Wisconsin Badgers WBB: The 5 Worst Losses of the Marisa Moseley Era

The loss to Northwestern on Sunday got me thinking about the worst losses in Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball history.

While I’m not ready to rank those, I thought that ranking the five worst losses since Marisa Moseley took the helm would be doable! Later this week I’ll also do the top five wins because, quite frankly, I need something to cheer me up after writing this.

Wisconsin Badgers WBB: The Five Worst Losses in the Marisa Moseley Era

Honorable Mention Loss

Date: Mar. 3, 2023
Opponent: vs. Purdue Boilermakers, Big Ten Tournament
Final score: 57-55

Reasoning: This isn’t a “bad” loss in the normal sense. Wisconsin wasn’t favored to win, in fact Her Hoops Stats predicted them to lose by almost a dozen points, but it was HOW UW lost this one that really hurts. The Badgers came out in the first quarter and absolutely took Pudue’s lunch for the first 10 minutes. After the first quarter, UW was up 10 points and they went into halftime with a nine point lead.

Maty Wilke and Julie Pospisilova were scoring well and, along with Sania Copeland, playing solid defense against the Boilermakers. Heading into the final quarter, the Badgers were only up three, but things still looked good for them to score a big postseason win. You probably remember what happened next…but just in case you’re new here let’s recap it.
Purdue took a four-point lead with 2:30 to go, which was cut to two on Wisconsin’s next possession thanks to a Serah Williams layup. The next two minutes of gameplay saw a number of missed shots as, I’d wager, both teams started to feel the weight of the close game on their shoulders. With 20 seconds left, Purdue forced a turnover and called timeout. It looked like the game was over if the Boilermakers could make their free throws.

However, Wilke got a tie-up and the possession arrow went UW’s way! The Badgers called timeout and drew up a great inbounds play that ended with Wilke splashing a corner three to take the lead!! Purdue still had 10 seconds left and, sadly, they used them to hit their own three-pointer and steal a win. You can find the highlights of these shots here.

The Badgers ended last season on somewhat of a heater (which we’ll touch on in a follow up post about Moseley’s top-five wins) and really seemed to be building something, but this was a real bummer to end the year on. Combined with a rough offseason that saw Wilke, among others, leave via the transfer portal and nobody new brought in, it put a bit of a pall on the beginning of the new year.

5th Worst Loss of the Marisa Moseley Era 

Date: Dec. 3, 2023
Opponent: vs. Butler Bulldogs
Final score: 59-51
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning percentage: 74.0%
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning margin: +7.2
Total winning margin difference: -15.2

Reasoning: This year’s Butler Bulldogs outfit is not a good one. They are currently rated 173rd in the HHS ratings and they’ve only beaten two teams from a Power 6 conference. One of them was a big road win over Xavier and the other…was at the Kohl Center against the Badgers.

Wisconsin, against all odds, had started the 2023-24 season well. They entered the game against Butler with a 5-2 record which included wins against South Dakota State and Boston College as well as a close loss to Arkansas. Instead of taking care of business, the Badgers shot a putrid 34.5% from the field (their worst showing in non-conference play) and only made three of their 20 long-range attempts. They also, weirdly, shot poorly from the free throw line as they are usually solid from the charity stripe.

Nothing outside of “playing poorly against an overmatched opponent” strikes me from this loss. The Wisconsin Badgers definitely should have won, but the good vibes from their hot start to the season left most people saying “eh, it was just an off night.” Turns out it might have been more of a harbinger of what was to come this year.

4th Worst Loss of the Marisa Moseley Era 

Date: Jan. 10, 2024
Opponent: vs. Northwestern Wildcats
Final score: 74-69
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning percentage: 85.5%
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning margin: +13.1
Total winning margin difference: -18.1

Reasoning: Northwestern has been a bad team these past two years, yet they are 3-1 against the Wisconsin Badgers. I guess this speaks to the fact that Wisconsin has also been a bad team these past two years, but this season seemed like it was going to be different. NU was ranked lower than UW in every conceivable metric heading into this game and Wisconsin was playing at home and, well, you’ve already seen the score.

Wisconsin actually won quarters one, two, and four (by one measly point) but the decisive third quarter, which has been a problem for UW in a number of games actually, saw NU win by six and there was the difference in the game. 

The Wisconsin Badgers came into this game after a surprising road win against Illinois and were looking to build some momentum before a two-game road trip against Michigan and Iowa. Instead, they did the opposite and ended up losing to Michigan by 24 and Iowa by 46 which left them at 2-6 in Big Ten play. These are the types of games that ascendent teams need to win in order to show “proof of concept” and the fact that Wisconsin keeps losing them does not speak well to what the program is supposedly building.

3rd Worst Loss of the Marisa Moseley Era 

Date: Nov. 14, 2021
Opponent: vs. NJIT Highlanders
Final score: 61-49
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning percentage: 71.9%
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning margin: +6.4
Total winning margin difference: -18.4

Reasoning: To be fair to Wisconsin, the 2021-22 Highlanders were the best NJIT team in the 15 years of data Her Hoops Stats has going a perfectly cromulent 15-15, but in the third game of their season (coming off losses to Wagner by 12 points and Marquette by 32) they probably weren’t expecting to get a win in Madison.

