WBB: Wisconsin waxed by Washington as Badgers' losing streak reaches four games
Even more devastating is now the Huskies can lay claim to being the Real UW.
The second game of the Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team’s Pacific Northwester road trip, somehow, went even worse than the first one. After a promising first quarter, Wisconsin slowly (and then quickly) lost their grip on the game and fell to the Washington Huskies by 21 points.
This game was bad, man. I don’t know where Wisconsin’s next win comes this season either. Here is my full recap and analysis of this loss:
Final Score
Wisconsin Badgers (10-6 overall, 1-4 Big Ten): 58
Washington Huskies (12-4 overall, 3-1 Big Ten): 79
Four Factors
eFG%: 40.5
Turnover%: 24.2
Off. Rebound%: 30.6
FTA/FGA: 19.0
Key Stats
FG%: 36.2 (21-of-58)
Opp. FG%: 45.8 (33-of-72)
3P%: 27.8 (5-of-18)
Opp. 3P%: 40.0 (8-of-20)
FT%: 100.0 (11-of-11)
Opp. FT%: 100.0 (5-of-5)
Points Per Possession: 0.879
Opponent Points Per Possession: 1.215
Rebounds: 32 (11 offensive)
Opponent Rebounds: 43 (18 offensive)
Turnovers: 16
Forced Turnovers: 11
Team Leaders
Natalie Leuzinger: eight points (2-of-5 FG, 2-of-3 3P), three rebounds (one offensive), one steal, -12
Serah Williams: 19 points (7-of-20 FG), nine rebounds (four offensive), one assist, four blocks, one steal, -9
Ronnie Porter: eight points (4-of-11 FG, 0-of-2 3P), four rebounds, two assists, three steals, -19
Halle Douglass: 11 points (4-of-6 FG, 1-of-3 3P), six rebounds (two offensive), one assist, one steal, -21
Washington Team Leaders
Elle Ladine: 23 points (9-of-17 FG, 3-of-8 3P), two rebounds, three assists, one block, one steal, +28
Dalayah Daniels: 17 points (8-of-15 FG, 1-of-1 3P), 11 rebounds (four offensive), three blocks, three steals, +19
Sayvia Sellers: 16 points (6-of-13 FG, 3-of-5 3P), six rebounds (two offensive), nine assists, one steal, +17
Three-ish Thoughts
This game, despite my lengthy diatribe below, didn’t start off as one where I thought I’d be ranting in this post. The Badgers, unlike most recent games, jumped out to an early lead, battled back and forth with the Huskies for most of the first quarter, and then ended the period on a 7-0 run to give them a six-point lead, and momentum, heading into the second quarter.
Halle Douglass scored six points, Serah Williams swatted three shots, and the team grabbed six offensive rebounds, allowing them to score eight second chance points. It was exactly the kind of start you wanted to see after the blowout loss to Oregon over the weekend. The Badgers didn’t even shoot well (33.3%) from the field, but they held the Huskies to an even worse (26.3%) mark while outscoring them from the free throw line 4-0.
As you may have guessed, things deteriorated from there. Washington outscored Wisconsin 20-8 in the second quarter, ended the half on their own 7-0 run, and never relinquished the lead again. By the time a bloodied Elle Ladine hit her second three-pointer of the fourth quarter to push Washington’s lead to 21 points with 6:32 to go, the game was “analytically over” after being “visibly over” to anyone with eyes since halftime.Washington elected to single cover Serah Williams early in the game but decided to start double teaming her with around one minute left in the first quarter. It was interesting to see them open the game like that despite, presumably, seeing the success the Ducks had in swarming Williams immediately and forcing her to find an open teammate.
However, Williams was only 1-of-6 from the field in the first 10 minutes, so maybe Washington was on to something? She did not have an efficient shooting game either way, so ::shrugging emoji::Tess Myers went 0-of-4 from three (*see my notes at end of post on her shots) against Washington. Her shot looked different throughout the game, which is troubling, and also wouldn’t even look at the basket after she missed her first two. After a hot start to the season from deep, Myers is officially Struggling.
The senior transfer shot 22-of-51 (43.1%) in Wisconsin’s first eight games, making three or more triples in five contests. Over her last eight games, however, Myers is 8-of-40 (20%) with one game where she made a trio of treys and four games where she made zero.
The rest of her statistical profile pretty clearly shows that if she isn’t making threes…she isn’t doing anything else on the court. She was getting beat on backcuts by freshmen on defense! Until she figures out her shot…she can’t play regular minutes on this team because Serah Williams and Carter McCray can’t do anything down low if nobody has to worry about shooters making them pay for double teams.
What harm in there is giving Lily Krahn (who, to be fair, only played one fewer minute than Myers against Washington) or Tessa Grady (one minute player, one three-pointer made) more run? They don’t bring much to the table besides long-range shooting, but they are at least bring that.The Badgers got crushed on the offensive glass, allowing the Huskies to record o-boards on 46.2% of their missed shots. Brutal. Washington, coincidentally I’m sure, outscored Wisconsin 21-14 on second chance points and 44-20 on points in the paint for the game.
