Just how inconsistent has the University of Wisconsin women's basketball team been so far this season?

Well, when the Badgers walked onto the Kohl Center floor Tuesday night to face UW-Milwaukee, they had yet to post back-to-back wins.

UW's season so far has been a maddening mix of encouraging performances (like the Badgers' dominant win over Mississippi) and lackluster defeats (like UW's blowout loss to Virginia); wins in which the Badgers' holes showed (UW's season-opening win at Cleveland State) and losses in which they displayed their potential (the Badgers' overtime defeat to Wyoming).

But, lo and behold, UW's 79-59 win over the Panthers looked pretty similar to Sunday's 85-69 win over Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne.

A crowd of 5,055 — at least that's what was listed on this cold, snowy night — watched as the Badgers (4-3) played from behind for much of the opening half before forging a 32-all tie at the break by scoring the last seven points of the first.

That run included a 3-pointer from the left wing by senior guard Jolene Anderson with 1 minute, 7 seconds left — the only points of the opening half for UW's leading scorer.

Anderson, who was averaging 24.3 points per game entering the game, shot just 1-for-3 in the opening half and committed three of the Badgers' 11 turnovers in the first. She finished with 11 points — her lowest output of the season — on 3-for-12 shooting.

But with Anderson struggling, the Badgers got at least eight points from six players.

"I think Jolene knew that she was struggling, (but that) her teammates would rally behind her," said UW senior guard Janese Banks, who scored a team-high 23 points. "She got shots off, they just weren't hitting tonight. Everybody has those nights."

Indeed, the Badgers got plenty of scoring balance in producing a fast start to the second half for the second straight game.

Two days after ripping off a 23-5 run to open the second half in its win over IPFW, UW outscored UW-Milwaukee (2-4) 19-5 in the first 5:42 after halftime to break open a close game.

All 19 of those points came from Banks (four), freshman forward Tara Steinbauer (six), sophomore point guard Rae Lin D'Alie (five) and junior center Caitlin Gibson (four).

"Just the level of energy we came out with in the second half was huge for us," said Steinbauer, who scored all eight of her points after halftime. "I think that's one of the biggest things, is if we can continually keep getting fired up in that second half, teams aren't going to be able to hang with us."

Said Panthers coach Sandy Botham, whose team shot just 29.2 percent in the second half: "They had a lot of depth, threw a lot of different people in and I think by the end of the game, our kids just wore out."