WBB: former Wisconsin player alleges abusive behavior from Badgers coaches while she was at UW

Tessa Towers transferred to Ball State after two seasons in Madison.

I’m not exactly sure where to start with all of this, so let’s just get some facts out there first.

• Former Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball player Tessa Towers posted a TikTok on Saturday, which became known to the wider public on Sunday, alleging some pretty serious things against the Badgers and head coach Marisa Moseley.

• Towers, a native of Batavia, Ill., took a leave of absence from the program in Dec. 2022 to “focus on a personal matter” per a UW release. "Our program fully supports Tessa as she takes this time away," head coach Marisa Moseley said at the time. "We will always make sure that people come first before basketball."

• Towers transferred to Ball State after the 2023-2024 season. The 6-foot-5 post player appeared in three games as a freshman and one game in her second season.

• Her caption under the TikTok stated “i could’ve added a lot more but anyways enjoyyy.” There were then 14 slides with pictures of Towers in a UW uniform with various anecdotes over them alleging abuse, manipulation, and threats.

• Among the allegations:

  • “my coach often threatened me with, ‘i can take this opportunity away at any given moment’”

  • “my coach and staff made me get tested for autism (i already have adhd) i told them I didn’t want to, but they still forced me”

  • “my coach gave me a choice between admitting myself to a mental hospital or getting kicked off the team!”

  • “i was forced to leave the team mid season by my coach and the staff”

  • She also noted that she would “leave my coaches office bawling my eyes out everytime” and that during her freshman year she “felt like a lab rat” due to the coaching staff putting her on new medications “every other week.”

• A number of former Wisconsin players commented in support of Towers underneath her TikTok. It included:

  • Krystyna Ellew (transferred to UIC)

  • Tessa Grady (injured on and off this year; sources with knowledge of the subject tell me that she is no longer on the team, but that hasn’t been publicly announced by UW)

  • Sydney Hilliard (retired/took leave of absence from team for personal reasons)

  • Imbie Jones (transferred to Nevada)

  • Sacia Vanderpool (transferred to North Dakota State)

• Grady posted “now this sounds familiar! glad we got out of that shit hole!”

• Ellew posted “but then I thought oh wait I’ve been th[r]ought that too”

• Jones posted “just crazy” and then four crying emojis; later she commented again “i’m glad we are away from that” and two smiling emojis

• Vanderpool posted “you made it out alive!!”

Now, I have reached out to UW for comment on the allegations Towers made as well as the status of Grady but have yet to hear back from them as of 1 p.m. CT on Monday. I am also currently working on some other things I’ve heard about the program from various sources, but I don’t feel comfortable publishing them yet without further verification.

Marisa Moseley’s official UW headshot on her head coach profile on UWBadgers.com.

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Here is some more background on Moseley’s tenure in Madison that will be fleshed out as news breaks around this developing story.

• During Moseley’s first year at Wisconsin a pair of players (Alex Luehring and Lovisa Djurström) simply disappeared from the team in the middle of the season with zero explanation. I asked Moseley about this after the season and she stumbled through an answer that eventually ended with her offering up a “no comment.” You can read my full interview with Moseley at B5Q.

• Sydney Hilliard’s “leave of absence” from the team in Feb. 2022 due to “a personal matter” is also shrouded in a bit of mystery. "Sydney has the support of our entire program while she is away from the team for this period of time," head coach Marisa Moseley said. "She knows we are all here for her." Hilliard played in seven games the following season before leaving the team on Jan. 8, 2023. "I have decided that it is time for me to step away from the game of basketball, so I can concentrate on my own well-being," Hilliard said.

• After Moseley’s second year at the helm all three of her assistant coaches left the team.

  • Kate Barnosky, who coached with Moseley at Boston University too and had been promoted to associate head coach at Wisconsin, left to be the head coach at D-III Babson College. While this is a head coaching job, it’s difficult to say it’s a step up from being an associate head coach at a Big Ten school.

  • Scott Merritt, who was hired by Moseley in April of 2021, left to become the head coach at Garnder-Webb where he is 12-36 in his first two seasons in charge of the Big South squad.

