In the offseason, the Wisconsin Badgers went through a bit of turmoil. The team’s star forward Serah Williams transferred after three seasons and now wears UConn blue and head coach Marisa Moseley left
her post under allegations and criticism. The program that did not win more than six games in a conference season for 15 years seemed destined to continue down its difficult road.
Once the 2025-26 Wisconsin Badgers started their season, the story shifted. In 10 Big Ten games, the Badgers have five wins and have a win against a ranked opponent under their belts. Now, on Thursday, Ohio State women’s basketball welcomes the surprise Wisconsin side to Central Ohio.
To get the pulse of the team, there is only one person to ask and Badgers Ball Knower Drew Hamm was kind enough to do just that. Learn about the former SEC coach leading the Badgers, the former MEAC Player of the Year leading the scoring and more in the visiting locker room.
Land-Grant Holy Land: The last week showed the different sides of the spectrum for both Ohio State and Wisconsin. The Badgers scrapped for four quarters and two overtime periods against Oregon to pull off the comeback and then traveled to Minnesota where the Golden Gophers made easy work of Wisconsin.
When the Badgers are fighting and winning games most do not expect, what are they doing well?
Badgers Ball Knower: You know, a lot of the normal things that you’d expect a team winning games to be doing well: they usually shoot well from three, grab offensive boards for second-chance points, and limit live ball turnovers. However, a thing I’ll point out that might get overlooked is free throw attempts.
Here are some stats for you, because they will paint the picture better than my ramblings. First up: the Badgers are one of the worst teams in the country at getting to the free throw line. Their FT Rate is 22.6% (328th best nationally) and you can see why when you compare it to their three-point attempt rate which is 42.3% (37th best).
Now, that being said, Wisconsin also happens to be an excellent free throw shooting team. They make 77.3% (26th best) of their free throws! That’s really good!
You mentioned their upset win over Oregon last week and, wouldn’t you know it, they attempted a season-high 27 free throws in that game, making 21. In fact, when Wisconsin attempts 12 or more free throws in a game this year they are 11-2 and that includes wins over the aforementioned Ducks and likely NCAA Tournament teams Michigan State and Green Bay.
On the other side of the coin, the Badgers have won all six of their games where opponents shot 13 or fewer freebies.
Somewhat strangely, the number of fouls Wisconsin commits doesn’t appear to have too large of an effect on the outcome. When racking up 20 or more fouls in a game, the Badgers are…5-5.
Looking at their opponents though, you’ll see that they’ve only committed 20 fouls once (a game UW won), but when an opponent commits 15 or more fouls the Badgers are 9-2.
LGHL: Now the other side of that unnecessarily long question: what is, or is not, happening when the Badgers are getting beat?
BBK: If I may be honest with you and your readers here, it’s kind of hard to pinpoint one thing that is causing Wisconsin to lose games. Sometimes a team has gotten hot from three, other times they’ve dominated in the paint, and then there are games where Wisconsin looks like they forgot how to shoot a basketball.
There are, however, two key areas where I think Ohio State can (and probably will) take advantage.
At the beginning of Big Ten play teams came out and pressed the Badgers regularly to good results but recently, outside of Oregon, that’s kind of stopped. The Buckeyes, I’d wager, will find success turning Wisconsin over with their frenetic pressing.
To be fair to Wisconsin, they have gotten BETTER at breaking the press throughout the year, but I would not call them “good” at it yet.
The other area is a bit broad, which should probably worry Wisconsin tbqh, and it’s “the defense.” Because I’m a normal person who has a family and friends and a healthy relationship with sports I have never done this, but someone who has watched every Wisconsin game this year while taking notes for thorough game recaps has sat on their couch typing things like “good Lord that’s bad defense” and “how are they still messing up switches at the end of January?!?!”
Ok, fine. It was me. I’m the one doing that BECAUSE IT IS DRIVING ME INSANE! Wisconsin has broken out a press of their own on occasion and it STINKS! They gave up an embarrassing amount of wide open jumpers to Minnesota on Sunday because their press was broken through like a piece of caution tape.
