Hoosiers ready for road test against Badgers tonight

It's getting close to that time of year.\nAfter winning its last two games, the IU women's basketball team is set to make its case for an NCAA tournament bid. With five games left to play, the Hoosiers (15-9, 4-7) travel to Wisconsin, where they will look to build on their regular season resume against a Badger team in the midst of a two-game losing streak.\nIU coach Felisha Legette-Jack credits her team's recent success to its focus on present tasks. \n"We're not going to look ahead and we can't go there," Legette-Jack said. "We're not old enough yet to think about five games. Those thoughts are just way too analytical for our team this year, so we're just going to stay in the moment."\nThe Hoosiers, who defeated Wisconsin 83-56 on Feb. 1, enter Thursday night's game after recovering from a 14-point deficit to beat Minnesota 69-65 on Sunday. Though IU easily beat Wisconsin last week, the Hoosiers said they aren't taking their opponent lightly.\n"We know that they're going to come out and play hard, considering what happened the last time we played them," said senior center Sarah McKay. "They play well at home, and we play well on the road as well, so it's going to be a battle, but we've gone back to playing our kind of basketball and that's what we're going to do."\nIn its past two games, the Hoosiers shot 47 percent from the field and held Wisconsin to just 30 percent field goal shooting in the pair's first matchup. Prior to its current winning streak, IU had not shot better than 40 percent in its previous five games, losing each one.\nThe disparity in shooting resulted from more focus in practice as well as fast starts in each of the last two games, said freshman guard Jamie Braun. She said having a good start at Wisconsin will be key to winning the game, but the team knows it can recover from falling behind early.\n"It's really important (to start the game well) because the Minnesota game shows we can come back from being down," Braun said. "But when we're up like that, we just have more energy, more intensity and we just bring it throughout the whole entire game. So, when we're more loose, I think it makes our shots fall better."\nThe Hoosiers stand just one game out of what is currently a three-way tie for fifth place and 2.5 games out of fourth place in the Big Ten standings. In its remaining five games, IU plays four of those games against teams higher in the Big Ten standings.\n"It's all about having a sense of urgency," McKay said. "We want to end strong in the conference with as high of a ranking as possible, make the Big Ten (tournament) and just see where we can go from there. Every game is big, but we never look past any game, we just look at the opponent in front of us and take it one game at a time"