Hoosiers welcome talented duo of Anderson, Banks to Assembly Hall

It’s been a week since the IU women’s basketball team saw competitive action, and IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack said that while the rest was nice, “It’s time to play some basketball again.” \nAnd the Hoosiers will do just that as they welcome Wisconsin to Assembly Hall at 7 p.m. today.\nLegette-Jack said the long layoff doesn’t surprise her, nor will it affect her team.\n“It’s the season,” Legette-Jack said after practice Wednesday. “Sometimes you’re going to have two days off. Sometimes you’re going to have three games in a week. You’ve got to be ready for it all.”\nJunior forward Whitney Thomas – last week’s Big Ten Player of the Week – said the week off helped the team recover from what had been a stretch of four games in 11 days.\n“It was definitely a break that we needed,” Thomas said after practice. “We were going and going for a long stretch, and it gave us a time to regain and get back focus.”\nA preseason darling in the Big Ten rankings, Wisconsin has struggled for much of \nthis season. \nAside from senior Jolene Anderson, who leads the conference in scoring with 19.9 points and was voted by both the coaches and the media as the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year, only fellow senior guard Janice Banks averages double-digit scoring. \nHowever, the duo of Anderson and Banks – an Indianapolis native and graduate of Ben Davis High School who scores 14.5 points per contest – creates a dangerous one-two punch for the 10-9 Badgers. Wisconsin has won its last two games after starting just 1-6 in the conference. Wisconsin won those two games over Penn State and Northwestern by a combined 57 points. \n“We’re just playing our regular defense,” IU senior guard Nikki Smith said. “I don’t think that we alter things that much for (Anderson).”\nLegette-Jack said she respects both Anderson and Banks as players, and her team is going to try to keep them from becoming major factors. \n“If we can take those two out of the game ... I think that we’ll be better for it,” Legette-Jack said. \nThe Hoosiers will lean on a balanced attack, as they have all year, led by sophomore point guard Jamie Braun. Braun is coming off a 20-point performance in the Hoosiers’ loss to Michigan in Ann Arbor exactly one week ago. \nAlso leading the way for the Hoosiers is Thomas, who leads the Big Ten in offensive rebounding and scored her 700th point for IU at Michigan last week, giving her more than 700 points and 700 rebounds for her career. \nLast season, the Hoosiers drubbed Wisconsin in Bloomington, winning by 27 points, but then lost by seven in Madison, Wis. \nThe Hoosiers currently stand at 5-3 in the Big Ten and 12-8 overall. Last season, IU won six conference games out of 16, a number that, with a win today, the team could eclipse in just more than half that time. \nSmith will be playing with an injured finger, but Legette-Jack said she can’t see it affecting her only senior. \n“You can’t keep a senior down,” Legette-Jack said. “When you know you’ve got six weeks to showcase yourself and play this game that you love, you don’t feel pain. You just see opportunities and you go after it.”