2022-23 Big Ten Women's Basketball Preview: Wisconsin

Can the progress continue after a promising start to Marisa Moseley's tenure?

After a week off, let’s get back into team previews.

These are still not going to be fully in order from my projected worst to best thanks to Rutgers, who now has even less players than it had before (currently at seven on the 2022-23 official roster). Until that team fills out the lineup, the preview will continue to be delayed.

Let’s instead look at a team that has stayed remarkably rock solid through the offseason.

Last preview:

2022-23 Big Ten Women's Basketball Preview: Minnesota

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Marisa Moseley took over as Wisconsin head coach last offseason, a hire that I was extremely high on coming in. Moseley has years of valuable assistant coach experience at UConn, and proved herself as a strong up-and-coming head coach at Boston.

This is what the program that Moseley was inheriting had done in the 10 seasons prior:

• 2011-12: 9-20

• 2012-13: 12-19

• 2013-14: 10-19

• 2014-15: 9-20

• 2015-16: 7-22

• 2016-17: 9-22

• 2017-18: 9-21

• 2018-19: 15-18

• 2019-20: 12-19

• 2020-21: 5-19

• Total: 97-199 | .327 win percentage | 10 consecutive losing seasons with 18+ losses

So, when Moseley took this team to an 8-21 record in 2021-22, that would appear to say that not much real growth was happening. Sure, the Badgers were a bad basketball team last year, one of the worst of any in a major conference, and the stats will say as such.

This team played extremely slow, yet still struggled keeping points out of the basket, something shown by the 101.8 points allowed per 100 possessions (15th-worst nationally). Because there was no real threat offensively, that was especially a problem, and the Badgers lost some games early in the year to teams like NJIT and Chicago State who have no business beating anybody in the Big Ten.

Of the many things that Wisconsin did poorly last year, rebounding stands out as a big one. Playing slow can lead to a low rebound total, but averaging sub-30 is a… problem. The 29.7 total rebounds per game was 353rd in the country — fourth-worst in all of Division I.

There is a but coming, though. For all of these clear shortcomings, Wisconsin still managed to pull out five conference victories in the back half of the year as the team started to carve out its identity. Is a 5-8 record to end the regular season good? Well no, but to start 3-8 against mostly lesser competition and finish the year improving on that win percentage showed real signs of growth.

Wisconsin was always, always going to play slow: Moseley’s Boston reams ranked 342nd, 350th and 329th in pace her last three seasons there. The problem with that is, obviously, scoring: Wisconsin scored more than 70 points just once all year in a 93-81 loss to Michigan. But the Badgers also held teams under 70 points 16 times and under 60 points on seven occasions.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Wisconsin did better when it held teams to less points. Here’s how stark it was: The Badgers were 8-4 when holding teams under 63 points and were 0-17 when teams scored 63+. Moseley will likely want an offense capable of having a magic number higher than 63 points, but the identity started to click as the season went on.

Wisconsin’s roster has stayed almost completely in tact, despite staying around the bottom of the Big Ten for another year. And not only has it stayed in tact, but Moseley has gone out and added a gigantic recruiting class as well.

Nelson is a big loss as a leader of this team who also finished fifth in the country with 38.3 minutes per game. But her best attribute was experience and leadership, something she will continue to give the Badgers as a graduate assistant.

Aside from that, Wisconsin did not lose any core players while bringing in some major talent. As it stands on July 11, the Badgers have 17 players on the roster with the addition of one transfer and seven freshmen. Moseley is quickly assembling a roster with the potential to compete more than Wisconsin has in a long, long time.

Before talking about the additions, there are some key players remaining from last season. Of the seven returnees, the trio of Julie Pospisilova, Sydney Hilliard and Brooke Schramek is huge:

• Pospisilova - 14.1 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 3.0 APG

• Hilliard - 12.8 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 1.9 SPG

• Schramek - 8.2 PPG, 4.1 RPG

These were Wisconsin’s top three scorers and both Pospisilova and Hilliard enter their senior seasons, while Schramek comes in as a junior. The experience from this group should be key in getting all these new faces acclimated.

OK, let’s talk about Avery LaBarbera. Wisconsin’s lone transfer in has been a star at Holy Cross since day one, starting 104 of her 106 games played. She has averaged at least 11 PPG in all four seasons, including a monster 2021-22 with 16.8 per game. But LaBarbera became an all-around star for the Crusaders last year, significantly increasing her rebounding (9.8 RPG up from 5.9 in 2020-21) and assists (4.1 APG up from 3.4) while still averaging nearly two steals a contest (1.8 SPG down from 2.6).

LaBarbera was one of the best players in the country last season, ranking 64th in Division I with 7.6 win shares, according to Her Hoop Stats. That includes 3.8 defensive win shares, 14th-best nationally. This is a total home run get to not only replace Nelson at guard, but to give Wisconsin a potential star to work around.

But LaBarbera will be in Madison for just one season (I think, unless I am missing a COVID eligibility rule), and Wisconsin is likely not getting fully out of the cellar this year. That means development of the underclassmen should remain a focus, and there sure are a lot of talented prospects to choose from in that category.

Lily Krahn and Savannah White are the highest-ranked recruits coming in, both landing in ESPN’s top 100. Krahn seems like she should immediately be able to contribute as a shooter, while White seems to have some untapped athletic ability who can play both inside and out.

Past them, both Tessa Towers and Serah Williams have the size and raw ability to potentially get some play time early to help Wisconsin’s rebounding troubles. On the other end of the spectrum, I am excited to see what Ronnie Porter to brings to the table. At 5-2, she certainly has some ground to make up for immediately, but her high school stats are impressive and it could lead to her being a better-than-anticipated prospect in this deep class.

Outlook

Wisconsin women’s basketball is in a much better place than it was just a few years ago. Moseley is building the team out her way, with loads of incoming talent including one of my favorite transfer gets in the conference.

To keep the majority of the roster together despite the bad record and despite there being 17 players here is even more impressive, and tells me that the players also believe in what is happening as the program tries to complete the turnaround.

How much will that turnaround progress in 2022-23? I think the goal should be snapping that below-.500 streak, something that feels legitimately attainable. Bringing LaBarbera in with the Pospisilova-Hilliard-Schramek trio could lead to a significantly better starting core on both ends of the floor, and there are multiple options for a freshmen breakout campaign to boost it even more.

More realistically than winning over half of its games, Wisconsin getting more than 12 wins for just the second time in 12 seasons needs to happen. A 13-win season with this group would show progress in the right direction, and that is really what Badgers fans should be rooting for. Staying at 12 wins or less isn’t a Doomsday scenario, but it would absolutely be a disappointment.

I’m not quite ready to call Wisconsin a breakout candidate this season, but the program is showing true, genuine promise. If this roster can fit the defense-first, slow-paced attack that Moseley wants, there’s enough of a mix of raw talent and proven experience to have actual hope in what this team is doing, both for the present and future.

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