Wisconsin loses Serah Williams, Sania Copeland and then falls to Saint Louis in WNIT quarterfinals

MADISON – Wisconsin’s run to the semifinals of the WNIT ran out of firepower Monday night.

The Badgers lost all-Big Ten performer Serah Williams after the first possession to an apparent knee injury. Defensive stopper Sania Copeland departed with a couple minutes left in the first half with what appeared to be a concussion.

With either of them on the floor, it might have been enough to keep UW’s season alive.

Instead, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team’s season ended with a 65-60 loss to Saint Louis in a WNIT quarterfinal played in front of 2,198 at the Kohl Center.

Box score Saint Louis 65, Wisconsin 60

The two-week tournament run was the Badgers’ first postseason appearance in 13 years.

“We’d never played in the postseason before. Just the fact that we were able to do that and get here is a huge milestone for us,” senior Halle Douglass said. “I think we were truly playing our best basketball at the right time of year, so it kind of sucks to go out like this, but I feel like we should be really proud of what we did and how we were playing these last few games because it’s better than it has been.”

In addition to returning to the postseason, Wisconsin finished 15-17 to tie its highest victory total in five years. And in Williams, the Badgers had their first all-Big Ten first-team selection in 10 seasons.

As the anchor of the team’s offense and defense, Wisconsin was in for an uphill battle after Williams landed wrong after missing a layup on the team’s first possession and couldn't continue.

She needed to be helped off the court and returned to the bench with her right knee wrapped in ice. Wisconsin coach Marisa Moseley didn’t know the extent of the injury after the game, but Williams watched the second half minus the ice pack, though after the game she left the court with the aid of a crutch.

“It’s scary to see a teammate go down, especially one like Serah who we play off of a lot,” senior Brooke Schramek said. “But this team knows how to step up when they need to. … That trust we’ve had in each other. That’s been growing throughout the season.”

Ronnie Porter leads charge for short-handed Badgers

Sophomore guard Ronnie Porter, the team’s second leading scorer, picked up some of the slack with finished with 17 points, two off her season high, and four rebounds.

But in the absence of Williams and Copeland, who appeared to suffer a concussion with 2 minutes 16 seconds left in the first half, a handful of Badgers exceed their normal production.

Freshman D’Yanis Jimenez scored 12 points and didn’t have a turnover in 28-plus minutes. Douglass played 38 minutes, 10 more than her previous season high, and posted seven points and team-highs in rebounds (seven), assists (four) and steals (three). Senior Natalie Leuzinger (nine points) also had a season-high for minutes (36:30). Freshman Tessa Grady, who missed the past two games due to an undisclosed injury, played 14:49 in the second half and hit two fourth quarter threes that almost helped the Badgers complete the comeback.

“They found something else within themselves,” Moseley said. “It was like OK, yes we lost a big piece, but we’re capable of still continuing to do this and finding a way. I was really proud of them because we didn’t fold.”

Wisconsin’s largest deficit, 43-31, came with 3:51 left in the third quarter. The Badgers, however, sparked their comeback with an 11-5 run to end the third quarter that was capped by a bucket by Jimenez with 2 seconds left.

The spurt, which cut the Saint Louis lead to 48-42, energized the crowd, which helped fuel a UW rotation that was down to essentially five players in the fourth quarter and six in the second half.

A Leuzinger free throw, a Grady three and a second-chance basket by Porter allowed the Badgers to cut the lead 50-48 with 7:15 to play.

UW eventually tied the game three times and led twice. Porter's two free throws with 59 seconds left gave the Badgers a 60-59 advantage, but the Billikens, who improved to 20-18 and will face Vermont on the road Wednesday, closed the game with six straight points to advance.

WNIT run added weeks to Badgers' season

Three turnovers during the final minute sealed UW's fate, but the ending didn’t spoil what turned out to be a fruitful postseason run.

Additional postseason opportunities for women’s basketball team this season increased the pool of postseason slots from 116 to 132 and allowed the Badgers to make their first postseason appearance since 2011 years. The run started with a 19-point comeback at Southern Indiana March 25 and continued Thursday with an 86-61 win over Illinois State at home.

That victory allowed the Badgers to equal their highest win since going 15-18 in 2018-19.

The postseason experience, meanwhile, allowed UW to finish a season that in previous years would have ended with the Big Ten tournament loss to Penn State on March 7 to last until April 1.

“We continued to battle and fight and really just shot a lot of grit and toughness and just a will to want to win the game,” Mosley said. “I hate that it ended this way for this group because I really believed that they deserved to experience winning a championship together, but it’s hard to do that.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin women's basketball falls to Saint Louis in WNIT quarterfinal