Wisconsin Badgers Women’s Basketball 2023-24 Season Preview

Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball season is right around the corner and I couldn’t be more excited.

I love basketball and I love the Wisconsin Badgers so writing about both of those things is, quite frankly, right in my wheelhouse. Here, for your reading pleasure, is a preview of how the UW women’s team will look in Year 3 of Marisa Moseley’s tenure on the bench.

The Badgers lost a ton of talent off of last year’s team and chose to go the old-fashioned route (zero incoming transfers, five new freshmen) to rebuild the roster. Wisconsin was playing their best ball of the season at the end of last year and have improved their win total in each of Moseley’s first two seasons. Is there reason for optimism this year? Read on, friend!

Wisconsin Badgers Women’s Basketball 2023-24 Season Preview

Key player: Halle Douglass was only able to play in five games last season before tearing her ACL and I think it was a bigger loss for the team than we all thought. While her shooting wasn’t quite where you’d want it to be before the injury, every other part of her game was shaping up nicely. She was rebounding at a solid clip, distributing the ball extremely well, and was quite active on defense. Douglass has all of the makings of the Swiss army knife type of player that I really like.

While talking to Wisconsin women’s basketball head coach Marisa Moseley at Big Ten Media Days she said that Douglass hasn’t officially been cleared to play yet, but was on track to be ready for the season. “She’s a natural leader and returns as one of our core leaders from last year,” Moseley said.

“I really got to learn about my teammates…and learn how to lead from the sideline,” Douglass told me about how she spent her season not playing on the court. Her leadership WILL be important, but I think her production on the court will also be key for Wisconsin in a year when there will be questions about where points will come from.

Key newcomer: Imbie Jones is the highest ranked member of Wisconsin Badgers 2023 five-woman recruiting class. The 6-foot-2 wing out of Seattle helped her high school to an undefeated, state championship season as a senior and was ranked as the 147th player in the nation by ESPN. Her height and athleticism (she also played volleyball in high school) will make her a tough matchup for Big Ten opponents, perhaps sooner rather than later.

“She has the ability to do her job really well, so she runs the floor extremely well, she can offensive rebound, she has really good touch around the rim. She’ll do whatever you ask her to do. You need players like that, who maybe aren’t the flashiest, but they’re just workers and they want to win,” Moseley stated when I asked her about Jones.

With the losses of Julie Pospisilova, Avery LaBarbera, Krystyna Ellew, and Maty Wilke from last year’s team there are going to be plenty of shots available for whoever steps up to take them. Jones has the potential to slide right into the rotation as a freshman because of all her other skills, but she’ll need to take advantage of the scoring opportunities provided as well. (Note: I wrote all of this before Wisconsin’s exhibition game against Whitewater. Another true freshman, D’Yanis Jimenez, got the start and appears to be in line to play a bunch of minutes this year. Keep an eye on her as well. Read the recap of the UWW game right here!)

Key stat: 65.4%, assisted shot rate. Last year’s Wisconsin women’s basketball team didn’t possess many players who could create their own shot with consistency and this year’s team has even fewer. UW worked around that by being very good at passing and finding open players for better shots. Wisconsin won’t have a grad transfer PG for the first time in Marisa Moseley’s tenure, so it’ll be interesting to see if the team is still as good at distributing without a veteran floor general pulling the strings.

Best case scenario: Douglass is healthy and provides veteran leadership while filling up the box score; a couple of the freshmen are better than advertised and get early learning experiences on the court; Serah Williams blossoms into a star

Worst case scenario: The Wisconsin Badgers lack of a veteran PG torpedoes any hopes of a competent offense; young players aren’t ready for larger roles; Williams is double and triple teamed all season and gets frustrated

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