This was a game that, quite simply, the University of Wisconsin women's basketball team needed.

The Badgers, fresh off a momentum-halting defeat two days earlier at Virginia, came back home in need of a pick-me-up.

And they started off a stretch of five games at the Kohl Center in 13 days by fending off a challenge from a pesky Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne team in an 85-69 win Sunday afternoon.

"It's nice to be home, that's for sure," UW coach Lisa Stone said.

Playing just their second home game of the season, the Badgers
(3-3) got stellar performances from senior guards Jolene Anderson (26 points) and Janese Banks (19).

But the contribution they got from first-time starter Tara Steinbauer — 16 points on 7-for-9 shooting and six rebounds — might have been the most noteworthy development.

The 6-foot-1 freshman forward scored UW's first seven points, and gave the Badgers a scoring threat inside — something that's been a rarity so far this season.

"Really, that broke it open for her, took some pressure off of her and it's nice to have a presence inside like that," Stone said.

But while UW had its way in the paint, outscoring IPFW 40-14, the Mastodons' perimeter shooting kept them in it early despite the fact that the Badgers shot 64 percent from the field in the first half.

IPFW (2-3), which got 24 points from senior guard Johnna Lewis-Carlisle, hit seven of its 19 first-half 3-point attempts and only trailed by eight at the break.

"The game plan was to try to attack and kick and try to knock some shots down, and it worked for a while," Mastodons coach Chris Paul said. "But after some time, the size just took over."

Indeed, after scoring the last four points of the opening half, UW opened the second on a 23-5 run to take a 67-41 lead. The Badgers' advantage swelled to as much as 29 with 8 minutes, 53 seconds remaining before IPFW — which only hit four of its 18 3-point tries in the second half, finishing with a Kohl Center-record 37 attempts from behind the arc — chipped away at it late.

And though Stone was disappointed in how UW finished the game, the Badgers are no doubt in a better situation than they were after Friday's loss — a game in which they were outscored 31-9 in the opening 13:40.

"I think it was just a bounce-back (win)," Banks said. "What would have been disappointing is to come out today the way we did the first 10 minutes of Virginia.

"But I thought we had a change, and we knew we needed one. … I thought that was the best thing for us after that loss to Virginia was to play right away again."