What goes up and down, does barrel rolls and upside down spins, but ultimately leaves you with a queasy, sick-to-your-stomach kind of feeling at the end? A roller coaster. And that is exactly the word that can be used to describe the 2010-2011 women’s basketball season.
This campaign saw everything. The Badgers finished third in the Big Ten with a record of 10-6 despite starting the regular season 2-7, with all seven losses coming in consecutive fashion.
Heartbreaking losses to Kansas and Duke at home plagued the Badgers and the trend continued into the Big Ten season. Wisconsin lost by three points in overtime to No. 11 Michigan State and by two points to Michigan after blowing a four-point lead with less than a minute to go. Picking up just a couple of those games would surely have done wonders for the Badgers’ NCAA Tournament resume.
Wisconsin head coach Lisa Stone collected a rare coaching milestone, 500 career NCAA victories, but despite her past collegiate success at UW-Eau Claire and Drake and getting the Badgers to their first NCAA Tournament under her watch last season, Stone became the latest casualty of the what-have-you done-for-me-lately sports principle Monday, with her firing.
All of these ups and downs aside, nothing may have had more of an impact on Wisconsin’s season than injuries. It was a season-long battle for the Badgers dealing with huge voids left by their top three players. The absence of these integral players and leaders really showed just how much chemistry really means to a team and that the next-man-up theory is just that, a theory.
Senior standout Alyssa Karel missed the first three games of the season and in her return Wisconsin lost one of its most powerful inside presences, Lin Zastrow, and an overtime heartbreaker in the Big Ten/Big 12 Challenge versus the Kansas Jayhawks.
Zastrow missed the next three games, expanding the losing streak to five. Two games into Zastrow’s return, the Badgers were once again healthy and seemingly had gotten everything back to normal, reeling off a 12-3 record in an impressive 15-game stretch that ran deep into the Big Ten schedule and were positioned to make a run at a first-ever Big Ten Championship.
Then came another injury to another star player. Tara Steinbauer was lost for the rest of the season with a torn ACL in the first two minutes of the Badger’s contest at Iowa. The injury resulted in Wisconsin losing three of their last five regular season conference games and getting beaten by the lowest seed in the Big Ten Tournament, Illinois.
These three players were not the only players to get bitten by the injury bug during the season, but it isn’t hard to make an analogy of what it really meant.
Picture the men’s basketball team right now, happily in the Sweet 16. Where would the Badgers have gotten this season if they had needed to go without the likes of Jordan Taylor (Alyssa Karel), Jon Leuer (Lin Zastrow) and Keaton Nankivil (Tara Steinbauer)?
It wouldn’t seem very likely that a third-place conference finish and a good chance to go to the Elite Eight under those circumstances could be possible.
All of the turmoil in the lineup caused by the injuries eventually led to Wisconsin finishing the season with a 15-14 record before being relegated to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
The Badgers won their first round game at the Kohl Center against Butler 68-48 but basically gave their second round game away, losing 62-59 versus Illinois State, again at home.
The WNIT, though not the preferred tournament, still gave the Badgers a great opportunity to win a championship. Thanks to the format of the WNIT, had Wisconsin continued winning after the game against Butler, UW could have played every tournament game in the Kohl Center, including the championship game, in front of their home crowd.
They just couldn’t get it done.
So now here the Badgers sit, at the bottom of the roller coaster where most rides like this end, and unfortunately it wasn’t as fun as they hoped it would be.
The seniors will depart the coaster cars, and the lapbars will lower back down on the returning players ready for another ride. And right now the next ride is in the dark as the Badgers search to find a head coach to lead the way.
