Senior Day still sweet for Wisconsin women's basketball despite loss to Michigan State
MADISON – The best part of the day for the Wisconsin Badgers happened before the opening tip.
The women’s basketball program saluted Brooke Schramek, Natalie Leuzinger, Halle Douglass and Sacia Vanderpool on Senior Day.
When the game started, however, Wisconsin’s struggles with familiar issues, namely turnovers and scoring, re-emerged and laid the foundation for a 78-52 loss to Michigan State on Sunday afternoon in front of 4,542 at the Kohl Center.
The Badgers turned it over 25 times, mistakes that led to 29 points for the Spartans. UW also struggled to get scoring from anyone besides sophomore Serah Williams, who finished with 17 points and 15 rebounds to tie Wisconsin native and former Iowa star Megan Gustafson’s Big Ten record for consecutive double-doubles.
The rest of the Badgers combined for 35 points and 12-for-38 (31.5%) shooting.
BOX SCORE: Michigan State 78, Wisconsin 52
That said, UW’s struggles during the game didn't lession the impact of the ceremony that preceded it.
“It definitely was an emotional day,” Schramek said. “The underclassmen today did a really good job with decorating the locker room and putting together a lot of things.
“I’ve always been saying I think the toughest thing for me is going to not be able to hang out with this group of girls every single day next year. It was really hard to process that and realize this is one of the last times this team will ever play together.”
Despite the loss Wisconsin (13-15, 6-12 Big Ten) maintained 10th place in the Big Ten and will have a bye for the first day of the Big Ten tournament, which begins Wednesday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The Badgers will face Penn State in a second-round game at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Michigan State, which is receiving votes in the USA Today Coaches poll, finished the regular season 22-7 overall and 12-6 in the Big Ten, good for no fourth place.
In addition to the turnovers forced, the Spartans shot 49.1% (27 of 55) against a defense that ranked third in Big Ten play in opponent field goal percentage (.428).
With its scoring balance and ability to pressure the ball, Michigan State is the kind of team where Sania Copeland’s presence would have helped on both ends of the floor. The sophomore, who suffered an apparent ankle injury against Maryland, didn’t play Sunday. She watched the game from the bench and wore a walking boot on her right leg.
The Badgers' struggles to protect the ball, however, was too widespread.
“Some of our turnovers, a good portion if we go back and look I feel like were self-inflicted,” Wisconsin coach Marisa Moseley said. “They were pressuring, but I think there were opportunities where we could have maybe made an easier play, slowed ourselves down a little bit.”
The game began to get away from the Badgers in the second quarter when Michigan State scored 13 points off eight turnovers. An effect of those turnovers were 10 fast break points for the Spartans, easy buckets that helped them shoot 75% (9 for 12) in the quarter.
Michigan State led by 15 at the half, and after Wisconsin trimmed that advantage to 45-35 early in the third quarter push the lead to 22 points heading into the fourth quarter.
The Spartans led by at least 21 points the rest of the afternoon.
“I think in the press we started to second-guess ourselves,” Schramek said, “just beating us up and thinking about our previous mistakes when we (should) look ahead and trust ourselves and know that we are a team that can break this press. I think we were getting caught up in the negatives.”
Leuzinger led the Senior Day honorees with 11 points on 3-for-4 shooting. Schramek totaled seven points and a career-high four blocks. Douglass had three points and three boards and Vanderpool (two points) scored her first points of the season.
Schramek could use the exemption NCAA athletes received due to the disruption caused by the pandemic to play one more season but decided to call it quits now. Vanderpool, a redshirt sophomore who will graduate in three years, also doesn’t plan to return.
Leuzinger has applied to graduate school at UW and could use her COVID exemption but hasn’t given the matter much thought yet.
Douglass, who missed most of last season due to a knee injury, plans to return, but according to Moseley wanted to go through senior day with the other members of her recruiting class.
“I love Senior Day,” Moseley said. “Obviously I’d love a win on Senior Day. That’s better, but I just think the celebration of a culmination of a four-year experience that is so much more than wins and losses and basketball. It’s a great way to honor those people who put in the blood, sweat and tears for those four years and did it together.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin women's basketball falls to Michigan State on Senior Day
