As the Wisconsin women’s basketball team prepares to head to South Bend, Ind., for its first NCAA tournament game since 2002, it wasn’t hard to discern the team’s emotional state.
“It’s a great opportunity for us,” junior forward and leading rebounder Tara Steinbauer said. “We’re going to be able to get a lot of Wisconsin fans to the game, all of our families will be able to make it. And Notre Dame is a great venue, so we couldn’t be more excited.”
“It’s the NCAA tournament, you see your name up there and you’re excited and now you’re going to be playing,” head coach Lisa Stone said. “We’re going to have a great crowd. … From walking down the street to being in the mall to just hearing the parents and how many people are making plans to come, it’s really exciting and these players deserve it.”
Excited, yes. Familiar with their first opponent, not so much.
“I know nothing about Vermont,” Steinbauer said after the field was announced on Monday. “I am very excited to get to know something about Vermont, but I definitely think it’s going to be exciting to play against a different team that has a different style. I know they’re not in the Big Ten, so we’ll see how the pack defense matches up against them.”
According to Stone, however, the style actually isn’t so foreign, describing the No. 10-seeded Catamounts (26-6) as being “a lot like us.”
The champions of the America East Conference, Vermont comes into Sunday’s contest as winners of 10 of its final 11 games, including a 55-50 victory over Hartford for the conference tournament title, redeeming two previous losses to the Hawks.
And if there were any concerns about Vermont’s ability to travel, they can be put to rest. The Catamounts (which are short-tailed wildcats) lead the nation in road wins with 17 and are 5-0 in neutral court tilts this season.
The ‘Mounts will also not be intimidated by their big conference counterparts, having already faced universal No. 1 Connecticut (an 84-42 loss), as well as No. 1-seed Nebraska (a 94-50 defeat).
Although this is the first time these two programs have met, the teams do share one common opponent from this season, with Vermont downing N.C. State 52-47 in early November, and the Badgers besting the Wolfpack 53-48 three weeks later.
The Catamounts also unofficially lead the nation in backcourt vowels.
“If I give you numbers can you look it up because I can’t pronounce the names,” Stone, who is making her first NCAA appearance since a 2002 Sweet 16 run with Drake, joked. “Number three [Courtnay Pilypaitis] and number four [May Kotsopoulos] are their guards that play very well. They’re their leading scorers. They can really shoot it, get to the basket.”
Pilypaitis and Kotsopoulos, native Ontarians, present a distinct challenge for the Badgers, as both guards are listed around six feet tall (Pilypaitis is listed at 6-foot-1 and Kotsopoulos at 5-10), compared to the Badgers diminutive point guard Rae Lin D’Alie (5-foot-3) and backcourt mate Teah Gant, who’s listed at 5-foot-10.
“They have really big guards from what I hear,” sophomore forward Anya Covington said. “So we have to make sure as post players that we help the guards on the block and we just get to shooters. And be physical because they’re big.”
Compounding the pairings’ height inequity could be injury. On Tuesday, Badger freshman Taylor Wurtz, a physical 6-foot guard who seemed likely to get increased playing time against the tall Catamount duo, suffered a fracture to her left thumb, forcing the Ripon native to sit out Wednesday’s session. Wurtz does, however, plan on playing Sunday.
Despite the matchup difficulty, the Badgers too enter the game with more than a modicum of momentum.
While the team is just 3-3 over its last six games, one of those losses came at the hands of Big Ten champion and 2-seed Ohio State, and another in overtime to 8-seeded Iowa. More importantly, in those six contests the Badger offense found a new gear, averaging 71.3 points per game on 46.7 percent shooting. On the year, the team averaged just 62.5 points and 43.4 percent from the floor.
But beyond the match-up minutiae and excitement lies what could possibly be construed as an omen for the Badgers.
“It’s a very similar kind of set-up because you’re playing away from home, and one team is playing at home, and the crowd is great,” Stone said of the comparison. “We played at Baylor and it was sold out the whole weekend, you know they were the host site. And the thing about women’s basketball having host teams host those first two rounds, the environment is going to be awesome.”
