The breakthrough performance the University of Wisconsin women's basketball team had been waiting for showed up a little later than expected.

But after four straight losses — all by eight points or less — and a 1-6 start to the Big Ten Conference season, the Badgers are just happy it finally arrived. And did they ever break through in a big way Thursday night.

UW started fast and used its best defensive performance of the season — and their best overall showing — to roll past Penn State 79-52 in a Big Ten game in front of an announced crowd of 5,849 at the Kohl Center.

From the start, the Badgers (9-9, 2-6 Big Ten) — not the Lady Lions (13-7, 4-4) — looked like the team in the upper half of the conference standings.

Actually, UW looked like the team it was supposed to be coming into the season. The Badgers forced turnovers on Penn State's first two possessions, and ran out to a 27-9 lead.

UW shot 46.9 percent (15-for-32) from the field on their way to a 17-point halftime advantage, using its defense — Penn State shot just 26.9 percent in the first half — to pile up points in transition.

"We spent this whole week on defense," Badgers senior guard Jolene Anderson said. "So if we didn't come out and have a defensive aggressiveness, I don't want to know what (Friday's practice) would be like."

How absolute was UW's dominance?

The advantage swelled to as much as 30 in the second half, and the closest the Lady Lions, who never led, got after the half was 14.

"Their record doesn't indicate the talent level that's on this team," Penn State coach Coquese Washington said of the Badgers. "They came out and they shot the lights out."

And despite pushing the pace, UW only turned the ball over a school-record five times — only one came in the first half — and its 52 points allowed was a season best.

The Badgers got 16 points each from three players — Anderson, senior guard Janese Banks and freshman forward Lin Zastrow — while sophomore point guard Rae Lin D'Alie added 13. And all this against a Lady Lions team with wins over No. 10 Duke and No. 19 Pittsburgh on its resume.

"It's a good feeling to know that we can play at this level," Banks said. "I just think that this victory, it kind of breaks the ice for us."

UW can only hope it's a sign of things to come.

"I can't express how proud of my basketball team that I am tonight," Badgers coach Lisa Stone said. "They have been resilient, very confident, have never wavered, have never flinched, have never doubted our abilities to do what we did tonight."