OTHER THOUGHTS: miscommunications on defense are killer and still a problem; Wisconsin’s transition defense was embarrassing in the second half; shoutout Tessa Grady for making a three in her one (1) minute of playing time; Serah Williams’ post defense remains elite; nice work on the glass by Halle Douglass; rough go for Jovana Spasovski (two points, four fouls, two turnovers, nine minutes)
Final Thought
To give you a little “behind the scenes” look from Badgers Ball Knower HQ: I usually have around 20 “notes” (in addition to whatever things I tweet out) that I jot down on this page while watching any given game. I then combine them afterwards into my various “thoughts” about the game. For this game I only had seven things written down, none after the third quarter, and the fifth one only said “just not good enough.”
What specific play caused me to write that? Well, who can say for sure but there were plenty of options! Outside of their win over Rutgers (which was only by two points and at home), Wisconsin has been outclassed by every other Big Ten opponent this season. They STILL, in Year 4 of Marisa Moseley’s tenure, don’t have enough P5 talent to fill out a rotation, let alone an entire roster.
Outside of Serah Williams, Carter McCray most of the time, and maybe Ronnie Porter or Natalie Leuzinger are there any players on this team that would ever see playing time at another Big Ten school? I don’t know, man…it doesn’t really seem like it! What’s funny (not “haha funny” more “laughing to keep from crying funny”) is that there MIGHT be P5 talent on the bench somewhere, but Marisa Moseley refuses to give any of them consistent/any playing time in actual games to find out!
I have tried to stay positive this season, I really have, but it’s looking bleak. The Big Ten added four new teams this year and two (UCLA, Southern Cal) are basically playing a different sport than Wisconsin and the other two (Oregon, Washington) just spent the last week running the Badgers off the court in back-to-back games.
A fun fact that you may not know: with the addition of those four west coast schools, the Big Ten has 18 members…and only 15 teams make the Big Ten Tournament in March. Which means ::does math on the back of a napkin:: three teams from the conference won’t even make the conference tournament moving forward! Something that Wisconsin used to make by default has now become another data point in showing how far they still have to go to even be a below average team in the Big Ten.
You look at Wisconsin’s upcoming schedule and I challenge you to find the next win:
vs. No. 8 Maryland
vs. No. 10 Ohio State
at No. 23 Nebraska
at Minnesota (a game I will hopefully be attending and Wisconsin has won here twice in a row, but the Gophers have already beaten UW sooooo)
vs. No. 24 Michigan
at Purdue (maybe this one????)
vs. No. 4 Southern Cal
vs. Illinois (you might look at the Illini record and think this is a possibility, but their metrics are MUCH better than a 1-3 B1G team and they’ve played the 2nd hardest B1G schedule so far)
at No. 21 Michigan State
I’m not going to list out their whole remaining schedule, but it’s worth noting that the Purdue game they “might” win is not until Feb. 2, which means the Badgers would go the entire month of January without winning a game. Not ideal!
Could Wisconsin catch some team sleeping and pull off an upset? Sure! Anything is possible, I suppose. But, like, the Sixers COULD make the Eastern Conference Finals this year too, however I would not bet my own American dollars on it happening.
Now, I am not calling for any coaching changes to be made (yet) as Wisconsin women’s basketball has markedly improved under Moseley but…how much of that is her coaching and how much of it is getting unheralded Serah Williams to Madison and having her become an All-B1G caliber player.
(Important to note that Williams coming to Wisconsin and becoming that player is partly, at minimum, attributable to Moseley’s coaching/recruiting ability.)
It does make you start to wonder if Williams is a “one-off” special player that elevated Wisconsin briefly and once she moves on it’ll be back to fighting to stay out of last place or if Moseley is building something sustainable in Madison, that doesn’t solely rely on one player, and can take the Badgers further up the Big Ten standings.
Their next chance to shut me up comes on Saturday against a currently undefeated Maryland team (they play Southern Cal in what should be an awesome game before travelling to Madison) that will have a large advantage in talent, coaching, rebounding, scoring…you know, everything. Here’s to hoping it’s at least competitive!
Next Game: Saturday, Jan. 11; vs. No. 8 Maryland Terrapins; 1:30 p.m. CT; BTN; Kohl Center
*my notes on Myers’ shots
- 1st quarter, 5:59: open three; left corner; nice push ahead pass from Ronnie Porter; solid form; missed long/right
- 1st quarter, 4:01: open three; left wing, at the break; kick out pass from Carter McCray; Elle Ladine closing out late again; missed way short/right…didn’t hit rim; left elbow sticking way out
- 2nd quarter, 3:58; open three; top of the key (right side); kick out pass from McCray; feet not square to the basket, both pointing inwards; missed short right; late closeout by 11 who had to cover Porter because Porter’s man doubled the post;
- 3rd quarter, 7:38; least open of the four attempts; right corner; kick out baseline pass from Porter driving towards basket; missed short right
Sad emoji.