Rae Lin D'Alie caught the ball, strode into her shot and let it go.

You'd think it had always been so easy for the University of Wisconsin women 's basketball team's sophomore point guard.

But the 3-pointer from the right wing that gave the Badgers a three-point lead with 10 seconds left in what ended up being a 79-73 overtime loss to Michigan Jan. 17 at the Kohl Center was a shot D'Alie wouldn 't have been comfortable taking last year.

"I probably wouldn't have (taken) that shot," said D'Alie, who took a pass from a driving UW senior guard Jolene Anderson before hitting the shot. "I would have been looking for probably Jo or (senior guard Janese Banks) to give it right back to them. Jo drew a defender and I just stepped in and shot it just like a rhythm shot."

That's been the marked change in D'Alie this season, particularly of late. She's always been a pass-first point guard, and led the Big Ten Conference in assists last season with 4.6 per game.

But after spending the summer working extensively on her shot, D'Alie is reaping the benefits. She enters tonight 's game at Indiana (12-8, 5-3 Big Ten) making 43.5 percent of her 3-pointers this season, and has made 5-of-8 over the last four games.

And the Badgers (10-9, 3-6) will certainly need more of the same against the Hoosiers: They're just 2-24 all-time in Bloomington, Ind., and Indiana has one of the conference's top point guards in former Marshfield athlete Jamie Braun.

D'Alie -- whose 3-point play in the final minute sent her Waterford prep team past Braun and Marshfield in the Division 1 semifinals of the 2006 WIAA state tournament -- actually made 40.6 percent of her 3-point tries last season, but she only took 32 in 36 games and didn't feel confident in her perimeter shot. Her remedy was to spend the summer working out with Banks.

And while the setting changed -- the pair went to the Kohl Center if it was available, but used other campus facilities as well -- the main premise didn't.

"Basically shoot, shoot, shoot," said Banks, who's making 40.6 percent of her 3-point attempts this season.

They'd work on shooting in transition and off the dribble. They'd move further back behind the 3-point line and keep shooting. It was hard for D'Alie at first -- seeing her shots come up short and feeling the strain of taking deeper shots -- but by the end of the summer she saw major progress.

"This is kind of my first season since I've been playing basketball where I feel like I'm an actual 3-point threat, where if I do put it up it's not just going to go in just because it's luck," D'Alie said. "There's some form of repetition behind it."

She's taken another step forward in Big Ten play, hitting seven of her 13 attempts (53.8 percent). Last season, by comparison, she made 8-of-21 (38.1 percent) in league play. Her overall shooting percentage is up as well from last season, from 41.6 to 43.9 -- and she's at 46.7 in Big Ten play. And that improvement has opened things up offensively for UW, with teams no longer able to sag off her to deny post entry passes.

"She's a threat," Banks said. "Another threat. The more threats you have on the court, the harder you are to guard."