perimeter and saying “you won’t” loudly so they’d get embarrassed.

5. Shay Bollin has scored 20 points over her last 10 games. While 2.0 ppg isn’t anything to write home about, you could be forgiven if you thought it was fine for a bench contributor like Bollin…ope, forgot to mention that in seven of those 10 games she recorded the same amount of points as you, me, and anyone else watching the game on TV combined.
   
   After three straight games of no scoring, Bollin finally got on the board with mere seconds left to play against Iowa but her scoring was not nearly the most important part of her game. Against the Hawkeyes she dished out a career-high six assists and also picked up a pair of steals. While standing at 6-foot-3, Bollin is not a post player but she gamely battled against Iowa’s Ava Heiden down low on defense and in box outs. I’m shocked that Bollin could play 19 minutes and record one rebound, but I’ll let it slide because the effort was there and keeping Heiden off the glass is a full-time job.
   
   I don’t think I’ll ever be certain on players’ remaining eligibility again, but I THINK Bollin has one more year if she wants it. She didn’t walk for Senior Day, but we won’t know for sure until Wisconsin’s 2026-27 roster is posted lol.

6. QUICK THOUGHTS: Wisconsin has lost 32 straight games to Iowa and haven’t beaten the Hawkeyes since 2006-07 season; the Badgers finished this season with a home record of 11-5, their best mark since 2008-09; Robin Pingeton played for former Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder in college and coached current Iowa head coach Jan Jensen during her senior year at Drake; Iowa star Hannah Stuelke missed the game with an elbow injury; Kyrah Daniels had an absolutely brutal day shooting the ball (started 0-of-12 from field and finished 2-of-17 FG, 2-of-10 3P) and didn’t make her first field goal until 9:26 to go in the fourth quarter; big crowd on hand (lots of Iowa fans) for this one as Taylor Stremlow (Verona) and Teagan Mallegni (McFarland) are Wisconsin natives (and Iowa City is close to Madison and the Hawkeyes are a popular team); Iowa clinched 2-seed in the Big Ten Tournament and Wisconsin “clinched” the 15-seed, thanks to Indiana’s dismantling of Penn State on Saturday and Purdue’s win on Sunday; both Gift Uchenna and Dorja Zaja were baited into shooting threes, by being left alone beyond the arc, which shows a troubling lack of awareness at this point in the season on what their own strengths are; for the second straight game the backup PG role was filled by freshman Nikki Kerstein and not Breauna Ware (who was not listed on the availability report and didn’t play at all); Kerstein’s buzzer beater from WELL beyond half-court to end the first quarter was one of the crazier shots I’ve seen this season; Laci Steele played 16 minutes and didn’t attempt a single field goal (only one of the 12 players who saw the court for UW)

Final Thought

One year of Robin Pingeton. Four years of Marisa Moseley. Five years of Jonathan Tsipis. Five years of Bobbie Kelsey. Four years (of her eight in Madison) of Lisa Stone. That’s how long you have to go back before you reach a season where Wisconsin beat Iowa in women’s basketball.

That’s crazy!!!!

I was still in college! And not even because it took me the amount of time a doctor normally takes to earn a degree. It was during my actual “four-year” clock of being in college!! I can’t be bothered to look it up, because it will just make me sad, but losing 32 straight games to a conference rival has to be some sort of ignominious record.

“Wisconsin is much improved,” Iowa head coach Jan Jensen noted after the game and while I don’t know if “much” is the correct qualifier here, she’s right that UW is improved from last season. The 13 wins matches last year’s total and the five Big Ten wins is one more than last year. Wisconsin’s AdjO and AdjD ratings are better than last year and this year’s team rebounded the ball better than any of Marisa Moseley’s teams. Two-point shooting was down a touch but three-point shooting was up a touch and, while they didn’t get there often enough, free throw shooting was up too.

That’s all well and good to be sure, however none of those numbers are anywhere close to Iowa. Or Minnesota. Or Nebraska, or Illinois, or any of the four new teams from the West Coast. In fact, the only team that Wisconsin has both better offensive and defensive efficiency numbers than is Northwestern, indisputably one of the worst teams in the Big Ten for the past couple of years.

Pingeton mentioned after the game in her press conference how difficult the Big Ten is as a conference. There are no off nights, even against the lower half of teams. Hell, the Badgers lost to two of the four teams ranked below them in the Big Ten this season! The conference should get 10+ teams in the NCAA Tournament again this year, a place Wisconsin hasn’t been since 2009-10, and a couple in the WBIT too.

Getting the Badgers to .500 in conference play would be a huge success story, let alone competing with the Iowas and Michigans and UCLAs of the world up at the tippy-top of the Big Ten. There will be time later for a full post-mortem of the season, though. Now, UW has at least one more game left in the season.

A rematch with Illinois who…absolutely incinerated the Badgers back on Feb. 11 by 32 points in Champaign. Hopefully Wisconsin has worked out whatever issues they had in that matchup (mainly playing zone a bunch for some unknown reason or else their stay in Indianapolis will be short lived.

Next Game: BIG TEN TOURNAMENT; Wednesday, Mar. 4; vs. 10-seed Illinois Fighting Illini; 5ish p.m. CT; Peacock; Gainbridge Fieldhouse; Indianapolis