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But what happened is that Laur passed on the open 3-pointer to take a couple of rhythm dribbles to the middle of court and never did get a shot off as the horn sounded to provide the Wisconsin Badgers with a 71-69 double overtime victory over the Panthers at the Kohl Center.
“I’m glad she didn’t shoot it,” said UW coach Lisa Stone in what now ranks as the top candidate for understatement of the season.
It was a shocking conclusion to a game that seemed destined to go to a third overtime — or to the Panthers — if Laur had made the initial shot available to her from beyond the 3-point line, a chance set up when Mariah Dunham missed the second of two free throws with 6.1 seconds left.
“When it was in (Laur’s) hands,” UWM coach Sandy Botham recalled, “I thought, ’We could win it.’ “
But the play will eventually give Botham a headache.
“I’ll run through that in my head 1,000 times,” she said. “We have a free throw play. If she hits two, we’re running (Laur) off screens looking to tie it. Obviously, I should have said if they miss it. It’s obviously disappointing. They have to know the situation, and she just didn’t.
“... We talk about keeping your head, staying poised, staying in the moment. That’s not an easy thing to teach players. Obviously, she wasn’t really focused on what was going on out there.”
That’s hard to figure based on how thrilling a game it was, the Badgers’ sixth straight victory of the season and their 11th straight over their in-state rival.
The Badgers led by 16 with 11 minutes left when the Panthers (3-3) went to a trapping press and zone defense in the half court that took the Badgers (6-1) out of the offensive rhythm they used to push a 29-18 halftime lead to 47-31.
UWM senior center Traci Edwards scored 14 of her game-high 30 points in that stretch to the end of regulation, including a left-handed scoop with 4.8 seconds remaining that tied it at 54 and forced the first extra 5-minute session.
Edwards now has 1,882 career points, a UWM record she set with an old-fashioned three-point play with 10:10 remaining in regulation when she scored her 15th point.
“She gets it done inside,” Stone said. “We threw a little bit of a double at her late, and maybe a little too late.”
Logan High School grad Danielle Jorgenson, a freshman forward, scored four points and had three rebounds for the Panthers.
It was the Badgers who had to fight back in the first overtime, overcoming Amanda Viehauser’s 3-pointer with 25.7 left when sophomore guard Alyssa Karel nailed a straight-on 3 from 24 feet that tied it at 63 with 7.4 seconds left to force the second overtime.
“I think our mentality changed (after Karel’s basket),” said UW point guard Rae Lin D’Alie. “Coach kept saying in the huddle that we were in control of the game, the momentum is with us.”
UW opened the second extra period with six unanswered points and held a 70-67 lead when Laur missed a 3 and Jineen Williams followed it up to make it 70-69 with 7.6 seconds left.
Following a timeout, the Panthers fouled Dunham, who made the first of the bonus offering for her team-high 16th point before missing and setting up the peculiar ending.
