MADISON – Wisconsin women’s basketball coach Marisa Moseley didn’t hesitate when she was recently asked if Serah Williams is one of the best post players in the country.
“I said absolutely,” Moseley said. “She continues to show that and I think we’re just scratching the surface of what she is capable of doing.”
The 6-foot-4 sophomore proved her worth again Tuesday night by setting the tone for a 59-56 victory over Minnesota in front of 4,191 at the Kohl Center.
Williams posted her fifth straight double-double and eighth of the season with 24 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Badgers out of a three-game losing streak. How she accumulated those numbers was impressive.
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She opened the game with six points and eight rebounds in the first quarter with four points and six boards during the first 4½ minutes. Her work provided a much-needed jump start for a team that was coming off a string of disappointing showings in the three previous games.
And in the fourth quarter Williams had a hand in the Badgers’ final 13 points. She had 10 points during that run, including a three-pointer to give UW a 53-52 lead with 3 minutes 29 seconds to play. Her dish to freshman Tessa Grady in the corner for a three-pointer pushed the Badgers’ advantage to 58-54 with 1:48 remaining.
Williams’ play helped the Badgers (9-9, 2-6) beat the Golden Gophers for the third straight time.
“It feels good to get a win,” Williams said. “Coach tells us all the time to remember this feeling so that we don’t have to remember what losing feels like. We practiced really hard the last couple of days and the energy from the start, from warmups was great, better than our opponent and I think that gave us the momentum and confidence to play.”
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The victory raised UW’s record to 9-9 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten. Here is how the Badgers did it.
Wisconsin’s defense was up to the challenge
After struggling against Iowa last week, the Badgers’ defense had bite Tuesday. It held Minnesota to a 33.8% shooting, the lowest for a Badgers’ Big Ten opponent this season. The Golden Gophers were shooting 40.4% entering play.
Freshman Grace Grocholski, a graduate Kettle Moraine High School, led Minnesota with 13 points. Sophomore Mara Braun, the team’s leading scorer at 18.9 points per game, tied a season low with nine points and missed 10 of 13 shots as Badgers sophomore Sania Copeland spent most of the night hounding her.
Down the stretch, Wisconsin allowed just one basket during the final 3 minutes, a run of six possessions.
Minnesota’s last gasp, was an off-balance three-point attempt by Braun that she took with Copeland in her face with 4 seconds left.
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“When we watched our Iowa film and we talked about how talked about how that ended, we knew we were a better defensive team than that,“ Moseley said. “We knew we were capable of playing better team defense than that, so the challenge was how will we respond. … We had an opportunity to respond tonight and I think they did an excellent job of really answering that bell.”
Tessa Grady’s leads run of key three-pointers
Wisconsin’s 25.9% shooting from three-point range wasn’t off the charts, but the buckets came at key moments.
Grady’s two second quarter threes were a big reason UW led, 26-24, at the half. In the third quarter she hit twice more from long range, pushing the Badgers lead to nine and later a game-high 10 points, 42-32, with 2:22 to go in the quarter.
And in the fourth, Williams’s three from the wing gave the Badgers a one-point edge with 3½ minutes to go. Two possessions later she kicked out to Grady for a corner three that gave the Badgers a four-point advantage with 1:48 left..
“We stepped up and made big threes when we needed to and that is something we’ve continued to talk about …,” Moseley said. “They were incredibly timely and I’m happy they happened when they did.”
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Wisconsin cleaned the glass in the second half
The Badgers allowed nine offensive rebounds in the first half but just three in the second half when they owned a 21-10 edge on the boards overall. The combination of the team’s defense and its ability to end of the stop with a rebound resulted in just four second-chance points for the Gophers in the second half.
Minnesota’s 10 second-chance points for the game were the second lowest allowed by the Badgers in Big Ten play. The lowest (seven) came in UW’s win over Illinois.
BREWSTER, Minn. — Lots of hugs were shared, tears were shed and utter shock was witnessed as a rural Minnesota family was surprised with the Best Christmas Ever early Sunday afternoon, Dec. 14.
More than two dozen people caravaned behind a Brewster Fire Truck to deliver gifts to Austin and Stephanie VandeKamp and their 6-year-old daughter, Callee, in Brewster, Minnesota, in Nobles County.
Friends and family join Best Christmas Ever committee members for a group photo before leaving the Brewster Fire Hall to deliver gifts to the Austin and Stephanie Vande Kamp family Sunday afternoon, Dec. 14, 2025.
Julie Buntjer / The Globe
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“We just came to bring some joy to your life,” said Sue Hagen, one of the local coordinators for the nationwide nonprofit
Best Christmas Ever organization,
which surprises families who have experienced hard times. “Last year, with the loss of Jaelee, none of these gifts we’re bringing to you will ever replace her, but we just thought that your family deserved a little joy this Christmas.”
The Vande Kamps gave birth to their daughter, Jaelee, on Feb. 4, 2024. Shortly thereafter, Jaelee was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, TAPVR (Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return). She spent her first eight months in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Children’s Minnesota in Minneapolis, where she had 10 surgeries and ultimately required continuous dialysis.
Stephanie didn’t get to hold Jaelee until she was 50 days old, and stayed with Jaelee for much of her hospitalization. When she did come home, Austin would go to the hospital to stay with their youngest daughter.
