Wisconsin women's basketball: previewing the bigs

The Badgers suffered from a height deficiency last season. That shouldn't be a problem this year.

Here at Badgers Ball Knower headquarters it is time to fully enter season preview, uh, season. With two teams to focus on, it’s best we get started a little bit earlier than you might think so that we can discuss everything we want to.

We’ll be diving into each position group (I’ve divided them into bigs, wings, and guards based on a complicated proprietary formula) for both the men’s and women’s teams. We’ll be looking at the conference overall as well as making some predictions (closer to the season) that you aren’t allowed to bring up at the end of the season unless I was right.

First up: the bigs for the women’s hoops team.

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I don’t know how to put this politely so allow me to be impolite: Wisconsin’s rebounding last season stunk! During the 2021-2022 season, 356 teams competed in NCAA Division 1 women’s college basketball. Do you know where the Badgers ranked in terms of total rebounding?

No. 353!!!

That’s awful! The three teams that averaged fewer rebounds per game than UW were: UIC, Valpo, and UT-Martin. That trio combined for 25 wins on the year which is not great. Wisconsin, mind you, only had eight wins last year so it’s not like they were shocked to be among this group.

The team’s rebounding rate of 45.2% was technically better (No. 331 in the country) but was still unacceptable. Also filed under Technically Good News is the fact that the Badgers were a “better” offensive rebounding team (26.7%, No. 294 nationally) than you might have expected based on the other stats in this post.

Now, rebounding is not just a tall person’s job. Guards and wings are supposed to rebound as well, but being tall certainly helps grab boards and last season the Badgers just didn’t have many tall players. Sara Stapleton was the only player over 6-foot-1 that played last season and she only averaged 13.1 minutes per game.

The Badgers, by necessity, played small last season and it hurt their rebounding numbers for sure. “I love to play inside/outside,” Moseley said when asked about her system during an interview I conducted with her while working for Bucky’s 5th Quarter back in March, “but we didn’t have a great inside presence so that’s why we shot more threes.”

It was also one of the reasons that the Badgers switched to a zone at the end of the season, so they could keep 6-foot-0 Brooke Schramek, the de facto big defender, out of foul trouble in the post. This strategy worked, btw, as Wisconsin had a decent foul rate of 19.8% (No. 154 in the nation).

Another area where the Badgers struggled was in rim protection. Their block rate of 6.7% was No. 238 in the country and, on the other end of the court, they had their own shots blocked at a 10.8% clip which was the 335th worst rate in the NCAA.

So…is there any good news here? Yes, I think so!

This season the Badgers welcome three new bigs to the roster which will allow Moseley to deploy more traditional five-women lineups if she desires. Here are the four players I’d list as “bigs” on the roster.

Bigs

Sara Stapleton, senior, 6-foot-3, Blaine, Minn.
Tessa Towers, freshman, 6-foot-5, Batavia, Ill.
Sacia Vanderpool, RS freshman, 6-foot-4, Byron, Minn.
Serah Williams, freshman, 6-foot-4, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Vanderpool, who is a fourth generation Badger, redshirted last season and averaged 9.4 boards and 3.0 blocks per game as a senior. Williams corralled a ridiculous 14 rebounds and added 2.9 blocks per game as a senior as one of the top players in all of Canada (she moved to Toronto in 2018). Towers, the tallest player on the team, averaged 8.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game in her senior season in Illinois, while being named second team all-state.

While high school stats don’t immediately translate to college, especially at the Big Ten level, there is a lot for Moseley to work with here. There are certainly minutes available in the frontcourt for any of the newcomers to lay claim to and I think playing two bigs at the same time could be an interesting option. Williams, in particular, has potential as more of a stretch big that can thrive in a more modern style of offense.

While the post position could not, statistically, be much worse for Wisconsin this year I also think that it will actively be better. To compete for a spot that isn’t in the bottom-two of the Big Ten, the young bigs will have to get up to speed quickly though.