According to UW women’s basketball coach Jane Albright, a nugget of political philosophy descended from Abraham Lincoln can explain her and her players’ mood during their current five-game losing streak.
“He said it’s not failure that would bother him, but rather being content with failure,” Albright said Monday during her weekly press conference. “These players are not content with losing five games in a row. We will not be content if we don’t turn this thing around.”
With the possible exception of UW’s 95-82 loss to Minnesota, the Badgers haven’t been outplayed in any of their five Big Ten losses. Since their Jan. 20 loss to the Gophers ? a game in which Minnesota shot 59 percent ? the Badgers have combined poor rebounding efforts with occasionally lax defense and a slew of turnovers to create the longest losing streak in Albright’s eight-year tenure at Wisconsin.
The streak hasn’t been pretty. Four days after losing to Minnesota, the Badgers turned the ball over 25 times at Indiana and lost 70-63 in overtime. Three days later, Wisconsin committed 22 turnovers and gave up 18 offensive rebounds in losing to Penn State 63-49. Against Michigan State no Wisconsin player guarded Kristin Haynie as she hoisted a wide-open, halftime-buzzer-beating shot from the middle of the Kohl Center floor. Haynie hit the shot, a three-pointer, and the Spartans won by a point.
Despite these woes, Wisconsin may have died its most gruesome death Sunday in Purdue. Leading by seven points in the fourth quarter, the Badgers gave up four turnovers down the stretch that allowed the Boilermakers to turn a seven-point deficit into a lead they never relinquished. Even though Wisconsin played possibly its best all-around game in two weeks, the Boilermakers still scored 19 points off UW’s 22 turnovers.
“We’ve always said 17 [turnovers] was our goal,” Albright said. “You know, I think that’s a realistic goal.”
What’s strange is that the Badgers have committed so many errors while employing a starting lineup that contains three battle-hardened seniors. Guards Kyle Black and Tamara Moore and power forward Jessie Stomski have all played three years in the UW system, but only Black has significantly curred down her turnover frequency as compared with her past three seasons.
One encouraging sign for Wisconsin is the return of freshman sixth woman Ebba Gebisa. Gebisa, who sat out the Indiana, Penn State and Michigan State games with a high left-ankle sprain, tallied four points and four rebounds in 24 minutes against Purdue. The speedy Gebisa’s return should allow Wisconsin to play a more up-tempo style, one of the trademarks of the Badgers during their 15-game winning streak earlier this year.
“I think they looked more confident yesterday in the locker room,” Albright said. “There was a lot of energy coming back yesterday because we played better.”
Also, Albright said Wisconsin will take advantage of a schedule that has them playing only two games in 12 days. Because the NCAA mandates that coaches hold practice only six days a week, Albright said she will run practices through this Friday, use Saturday as this week’s off day, and then use the ensuing Sunday as the following week’s off day, in order to give her players the closest thing to a long weekend a college basketball player can hope for.
“They’ll go home, take a couple of days off, and hopefully get away from Madison and the gyms and the pressures of everything and come back ready to go again,” Albright said.
“[This week] we’ll get to bring the [scout team] in, and they’ll certainly challenge us. We’ll get to work on some new stuff, actually. It’s a good two-week period for us to work on some new things.”