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They were finally able to bring Jaelee home on Sept. 23, 2024. Because she was dependent on respiratory support, someone had to be awake with her 24/7, so Stephanie got very little sleep, family friend Ashley Prins detailed in the nomination letter she sent to Best Christmas Ever.
People wait in line bearing gifts to deliver to the Austin and Stephanie Vande Kamp family Sunday afternoon, Dec. 14, 2025, in rural Brewster.
Julie Buntjer / The Globe
Jaelee died unexpectedly on Dec. 9, 2024, while attending regular follow-up appointments in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Jaelee’s death compounded the loss the family was still feeling from the sudden death of Stephanie’s dad from a heart attack on Easter morning 2022.
“The community just rallies around a family and they don’t even know who it will be,” Hagen said, noting that Bedford Industries, Sanford Worthington and District 518 were among employers who stepped up alongside community members to “help uplift a family.”
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Locally, the Best Christmas Ever program is sponsored by the Astrup Family Foundation, owner of Sterling Pharmacy stores, which provides $5,000 toward a life-changing gift for a local family who has fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. Business partners included Worthington Federal Savings Bank and Runnings who, along with Sterling Pharmacy, had giving trees set up at their businesses in recent weeks to accept gifts and monetary donations for the recipients.
The VandeKamps were nominated for the Best Christmas Ever program by family friend Ashley Prins.
“I would love to make this year a joyous season again for them in regards to holidays and I would love to see the three of them be able to get away on a vacation and enjoy their time together as they missed out on so much of that during this life struggle,” Prins wrote in her letter.
Stephanie, left, and Austin VandeKamp share a look as daughter, Callee, stands between them as they listen to Sue Hagen talk about the Best Christmas Ever program Sunday afternoon, Dec. 14, 2025.
Julie Buntjer / The Globe
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In addition to a mound of neatly wrapped gifts — most of which were for Callee — the family was presented with a monetary gift of $7,403.07. The local Best Christmas Ever committee will work with the family on how the gift may be used.
“I don’t know what to say,” Austin said after accepting the money.
“Merry Christmas,” replied Chad Nixon, representing Worthington Federal Savings Bank.
Callee opened her largest box, which contained a child-sized recliner just for her, as well as two stuffed animals to match the chair. Stephanie and Austin received Minnesota Twins jerseys reflecting their favorite current Twins players.
Among the people on hand Sunday were last year’s recipients, the Adrian and Melissa Gonzalez family, of Worthington. The Gonzalezes lost their son, Emmitt, to cancer in September 2023.
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Hagen also presented the family with over $1,000 in gift cards to local businesses, and noted that donations are still coming in. The Best Christmas Ever committee will meet again with the Vande Kamps after Christmas, she said.
The VandeKamps were completely surprised by the gesture — after admitting a bit of fear as to why a fire truck with lights on and siren blaring pulled into their rural Brewster farmyard.
“I thought right away my barn was on fire, my lambs were running everywhere, then I saw a big wad of cars and I thought, ‘what’?” Austin said.
Julie Buntjer became editor of The Globe in July 2021, after working as a beat reporter at the Worthington newspaper since December 2003. She has a bachelor’s degree in agriculture journalism from South Dakota State University.
So Minnesota: Lego King of Minneapolis builds Minnesota landmarks one brick at a time
Many kids will find Lego sets under the Christmas tree this holiday season, but the popular toy isn’t just for children.
Jeff Esler fell in love with Legos as a child, and that love affair has never ended.
“I am the Lego king of Minneapolis,” Esler said. “So my friends call me.”
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A decade ago, Esler immortalized Nye’s Polonaise Room in Legos and posted it on Facebook.
“That one, it kind of went really viral,” Esler said. “I think I got 100,000 shares.”
Esler’s fame grew after he went on to use toy bricks to build mini masterpieces of Minnesota landmarks.
“I did Matt’s, and then I did Gluek’s,” Elser said. “I did the Frank Lloyd Wright gas station in Cloquet. Then, probably the Split Rock Lighthouse. The Grain Belt sign.”
Each project costs from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. They take a ton of bricks and days to build. Esler has sold some models and given others away.
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“I do the landmarks, because they click with people,” Esler said.
Esler plans to keep building some of Minnesota’s most recognizable places one brick at a time.
Federal prosecutorsannounce indictments against two Philadelphia men they say submitted up to $3.5 million in fake and inflated bills to Minnesota Medicaid programs, WCCO-TV reports. “Minnesota has become a magnet for fraud, so much so that we have developed a fraud tourism industry,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said.
State Rep. Kristin Robbins alleges – without sharing a name or other evidence – that the Minnesota Department of Human Services paid state money to a Feeding Our Future defendant while they were awaiting trial, the Minnesota Reformer reports. Robbins, who chairs a legislative fraud oversight committee and is running for governor, says she has collected hundreds of whistleblower tips, but she has not shared them with the department’s inspector general.
The state has suspended or delayed payments to several social service providers as part of an effort to catch and prevent fraud, and now one of those providers says the crackdown had deadly consequences, KARE 11 reports. A service provider says a vulnerable adult client was found dead in his St. Paul apartment after the state froze payments that had been covering his care.
Rolling Stone writer Stephen Rodrick, who spent time with Melissa Hortman while covering Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz during the 2024 presidential campaign, writes about the life of the late Minnesota House Speaker in a 7,000-word profile based on interviews with dozens of family, friends and colleagues.
