UW women's basketball: Badgers get eighth seed for Big Ten tournament
Based upon its 87-78 loss to Iowa Sunday afternoon and being on the losing end of a tiebreaker situation with Michigan, the University of Wisconsin women's basketball team earned the eighth seed in the Big Ten Conference tournament.
Wisconsin (16-11, 9-9) will face ninth-seed Illinois (16-13, 8-10) Thursday afternoon in a first-round game at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The teams split a two-game series during the regular season.
The winner of the game between the eighth and ninth seeds will play top-seeded Ohio State on Friday at approximately 5 p.m. in the quarterfinals. The Buckeyes clinched a share of the Big Ten title with second-seeded Iowa, and beat the Hawkeyes twice during the regular season.
Meanwhile, Iowa clinched a share of the league title with an 87-78 win against UW at the Kohl Center.
Sixth-year senior Johanna Solverson scored a
career-high 31 points for the Hawkeyes, who snapped the Badgers'
five-game winning streak. Solverson scored 23 points in the first
half on 10-of-12 shooting, and Iowa shot a school-record 73.9
percent from the field (17-of-23) in the first.
The setback spoiled Senior Day festivities in the home regular-season finale for Jolene Anderson, Janese Banks, Danielle Ward and transfer Ivana Mijalcevic before an announced crowd of 13,220 spectators.
Iowa (20-9, 13-5) held Anderson to 10 points
on 4-of-19 shooting. Anderson, the Big Ten's leading scorer, came
into the game averaging 20.3 points per game.
Wisconsin (16-12, 9-9) got strong efforts from its freshmen, as forward Lin Zastrow came off the bench and scored a team-high 17 points. Reserve guard Alyssa Karel and starter Tara Steinbauer added 15 and 11 points, respectively.
