The 2004 season is something of uncharted territory for head coach Pete Waite and the Wisconsin volleyball team. For one of the few times in Waite’s six-year tenure at UW, the Badgers are the hunters and not the hunted in the Big Ten. With a 3-3 conference record, Wisconsin currently sits in a tie for sixth place in the conference standings, looking up at the likes of Ohio State, Penn State, Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois.
That does not mean it is time to fret over the fortunes of the 2004 Badgers, though. The future — for this season and beyond — is bright for Waite’s program. The UW roster boasts of seven freshmen, four sophomores and just two seniors. Six underclassmen have seen the court in the Badgers’ last four matches and the current Wisconsin starting lineup features four freshmen or sophomores.
Although young, the talent is indeed in place. The current Wisconsin rookie class was ranked No. 6 in the nation by Volleyball Magazine and is already making an impact on the court. Middle blocker Taylor Reineke has quickly become a force in the Badger block and gets better by the day offensively. Libero Jo Wack has looked like anything but a freshman in the back row, vacuuming up balls like a senior. She currently ranks third in the conference with 5.75 digs per game in league play.
So far, Waite and his staff have been searching for the right combination to put on the court. They may have found it with the third Wisconsin lineup of the season. Setter Katie Lorenzen has settled down an inconsistent attack since taking the reins of the offense and Maria Carlini is providing the team with another viable option at outside hitter.
Other than Sheila Shaw, who has flashed All-American form this season, Wisconsin is still looking to get its veteran hitters fully on track. Opposite hitter Jill Odenthal has been consistent (3.06 kills per game, .299 hitting percentage) but is below her career averages in most offensive categories. Big-swinging outside hitter Aubrey Meierotto is hitting just .211 and averaging 2.61 kills per game in the early going, as compared to 3.62 kills per game and a .288 percentage in 2003. Much of that has to do with the UW hitters adjusting first to freshman setter Jackie Simpson, and then Lorenzen. As Lorenzen and Simpson become more and more comfortable on the court, those numbers will only go up.
What seems to be lacking from the 2004 edition of the Badgers is the intangibles that a veteran, battle-tested team possesses. That comes from on-court experience, for which there is no substitute. What this team does have is depth, talent and size. Wisconsin’s block has shown night-and-day improvement from a year ago, thanks to a roster that averages 6 feet in height. A block of the caliber of UW’s — tops in the Big Ten at 3.39 blocks per game — can make up for poor offensive night and takes pressure off the team’s defense.
Despite the large influx of youth, Wisconsin was still ranked third in the Big Ten in the conference’s preseason coaches’ poll. That ranking reflects not only the talent level of the young Badgers, but the respect the rest of the league has for the UW coaching staff. Waite and assistants Christy Johnson and Rod Wilde are more than capable of taking a young team and turning it into a contender.
Wisconsin’s three conference losses have come at the hands of Ohio State, Penn State and Minnesota. All three are currently ranked in the top 10 in both the USA Today/CSTV top 25 coaches’ poll and the Rich Kern Percentage Index (think RPI), with the Gophers holding the top spot in the latter.
Although they were swept by Minnesota, Wisconsin pushed the No. 3 team in the country to the limit in each game. Each of the three games was knotted at 20-20, but the Badgers were unable to get the job done down the stretch. They lost the match, but proved they were more than capable of hanging with the conference and country’s top squads.
Theoretically, UW should get better and better as the season wears on, thus peaking at exactly the right time: when the Badgers saddle up for the NCAA tournament. It may be a bit presumptuous to talk about postseason berths for a team with a 3-3 conference record, but remember, this is the Big Ten, the league that sent seven teams to the Big Dance last year. Among those seven was Northwestern, a team that finished league play 9-11.
In 2003, the Badgers peaked at the wrong time. In late October, UW was sitting pretty after home wins over Penn State and Ohio State. Wisconsin was 8-2 in conference and appeared to be in prime position to make a run at the conference crown. However, that is where UW hit its peak. The Badgers went 5-5 the rest of the way and finished fourth in the conference. In theory, that should not be the case this year. That’s not to say Wisconsin will wrap up the conference schedule with a 10-game winning streak, but it certainly should be a much more consistent squad come November.
Now that they’ve taken their lumps from the best the Big Ten has to offer, the true test for this group of Badgers will be the second half of the conference schedule, when Wisconsin gets another crack at the Big Ten elite — a chance to apply the lessons learned early in the season. The learning process continues this weekend, when UW plays host to Indiana and Purdue at the Field House.
