The Spartan women’s basketball team and No. 5 Wisconsin Badgers lined up around the center circle for a jump ball with five minutes of overtime on the clock and the score tied at 63.

Five minutes later, the two teams met at the same spot again, this time with the score knotted at 73.

But in the second extra frame, the Badgers (14-1 overall, 5-0 Big Ten) played like the savvy, veteran team they are, outlasting the Spartans 86-78.

The Badgers opened the final frame by forcing two early turnovers and making nine of their 13 free throws.

“The game was won on the free-throw line in the two overtimes,” said Wisconsin head coach Jane Albright. “It took us 50 minutes to do what we wanted to get done a lot earlier.”

With the loss, the Spartans (10-4, 0-4) remain winless in the Big Ten, despite out-rebounding Wisconsin 53-39.

Each team had its chances to finish the other off with the clock winding down.

Regulation ended with junior forward Syreeta Bromfield’s 13-foot jumper rolling around the rim before falling off, and the first overtime ended with Badger guard Kyle Black drawing back iron on a three-pointer.

“Oh, gosh,” Bromfield said, “I thought that was going in, but, somehow it just rolled out.”

Wisconsin forward Jessie Stomski led all scorers with 27 points.

The Spartans received 21 points and 13 rebounds from Bromfield in the losing cause.

The senior trio in Stomski, guard Tamara Moore, and Black did most of the damage.

In addition to Stomski’s game-high 27, Moore added 24 points and seven steals for the Badgers. Black added 21 of her own.

“That’s quite a trio. Look at the stat line. They were the show tonight,” Spartan head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. “It was seniors against freshmen out there.”

With just under a minute left in the second half, Stomski’s jump shot for the Badgers tied the score at 61, the first tie since 11-11.

A Bromfield hoop gave the Spartans a 63-61 lead with just more than 25 seconds left, but Stomski responded with another jumper tying the game at 63 with 17 seconds left.

After trailing for a little more than seven minutes to open the game, the Spartans rallied and took an unlikely 36-29 lead into the locker room.

It looked like the Badgers might not miss too many shots in the early going of the first half, hitting three of their first four three-point attempts while they jumped out to a 11-5 lead with 17:05 left.

But when the shots stopped falling for the Badgers, the Spartans staged a comeback.

During a 10-3 Spartan run spanning almost five minutes, the Spartans grabbed a 15-14 lead on a play that exemplified the first half for both teams.

Bromfield, after missing a three-pointer, surged toward the rim to grab her own miss and laid it in.

The play gave the Spartans their first lead of the evening - a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the half.

Bromfield led the Spartans with nine first-half points and led all players with seven rebounds.

Stomski led all scorers with 12 points after one half and added six rebounds for the Badgers.

Wisconsin was unable to keep the Spartans off the offensive glass early, yielding 10 offensive rebounds that led to 12 second-chance points in the first half.

McCallie said tough losses like Thursday’s can cause the team to play even hungrier.

“We try not to worry so much about results,” she said. “I just think that they’ll come.”

The Spartans’ quest for their first conference win leads them on the road, as they travel to Champaign, Ill., to battle Illinois on Sunday.