MALIBU, Calif. — The bad omens stopped once the University of Wisconsin women's basketball team took the court Friday afternoon.

The Badgers endured travel delays on their flight out of Minneapolis Wednesday, and didn't arrive in California until the early hours of Thursday morning.

Then, the team's bus driver couldn't find Pepperdine's Firestone Fieldhouse, so what was supposed to be a 2-hour practice Thursday for UW turned into a 1-hour workout.

But the Badgers didn't run into any problems in the opening game of the Pepperdine Tournament against Mississippi.

UW drilled the Rebels 74-57 behind a balanced scoring attack in a game that wasn't as close as the final score might indicate.

Senior guard Jolene Anderson had a game-high 19 points, one of four Badgers to score in double figures.

Sophomore forward Mariah Dunham added 14, while senior guard Janese Banks and freshman forward Lin Zastrow each had 11.

Zastrow's points were the first of her college career.

"I'm very pleased with our team's focus, our decision-making, and our ability to take on a very athletic SEC team, commit ourselves on the boards and win the game," said UW coach Lisa Stone, whose team will play Texas-Arlington in Friday's tournament championship game at 3 p.m. Central time.

The Badgers (2-2) held Mississippi (2-2) to 33.9 percent shooting (20-for-59), and outrebounded the Rebels 58-34.

Anderson hit 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions to give UW a 33-14 lead with 5 minutes, 59 seconds left in the first half.

The Badgers led 47-18 at the break, and their lead swelled to as much as 35 early in the second half.

Stone wasn't thrilled with how UW finished out the game — the Badgers were outscored 39-27 in the second half and committed 12 of their 18 turnovers after halftime. But after watching her team blow a lead in Tuesday's loss to Wyoming, she was happy with just getting a win.

"I think there's a lot of really good things to take from the game, as well as just to win," Stone said on her postgame radio show. "We were searching for that here a little bit, and still in a little bit of pain from the other night. But this feels good."