Big Badgers bury Hoosiers

MADISON, Wisc. -- Kathi Bennett walked to both of the edges of her bench, looking for an answer.\nShe didn't find it.\nWith the IU post game shredded by fouls, Wisconsin exploited the weakness consistently and purposely in a 69-62 Badger win Sunday in front of 9,100 fans at the Kohl Center.\n"Wisconsin really out-foxed us and played very well," Bennett said. "Their post players were dynamite and really hurt us."\nThe Badgers' starting frontcourt each netted double-digits by game's end. Junior forward Jessie Stomski led the pack with a season-high 25 points.\nStomski, at 6-foot-3, had at least a four-inch height advantage on the Hoosiers' smaller power forward. Stomski used the advantage, making a Badger-record 21 trips to the free throw line, connecting on 15.\n"I thought it might have been their game plan or something," said Stomski, laughing off her new record. "They just came at me very hard every time I touched the ball, and I got to the line." Stomski added 10 rebounds. The Hoosiers (13-5, 4-3 Big Ten) were badly outrebounded, 40-27.\nIU has lost its second straight game this season, the first time all season the Hoosiers have lost back-to-back contests.\n"We have to stay together," junior point guard Heather Cassady said."It'll be real easy to give up and go home, but we need to stay focused and keep working."\nMore foul trouble terrorized IU's inside, as starters Rachael Honegger and Jill Chapman, and reserve center Erika Christenson all fouled-out by game's end. The Hoosiers committed 26 fouls total.\n"We wanted to focus the game down low," Wisconsin coach Jane Albright said. "We thought we had an advantage at the four-spot, and Jessie really ran with that for us."\nWith Chapman playing with four fouls and Christenson and Honegger already out, the Badgers attacked the 6-foot-5 center. With 10 minutes left, Albright posted sophomore center Nina Smith on the low left block and forced Chapman to play defense. Helpless, Chapman was abused by Smith, the 1999 National High School Player of the Year. Smith finished with 14 points and five rebounds in 26 minutes.\n"Once she got her fourth, we knew we could attack her," junior guard Kyle Black said. "She couldn't play the defense she was playing in the first half, so we went right at her. And it worked."\nThe Hoosiers held the lead to 34-33 minutes into the second half, but a quick Wisconsin spurt ballooned the lead back to six, where it hovered for the rest of the game.\n"Unlike the Penn State game, we thought we could win the whole time," Bennett said. "We had spurts, but we needed to play 40 minutes of solid post defense, and we didn't."\nCassady led the Hoosiers with 18 points, 13 of which came in the futile second-half comeback try. Cassady was five-for-nine from the field and six-for-seven from the free throw line.\nWisconsin (11-6, 5-2) jumped out quickly on the Hoosiers, who have been plagued by horrific starts recently. After an open three by Honegger in the game's first minute, UW went on a 13-0 run over the next six minutes to grab a 15-3 lead. Black guided the run, netting eight of UW's first 15 points. The 5-foot-11 Indianapolis native made three field goals and two three-pointers on the initial run, soaring over a much smaller IU senior guard Rainey Alting, listed at 5-foot-6.\nCassady broke the run with a driving layup eight minutes into the first half. But the damage was already done, and IU played behind for the rest of the first half.\n"We got good shots, we just weren't making them," said Bennett of IU's third poor start in four games. "The score didn't look good, but I was happy because we were playing hard."\nWisconsin guard Tamara Moore, who averages 14 points a game, missed the UW run on the sidelines. Moore turned an ankle in the game's opening minutes lunging for the ball. She returned midway through the first half. Moore will have x-rays on the ankle this week.