In mid-January, the UW women’s basketball team was flying high. On top of the Big Ten, with their sights set on both the regular season and tournament titles, everything was rosy. Upon rising to No. 5 in the national rankings, a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, maybe even a crack at the Final Four, seemed well within the reach of Badgerball.
It all started with the regular-season opener against a nationally ranked Washington team. The Badgers pummeled the Huskies by 20 points, and something special seemed to be brewing at the Kohl Center.
The ball just kept rolling, as one big win seemed to follow another. There was a championship trophy garnered at a tournament in Arizona, then a 17-point demolition of then-No. 10 North Carolina State, then a huge win over perennial Big Ten powerhouse Purdue to open the conference schedule.
Continued Big Ten wins built up the Badgers’ resume, along with their confidence and swagger, in a whirlwind of unprecedented success. By the time it was all said and done, the winning streak was at 15 games, the record was at 16-1, and the Big Ten was seemingly theirs. It all seemed too good to be true. And it was.
The bottom dropped out Jan. 20, in a sold-out Kohl Center, as the Badgers’ improbable 92-85 loss to Minnesota ended the winning streak.
It was also the beginning of the end of the dream, as the Badgers went on a slide of Saturday-morning-hangover proportions. Losses to Penn State and Indiana followed, then a heartbreaking one-point loss to Michigan State at the Kohl Center.
The crash continued with defeats at the hands of Purdue, Iowa, Texas Tech, Minnesota, and, perhaps the worst of the season, 82-55 at Ohio State. The only win the Badgers were able to capture was a shellacking of cellar-dweller Northwestern, which brought little self-esteem. Before they knew what hit them, the punch-drunk Badgers were 17-10 and sat in sixth place in the Big Ten. Not only had they lost their goal of winning the conference, they had lost their sense of team and confidence.
The reasons for the slide are not all that clear. For one, UW stopped winning games that came down to the wire. It seemed as if once another team drew close or started making baskets during crunch time, the Badgers adopted an “Oh no, here we go again” attitude and stopped executing.
Maybe the other teams just figured the Badgers out. Maybe Jessie Stomski wasn’t as dominant as she was earlier in the year. Maybe Kyle Black and Tamara Moore’s three-pointers weren’t dropping like they were before. Maybe the bench was not giving the same kind of support they were earlier.
Whatever the problems, whether emotional, mental or physical, the biggest problem of all was simply that even UW was not able to figure out what the problems were. And, as anyone knows, the first step to solving a problem is to identify it.
In interviews, head coach Jane Albright and the players never could put a finger on it; they always seemed to feel they could simply play through it.
After one game, Albright almost seemed desperate about trying to solve the team’s problems while talking to the media, and it is really unknown if she ever did.
In other words, the team never adjusted, and it cost them dearly. To their credit, the players never really showed signs of cracking. Fortunately, there were no locker room issues — at least none that were made public — which often take place when a team is struggling. Nobody ever pointed a finger, and the team certainly kept playing hard and trying to remain confident.
However, an innocent bystander had to know better. Beneath the optimism, there had to be signs of immense frustration. The players had to be wondering if the bad streak would ever end, and it showed itself in the form of tears from the senior leaders after the one-point loss to Michigan State. To their credit, the players never let their frustration get the best of them, which is admirable in itself.
After all the questions, perhaps the cause behind the season-ending swoon is as simple as this: the Badgers just weren’t as good as it had seemed at the beginning of the year. And while this assessment may be biting, it is perhaps the answer with the most credence in the often-cruel world of sports.
Although Badgerball showed some signs of life this past weekend in the Big Ten Tournament, beating Northwestern and a solid Minnesota team before succumbing to Penn State in the semifinals, disappointment still reigns supreme.
And although the Badgers have a good shot of sneaking into the NCAAs through the back door, they remain on the outside looking in at where they were just two months ago.