Despite all of those “positives,” NJIT still finished the year ranked 248th in HHS rankings and didn’t score a win over another Power 6 team in that season…OR ANY OF THE LAST 15 SEASONS! Another truly incredible feat of ineptitude scored by the Badgers.

The Wisconsin Badgers were never in control of this game, falling behind by three at the end of the first quarter but then getting the lead down to one at halftime. The lead ballooned to two points at the end of the third quarter…and then the fourth quarter happened. Against a supposedly overmatched opponent, who was playing on the road, and was clinging to a two-point lead, Wisconsin completely laid down and ended up losing by double digits. UW only scored eight points in the final frame.

This was Moseley’s second game at the helm of the Badgers and she already scored an impressive, program-defining loss that was the first of nine in their next 10 games. Boise State, the one team Wisconsin beat in this stretch, should seriously consider folding their program.

2nd Worst Loss of the Marisa Moseley Era 

Date: Feb. 4, 2024
Opponent: at Northwestern Wildcats
Final score: 69-43
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning percentage: 65.1%
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning margin: +4.8
Total winning margin difference: -30.8

Reasoning: Right after this game ended I thought that it was the worst loss of the Moseley era, but that was most certainly recency bias talking. The No. 1 game earned its spot, but that does NOT make this loss any less embarrassing. For the second time this season, the Badgers entered a game against Northwestern as a big favorite and for the second time this season they left the game with a loss and more questions than answers.

While this game was on the road, the sheer number of points they lost by makes this game way worse than their first loss to NU. I understand that Wisconsin suffered a series of injuries in this game with Natalie Leuzinger, Serah Williams, Ronnie Porter, and Sania Copeland leaving the game at one point or another, but that does not excuse getting your doors blown off by one of the worst teams in the conference.

Even with Williams and Porter on the floor, the Wisconsin Badgers were getting run out of the gym. They looked like a low-major team that was only in Evanston for a “buy game” and the final score suggests as much. The Badgers scored in single digits in the first and third quarters which, quite honestly, is baffling. What did they talk about in the locker room that hyped them down (???) to play so poorly? They lost both of those quarters by double digits and lost the fourth quarter by five when benches were emptied.

It was a pathetic and humiliating defeat that seemed to show that Wisconsin doesn’t possess a roster full of Big Ten-caliber players. Northwestern is very bad and they made Wisconsin look so much worse on two separate occasions! I’m trying not to spiral after this one game, because that’s all it is…one game, but the trends this shows are not promising.

There is no consistency from game to game, or even half to half, for Wisconsin and there aren’t enough players that can compete in the Big Ten on the roster. It’s tough to see much improvement from the beginning of the season, although Tessa Grady has been a revelation off the bench. Williams and Porter have shown some improvement (but I’d argue not enough) and D’Yanis Jimenez has played better than your average first year player, but otherwise this team is stagnant, if not getting worse.

Anywho…we haven’t even gotten to the worst loss yet, lol.

1st Worst Loss of the Marisa Moseley Era 

Date: Nov. 22, 2021
Opponent: vs. Chicago State Cougars
Final score: 71-63 (OT)
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning percentage: 95.9%
Her Hoops Stats pregame Wisconsin winning margin: +20.3
Total winning margin difference: -28.3

Reasoning: I remember following along with this game online and growing more and more horrified with each passing minute as I learned about Chicago State’s historic ineptitude and saw their overtime lead expanding against Wisconsin. The following day I titled a blog post on Bucky’s 5th Quarter: “women’s hoops suffers most embarrassing lost in program history.”

First of all, way to write “lost” instead of “loss” you absolute dipshit and second of all…I don’t think I was being alarmist or exaggerating for effect. The Wisconsin Badgers losing to Chicago State is not only the worst loss of Marisa Moseley’s tenure, but the worst loss of any coach’s tenure in Madison!

Let’s look at some facts:

• Chicago State entered the game on a 27-game losing streak
• They didn’t win a single game in the previous season (0-14; weird COVID year)
• Since joining the WAC in the 2013-2014 season and before playing the Badgers, they won 11 games. Total. They had played 214! They had more zero-win seasons (two) than four+ win seasons (one).
• Since their win over Wisconsin they have won seven games (a marked improvement tbqh) and are currently 0-25 this year with only one game remaining on the schedule.
• They haven’t averaged over 59 points in a season since 2010-2011 and haven’t averaged under 63 points allowed since the same year, when they gave up 62.6 points per game.
• They finished the 2021-22 season as the 324th best team in the nation per Her Hoops Stats which was their best mark since, you guessed it, the 2010-11 season.

The Wisconsin Badges started this game about as poorly as possible, finding themselves down 21-7 (!!!) after the first quarter to one of the worst teams in the country over the previous decade. They were much improved over the second and third quarters, even taking a one-point lead into the final period, but they only scored eight points in the fourth and CSU scored nine. Off to overtime they went!

The Cougars boat raced the Badgers in the extra frame by eight points and the worst loss in program history was secured. That also makes two of the first four games that Moseley coached two of her worst losses. Fun! I am still in disbelief that they lost this game and writing this whole post has made me very upset. SPORTS ARE THE WORST!

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