The Yellowjacket women's basketball team got their first game action of the 2010-11 season on Sunday, November 7, playing an exhibition game in Madison against the University of Wisconsin Badgers.  The opportunity to play the state's premier Division I team comes courtesy of a program established between UW and the schools in the WIAC, allowing one each year to come to Madison and take on the Badgers.

"Our conference rotates (between the teams to play Wisconsin) every year, so it was our turn this year," said Yellowjacket Head Coach Don Mulhern.  "I just want to thank the University of Wisconsin for having us.  Our players, since last year when we knew we were going to play against the Badgers have been thinking about this game.

"Our players had a wonderful weekend.  Everybody, to a T, on this campus has treated us with the utmost respect and dignity, and I mean everybody."

In the game, the Yellowjackets dug a big hole early, falling behind as the Badgers scored the first 14 points of the game.  The Yellowjackets found their bearings, however, and played strongly the rest of the half, trailing 38-17.

"We were hoping to get, just to get better. We talked a lot about our team not scoreboard-watching, because that can be overwhelming considering (Wisconsin) is a Big Ten team.  We talked about every possession is a battle in and of itself," Mulhern said.  "And if on every possession we can set our focus upon what we can control, which is effort, setting the screens, passing, cutting and those kinds of things.  And the outcome of that ball going in the basket or defensively making a good shot, that's going to happen or not.  If we can do our defensive rotations properly, if we can close out properly, set good screens, make good cuts properly, which is what we work on every day in practice, you can then look on that as a building block to the future."

In the second half, the Yellowjackets saw their offense increase, up to 23 points and their shooting percentage nearly double.  Wisconsin's, on the other hand, fell off.

"Our goal was to get better from possession to possession, from first half to second half, and to try some different combinations here.  And I feel good about that--we did get better," Mulhern said.  "After the beginning, I thought we were getting a little scared, and I was worried about that.  I thought that would be really easy, it was a being our first time on a big stage kind of thing.  We missed some easy shots, but that's normal, that's human, no issues there.  But I think we did not play scared, and I was really happy with our composure, and our ability to compete in terms of the best that we could do.  So I think that we accomplished a lot of our goals today."