Jolene Anderson may have set UW’s all-time scoring record with her 18-point performance Wednesday night against Indiana, but for the senior, it was simply a matter of too little too late.
Not for the game mind you, which the Badgers won 81-51, but for what should have been the highlight season of her career.
Though she’ll probably hold the scoring record, as well as several others, for some time, the shockingly poor play of the Badgers in her final season will forever tarnish what would otherwise have been the cherry on top of an extraordinary career.
Consider the man who Anderson surpassed with her 2,217th point, Wisconsin’s previous scoring champion, Alando Tucker. Tucker broke the mark last year, a season in which the team excelled, at one point earning a No. 1 national ranking and earning a No. 2 seed for the NCAA Tournament. Leading the Badgers to new heights only furthered the legend of Tucker and his scoring.
Anderson, however, despite playing on a team that finished as the runner-up of the postseason NIT and didn’t lose anyone from a year ago, will have to pull off a miracle in the Big Ten Championship just to sneak in to the Big Dance and will instead be brought down by the performance of her team.
It would be unfair to pin UW’s struggles this year entirely on Anderson, but as an All-American candidate she must certainly bear some brunt of the blame. Expectations might have been high, but they weren’t unrealistic. It wouldn’t have taken a Final Four appearance to satisfy fans, but a bottom four Big Ten finish doesn’t quite cut it, either.
This isn’t Dan Marino never winning a Super Bowl or Charles Barkley never winning an NBA title mind you, this is one of the greatest players in the program’s history entering the season with a team picked to finish second in the conference and then going out and losing six of its first seven Big Ten games.
Yes, the team has made improvements and, yes, a tournament bid is still a possibility, albeit an outside one. But it will take an incredible effort down the stretch to turn this season into something other than one of unfulfilled potential and dashed hopes.
As it is, it?s hard enough for a female athlete to earn recognition at a school dominated by male sports. Sara Bauer was the Jolene Anderson of women’s hockey, with a couple of NCAA championship rings to boot, and she garnered about as much attention last season as a backup offensive lineman.
Anderson crossed over, though, making herself known across campus, but her team couldn’t live up to the expectations she brought with her.
Now there won’t be another Jolene Anderson for a long time. While freshmen Lin Zastrow and Tara Steinbauer have shown potential in their first year, neither one comes close to the 17.8 points per game Anderson averaged in the 2004-05 season on her way to winning Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors. The guard from Port Wing, Wis., may not be a once-in-a-lifetime player, but there isn’t one of her in every recruiting class and as her career winds down, it deserves attention.
And that?s what makes it strange that Wednesday’s game should have been important for reasons that extend beyond Anderson. It makes sense that the program’s premier player would be the biggest storyline on Wednesday, but it shouldn’t have been the only one. Wisconsin should have been cementing its place atop the Big Ten last night, they should have made a case to jump another couple of spots in the polls, and the scoring record should have been a side note. Instead, Anderson was the story of the game.
Forgive me then when I say the accomplishment and the recognition it brings with it, while very deserved, is less then satisfying.
Mike is a sophomore majoring in political science. If you’d like to share your comments on Anderson or other people that have parody songs about them, he can be reached at[email protected].
