Wisconsin Badgers WBB Non-Conference Slate Left Us Feeling…Optimistic?

The Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team finished up a successful non-conference portion of their season last week and are now on to Big Ten play. UW sits at 7-4 overall, 0-1 Big Ten and are only four wins away from tying the most wins in a season during the Marisa Moseley era.

After a nine-day holiday layoff, the Wisconsin Badgers take the court at Purdue on Saturday night at 5 p.m. CT (BTN) and will try to push their winning streak to three games.

Full steam ahead! We play Purdue on BTN today!

🆚: Purdue
📍: Mackey Arena // West Lafayette, IN
🕑: 5:00 p.m.
📺: Big Ten Network
📻: 1070 WTSO-AM & iHeartRadio App!
📊: https://t.co/nMEvF78HF3#OnWisconsin pic.twitter.com/a4oUsL7sgL

— Wisconsin Women’s Basketball (@BadgerWBB) December 30, 2023

Before we get to that, however, I think it’s valuable to take a look back at what got us to this point. Here are a few team-related stats (via the essential Her Hoops Stats) that show what sort of team UW is this year (as of 12/29/23). They are listed in this order: team number, national ranking, ranking in Moseley’s tenure.

• Points per game: 68.0, 126th, 2nd (by 0.5 ppg)
• Opp. points per game: 63.5, 134th, 1st
• Net points: +4.5, 117th, 1st
• Offensive rating: 92.1, 156th, 2nd (by 1.9)
• Defensive rating: 86.4, 101st, 1st (by an astounding 13.6!)
• Net rating: +5.7, 123rd, 1st
• Pace: 73.6, 90th, 1st
• NET ranking: 99th
• Her Hoops Stats ranking: 96th

This has comfortably been Moseley’s best team in her three years. Now, some of this has to do with a perceived easier schedule this season, but Wisconsin women’s basketball actually has played the 28th hardest schedule in the nation so far per WarrenNolan.com and their opponent’s winning percentage of 61.2% is the 32nd best. Somewhat strangely, Wisconsin’s predicted strength of schedule drops them down to 53rd in the country which points a little bit to the Big Ten having struggled as a conference early in the year.

Coming into this season there was legitimate concern about where the Badgers would find offense outside of sophomore big Serah Williams. Well, those concerns have been quelled a bit by the play of freshman D’Yanis Jimenez and the leaps made by sophomores Sania Copeland and Ronnie Porter. The Badgers are a young team, seven of the nine players who have appeared in eight or more games are sophomores or younger, but they have grown up rapidly.

Here are the stat lines for the top of Wisconsin’s rotation:

• Serah Williams: 16.1 ppg (48.3% FG/23.1% 3P/73.7% FT), 9.0 rpg, 0.9 apg, 0.9 spg, 2.9 bpg, 3.6 turnovers per game
• D’Yanis Jimenez: 11.5 ppg (44.7/42.9/76.9), 4.0 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.2 spg, 0.5 bpg, 3.4 turnovers per game
• Ronnie Porter: 10.7 ppg (37.3/26.8/70.4), 7.1 rpg, 4.3 apg, 3.0 spg, 0.2 bpg, 2.5 turnovers per game
• Brooke Schramek: 10.0 ppg (39.8/37.5/60.7), 6.1 rpg, 2.0 apg, 0.9 spg, 0.2 bpg, 2.2 turnovers per game
• Sania Copeland: 9.9 ppg (43.7/35.0/63.2), 2.5 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.9 spg, 0.4 bpg, 2.1 turnovers per game
• Natalie Leuzinger: 7.0 ppg (46.0/29.0/71.4), 3.1 rpg, 1.5 apg, 0.8 spg, 0.1 bpg, 1.7 turnovers per game

The only other player who is averaging double-digit minutes per game this season is Halle Douglass (13.6 mpg) who has only appeared in four games as she was still recovering from a torn ACL at the beginning of the year. True freshmen Leena Patibandla, Tessa Grady, and Ana Guillen have all contributed in bit roles throughout the season and have each shown glimpses of promise.

I was cautiously pessimistic about this year’s squad heading into the season and to say they have exceeded my expectations would be underselling it. A team like Wisconsin women’s basketball losing players like Julie Pospisilova, Avery LaBarbera, Maty Wilke, not to mention contributors like Sydney Hilliard and Krystyna Ellew, and all three of their assistant coaches usually does NOT improve the following season without bringing in replacements from the transfer portal.

Last shoot around of 2023💥 pic.twitter.com/tFnaOuTx2y

— Wisconsin Women’s Basketball (@BadgerWBB) December 30, 2023

Well…the Wisconsin Badgers didn’t bring in any transfers, instead focusing on bringing along their large, six-woman freshman class. Moseley also revamped her coaching staff with a mix of familiar, veteran faces and hungry younger assistants. What appeared to me as too much offseason turnover/turmoil seems to have actually brought the team closer together. While watching the team live in their game against St. Thomas, the Badgers had the vibe of a team that gave a shit about each other and wanted to do their best for the player sitting next to them.

Now, a lot of that “us against the world” shit is hokey and doesn’t mean anything…but for some teams it DOES mean something. Wisconsin was written off as a cellar dweller in the Big Ten this year before a ball had even been dribbled and, much like Michael Jordan, they took that personally. Whatever the coaches have been cooking up this year has been exactly what this roster needed and I could see this team making a run at a WNIT bid.

Three of their next four B1G games are against teams below them in the standings (by record, not necessarily by talent) and if they win two (or even three???) of those games my confidence may rise to levels experts are calling “dangerous” and “unsustainable.”

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