  • Caroline Doty appears to be out of coaching completely. She was hired by Moseley in April of 2021 although she had never coached at the collegiate level before. She was an account manager at Nike for nine years, working with the likes of the WNBA and the G League. Doty played at UConn while Moseley was an assistant with the Huskies. There is more to Doty leaving the Badgers, but I’m still trying to confirm everything there.

• Other players who have transferred out under Moseley include the following:

  • Ana Guillen: the Spaniard played at UW for one year (2023-24) before transferring to Yale in the off-season; appeared in 22 games, playing 118 minutes for Wisconsin; from the outside looking in this simply seems like a move to a better academic school/search for more playing time (5.5 mpg at UW; 16.9 mpg at Yale)

  • Sania Copeland: transferred to Kansas after two years at Wisconsin; started 26 games and averaged 30.3 mpg as a sophomore at UW and was primed for another large role as a junior; she is a native of Kansas and is also apparently dating former Badgers men’s basketball (and current KU men’s basketball) player A.J. Storr; most likely a case of wanting to be closer to home

  • Mary Ferrito: walk-on from Ohio whose parents both attended Wisconsin; played in five games as a freshman in 2022-23 before transferring to UNC-Wilmington where she averaged 23.8 mpg last year and is currently recovering from an injury this year; I conducted an “exit interview” with Ferrito after she entered the transfer portal and it is extremely enlightening to read her answers in light of what Towers has alleged.

  • Continuing with Ferrito’s section, she mentioned that Doty was “a very relationship-driven person and always made all of the girls feel welcome and she was trusting and someone we could talk to. She just brought a lot of positive energy every day to practice and kind of made it a fun atmosphere.”
    
    She also noted that her teammates were “sweet, welcoming teammates” and were “not really exclusive at all.” She noted that Barnosky (her lead recruiter) was “great” and while she was never “super close” with Merritt (since he was the posts coach and Ferrito is a guard) he “brought a lot of fun energy to practice.”
    
    I’ll post her entire response about Moseley here:
    
    "One thing I’ll definitely say about coach Mo [head coach Marisa Moseley]. She is very, very dedicated to her job. Basketball is definitely her passion and you can see it by the way she coaches. She really challenged us. She was never satisfied with where we were at and always pushed us to get better. That’s something that I’ll take with me to my next school.”

  • Savannah White: played in six games at Wisconsin in 2022-23 as a freshman but entered the transfer portal after the fall semester; she has been slowly working her way into the rotation at Indiana State over the past two years; her departure from UW was never addressed by the team

  • Maty Wilke: a star in-state player, Wilke missed her freshman season (2021-22) with an injury; in 2022-23 she started 29 games (33.8 mpg) while scoring 11.8 ppg and averaging 3.9 rpg, 2.2 apg, and 1.9 spg; the sharp-shooting guard was primed to be the co-focal point of UW’s offense in 2023-24 with big Serah Williams but Wilke transferred to Utah (a much better WBB program than Wisconsin to be fair) in the off-season instead; I have heard things about Wilke’s departure that lead me to believe she didn’t go into that offseason with intent to transfer, but that’s not something I’ve heard directly from Wilke or anyone in her camp

• Moseley almost never gives press conferences. I understand that Wisconsin women’s basketball is not super high in the pecking order of sports in the state, but she is still the head coach of a Big Ten basketball team and should probably be answering questions from the press regularly, right? The last video of a presser from Moseley that is on UW’s website is from March 2024, which was during Wisconsin’s run in the WNIT.
  
  As a member of the press, I have attended multiple games here in Minnesota when the Badgers played the Gophers as well as St. Thomas. Each time I asked UW if I could have some time with Moseley there was almost a shocked reaction that anyone would want to talk to her after the game. At the St. Thomas game she was supposed to meet me and one other reporter upstairs from the court and after waiting for over 30 minutes I just left because I had to get home.

• Speaking of press conferences, Moseley put her foot in her mouth at Big Ten Media Days before the 2023-24 season when she was discussing the makeup of her roster in front of the assembled media.
  
