RESETTING EXPECTATIONS IN MADISON?

It's been nearly twenty years of futility since the end of Badgerball for the Wisconsin women's basketball team.  Two coaches have come and gone since we last paid them much attention.  The latest hope is former Connecticut assistant Marisa Moseley, who was head coach at Boston University.  "Moseley was 45-29 at Boston University after working as an assistant on UConn coach Geno Auriemma’s staff during five of the Huskies’ national championship seasons (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016)."  It's possible that developing Connecticut style excellence on the court is what's on peoples' minds in Madison (if the value proposition is the academics, dear reader, there are reasons I always mention Connecticut and Northern Illinois together) although when athletics departments name women's coaches, there is the possibility, as there is with government service, of people are being hired for a blend of capability and box-checking.  We'll see.

The latest attempt to restore the women's program, though, is being lost amid the curious regression to the mean that the men's team displayed, from outright winning the conference in 2020 but having that tournament scrubbed, to failing to defeat any of the teams ahead of them in conference although qualifying for the tournament, inducing Roy Williams to retire, then losing in the second round to ultimate champion Baylor, and acquitting themselves a little better in that game than previously unbeaten Gonzaga did in the title game is small consolation. "Finishing anywhere from eighth to 12th in the conference is likely, but the difference in those two numbers means the difference in a tournament appearance."

That's before news broke of a confrontation between current head coach Greg Gard, and the players who were either disgruntled, or regressed to the mean.  That article, which goes in and out of the paywall, suggests that the current coach, previously the associate head coach, had trouble making the transition from being good cop to Bo Ryan's bad cop to being the head coach and having ultimate responsibility for setting things right when they had to be set right.

Guard Trevor Anderson, who announced after the end of last season he was transferring to Valparaiso for his final season, complained that Gard had a habit of assigning blame to players after losses.

“You always ask, ‘Why is everybody getting so defensive? Why can’t anybody take it?’ ” he said. “I think that’s what you do to us, you’re always pointing the finger.

“I think the defense mechanism is everybody’s pointing the finger at somebody else — I’m pointing at Brad, Brad’s pointing at Aleem — I think that comes down to a lot of, like, what you do to us.”

There's an art to giving, and to receiving, feedback, and the norms governing what is right and proper are emergent.  "Like it or not, the reality of the situation is that today’s player is more sensitive, more focused on personal brand, and more likely to articulate frustrations. If Gard can’t adapt, this is going to effect [c.q.] recruiting. The players in the meeting did not paint a picture of a place that I would want to live and play for four years if I were an 17-year old kid, or for that matter, that 17-year old kid’s parents."  Is another regime change in order?