During the long course of a women’s college basketball season, unless you were part of the 2016 UConn team or the 1988 Tennessee squad, there is bound to be some adversity for even the best programs.
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is going through its bump in the road, coming off two straight Horizon League losses after starting the conference season a sparkling 15-0.
The defeats to Cleveland State and Northern Kentucky came on the heels of two narrow wins, which included a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from senior guard Kamy Peppler in a 61-58 victory at Robert Morris on Feb. 5 after UWGB rallied from a 19-2 deficit to start the second quarter.
A game-winning 3 from senior forward-center Jenna Guyer in the final seconds at Youngstown State followed two days later.
Perhaps most concerning about the two-game losing streak isn’t so much the defeats but how the losses are happening.
The Phoenix prides itself on defense. It has been that way during every coaching era and has continued during Kayla Karius’ first two seasons.
Allowing 83 points to Cleveland State and 77 to Northern Kentucky is sure to raise some eyebrows.
The Green Bay Way? That certainly isn’t it.
It’s not just the most points allowed in league games by the Phoenix this season but the most since permitting 83 at Oakland and 86 at Cleveland State in 2024.
It’s also the first time UWGB has dropped consecutive league games since back-to-back losses to UW-Milwaukee in December 2020 during the COVID-19 season in which fans were not allowed.
UWGB women ready for stretch run
The Phoenix returned to practice Feb. 17 for the first time since its 18-point loss to NKU on Feb. 14 at the Kress Center, which was the worst home conference showing in the regular season since a 28-point defeat to Northern Illinois on March 4, 1990, when the teams were members of t he North Star Conference.
Karius liked what she saw from her group, which gets a bit of a break before hosting UWM on Feb. 21.
They came prepared to work.
“We had a great practice and a great film session,” she said. “I think we are all on the same page that we didn’t give the level of effort that was required. I think when you go into a lot of technicalities or this action or that screen, there are always going to be those things.
“But when you look at the overall theme, we are not guarding one-on-one the way that we should be. We are not coming up with defensive rebounds and 50-50 balls. We needed to get back today to competing and being back to who we really are. At the core of that is the way we compete and how hard we do.”
The brief losing streak has come after UWGB clinched the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament with the win at YSU.
Is it possible the players let their feet off the gas a little bit, even though some of them have said in the past they don’t pay much attention, if any, to the standings?
“I think it’s human nature,” Karius said. “We never spoke about it. Of course, we continue to approach every game the same way. I don’t think that was necessarily coming from us, but there is a lot of outside noise whether you are winning or losing. There is always going to be outside noise.
“At some point, you have to learn how to block it out. It’s so hard for these kids when they have everything at their fingertips and social media and everything that is around them. Parents and family and friends.”
But?
“I don’t believe that we were relaxed and kept our foot off the gas,” Karius said. “Had we showed up and been down 19-2 again after the first quarter, I may have looked into that a little bit more. But we started out the game [against NKU] strong. I thought we were focused and ready. I do think we ran into adversity. We hit some bad foul trouble. We missed layups while they made really tough shots. The combination of that led them to a 17-3 run in the second quarter. … We didn’t like our approach to the adversity that happened in the game. I don’t believe it had anything to do with what this conference race looks like.”
Karius knows there are far too many goals her players still want to accomplish this season.
None have shown signs of being complacent.
UWGB not only likely has to win the Horizon tournament to qualify for the NCAA Tournament – the Phoenix’s 2009-10 team that Karius was a star on is the only one in league history to earn an at-large bid – but it also is competing for as high a seed as possible should it make the Big Dance.
One thing UWGB has seen a lot of this season, and certainly will come tournament time, is a physical style of basketball.
Everyone seems to be bringing it.
“It feels like it’s more than in the past,” Karius said. “It feels like they are allowed to get away with more, whether that’s just my opinion or that’s what we are seeing. We are a post-up team. Guards post up. Posts post up. We naturally feed the ball in the post so much more than everybody else, so we watch the physicality. It’s really such a big factor for the way we play.
“What we are seeing this year is two-hand shoves are allowed. You can cut through the lane and body check people and there are no fouls called. … We are not guarding with enough physicality. We are almost the opposite. We are almost allowing people to get right into the paint and then trying to wall up at the rim when we really should have been physical out there on the perimeter like everybody else is against us. Our coaches have seen this big discrepancy in how physical teams are guarding us versus how we are guarding them. We have a huge room to improve there.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: UWGB women remain confident despite rare back-to-back league losses
Reporting by Scott Venci, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