  “If you look at my team, we’re pretty much the United Nations. I have the first Indian woman to ever play at the Power 5. I have kids who are Nigerian and kids who are Dominican and kids who are Mexican and kids who are run-of-the-mill white because they’re still there too,” Moseley said. She quickly noted that her mother is white “just so nobody is offended.”
  
  I was in attendance for this and my reaction at the time was that it was a poorly thought out/poorly attempted joke, but that it was harmless. The local Wisconsin right wing media apparatus got a hold of the quote and of course tried to drum up outrage, but Moseley issued a brief apology on Twitter saying: “Yesterday at Big Ten Media Days, when asked a question, I made a mistake and used words that I regret. Those words do not reflect my thinking or my values. I apologize for the impact they have had. I sincerely value every member of my team and respect the variety of backgrounds and perspectives we have.”
  
  Was it the right thing for her to say? No, it wasn’t. Was it some sinister, racist plot against the white players on the team? No, it wasn’t.

• Now, all that being said it’s important to note that coaches & players leaving, in and of itself, is not something to cause alarm bells to go off. It happens every off-season to just about every program. However, the number of players to leave midseason, with limited/no explanation, and all three assistants leaving in one off-season is troubling to say the least.

• The Badgers have improved their win total in each season that Moseley has been coach. They won eight games in her first season, 11 in her second, and 15 last year where they also played in the postseason for the first time in over a decade. UW has 10 wins so far this year but it’ll be a major struggle for them to even equal their total from last year. They are currently riding an eight-game losing streak and sit at 10-10 overall, 1-8 in Big Ten play.

  onwismag

  

  A post shared by @onwismag

• Moseley has also seen the rise of Serah Williams from unheralded prospect to Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and All-B1G First Team member. Walk-on point guard Ronnie Porter has also developed into a valuable asset under Moseley’s tutelage. Players like Halle Douglass and Natalie Leuzinger, who weren’t even recruited by Moseley, opted to return for their extra season when they could’ve left the team.

• While Moseley hasn’t brought in a ton of transfers while at UW, she has brought in some impactful ones. Her first year saw her bring her starting point guard from BU, Katie Nelson, to Madison to orchestrate the offense. In her second season she brought in another transfer floor general, Avery LaBarbera of Holy Cross, who helped bridge the gap to Porter starting at PG.
  
  This past off-season she brought in post Carter McCray and shooting guard Tess Myers, both of whom have started all 20 games for the Badgers this season.

• Moseley has also been a fairly vocal mental health advocate during her time in Madison. See: this interview with Jim Polzin on Madison.com from two years ago where she notes “everyone should get therapy.” And then there is this pinned tweet from Ellew (who doesn’t appear to be active on the platform anymore, which is probably why this is still atop her profile) about mental health awareness.

  

  Here is a link to the original tweet from the Badgers women’s basketball account.

• Per her profile page on UWBadgers.com, Moseley has five pillars she wants to build a winning program on: “Upon her hiring as the head coach of the Badgers in 2021, one of her top priorities was establishing a new and lasting culture for the program. To do so, she established five pillars:
  

  • Winning Mindset

  • Integrity

  • Selflessness

  • Communication

  • Legacy

  
  These pillars guide the holistic programmatic approach which places value in education, personal growth, and basketball.”

UPDATE (Jan. 28, 7:21 p.m. CT)

• I had a time set up to speak with Tessa Towers on Monday afternoon but after this story started gaining some traction she decided she wanted to think some more before addressing the media again.

• Wisconsin finally released a statement on Monday night:
  
  “We are aware of comments shared online by former Badger student-athlete Tessa Towers and will be looking into this matter. We care deeply about the physical and mental well-being of all of the student-athletes on our teams, during and after their time on campus. While we would like to share additional context around Tessa’s comments, federal privacy laws prohibit us from publicly addressing the health-related claims made on Tessa’s social media account.”
  
  This is a fairly boilerplate statement and doesn’t shed any light on the topic from UW’s and Marisa Moseley’s side. The Badgers have a home game on Wednesday evening and it’ll be extremely enlightening to see if Moseley actually holds a press conference (her first of the season!) after the game.

This is a developing story and this post may be updated as more news comes out.