They also give up open lanes to the basket because their already prone to discombobulation defense is even further discombobulated when three players are running back after the ball is passed over their head.
In Big Ten play, according to Bart Torvik’s wonderful site, the Badgers rank 17th out of 18 in defensive efficiency and that, quite honestly, shocked me that someone was worse. UW is not a good defensive team and it boggles my mind because they have good individual defenders (Ronnie Porter, Kyrah Daniels, Gift Uchenna) and even the bad defenders give good effort.
I can very easily see Jaloni Cambridge having a field day on Thursday.
LGHL: When Serah Williams left for UConn and former head coach Marisa Mosely resigned from the program, it felt like a tough situation getting worse.
Now, first year Wisconsin head coach Robin Pingeton nearly has the Badgers over the 15-win mark for the first time since the 2010-11 season. What has the coach done to quickly turn things around, and how do players respond to her?
BBK: Not to get off track, and I know YOU know this Thomas, but if the readers of LGHL don’t know, Moseley “resigned” in the sense that if she didn’t she was going to be fired, most likely for cause, as there is an active court case against her for emotional and psychological abuse of her players.
Anyways, Wisconsin definitely came into this season as a big ol’ question mark. New coach, four new starters, and a host of other fresh faces off the bench. When the Badgers announced the hiring of Robin Pingeton I was extremely skeptical, and critical, of the move.
It didn’t seem like athletic director Chris McIntosh did a very thorough search, even going so far as to publicly claim that Pingeton, who had been on a steady downward trajectory at Mizzou, was the only person whom they interviewed, a claim I know for a fact to be untrue, but I digress.
I’ll spare you the rest of my takes and get back to an actual answer.
Pingeton has been a genuine surprise and delight, both on and off the court, since taking the job. I thought she “won” the opening press conference (which doesn’t always mean anything) and then I thought she did a really nice job in the transfer portal as well as bringing along her freshman point guard recruit from Mizzou.
At Big Ten Media Day she was open, honest, and welcoming of questions about herself and what she thought needed to be done with the program, both this year and years into the future.
She seems to have resonated with the players on a deeply personal level and I think that has extended onto the court. The fact that she was able to bring veteran point guard Ronnie Porter out of the transfer portal and back to Madison spoke volumes to me.
It’s rare a player withdraws from the portal at all, let alone to go back to their old school who has a new coach. I obviously hope this doesn’t happen, but the Badgers could lose out and this would still be a wildly successful first year for Pingeton.
LGHL: Defensively, TCU has accolades of its own with the second-best scoring defense in Big 12 conference play. What does TCU do so well to limit its opponents on defense?
BBK: Howell is what one might call “a bucket.” She leads the team in scoring at 13.9 ppg and is shooting 41.8% (29th best in the nation) from beyond the arc on 5.5 attempts per game. Her 39-point explosion against the Ducks was one of the most insane shooting displays I’ve ever seen in college basketball.
She was 10-of-21 from the field…and 10-of-16 from three (shattering the program record for made threes in one game) lmao. She also knocked down 9-of-11 free throws.
That game was her ninth straight scoring in double digits, but the very next game she got into foul trouble against Nebraska and scored, uh, zero points in 21 minutes. Against the Gophers on Sunday, she scored 16 points, but 13 of them came in the third quarter alone. So, while she is a certified “bucket,” she is also a streaky one.
There are a couple of areas on which Howell could improve too. She fouls too much, for starters, picking up four or more fouls in 12 of her 20 games this year and fouling out twice. While she is a capable defender she is, uh, not a good one.
She gets lost on screens, gets killed by back cuts, and just has low awareness on that side of the ball. For being a taller guard, she isn’t an asset on the boards and I wouldn’t consider her to have much in the way of playmaking chops, but she rarely turns it over.
Howell is a score-first, second, and third guard who can make your life miserable as a defender if she’s “feeling it,” but she can also disappear into the background a bit if she isn’t filling it up. I’m realizing this scouting report might sound harsh and I don’t mean it to be because I think Howell is a good player, and every team needs a guard who can go get a bucket, and a better person.
She gives thoughtful, honest, and interesting answers to questions post-game and has the respect of her teammates.
