MARISA MOSELEY: Thank you so much for being here. Obviously you're only here for the University of Wisconsin, so thank you so much for that.
I'm Marisa Moseley. I'm going into my third year here with the Badgers. Really excited. We actually are celebrating 50 years of Wisconsin women's basketball this year, and very excited about this young team that I have.
We actually are returning Serah Williams, who I feel is one of the best post players in the country. I have Brooke Schramek, who -- her and Halle Douglass, who are both seniors for us, are really glue players, and Halle is coming off an ACL. We're excited to have her coming back.
Brooke has been just a phenomenal piece to the puzzle for us and really kind of her versatility is the epitome of what we look for in a Wisconsin Badger.
We have actually 10 underclassmen, so if you see more gray hairs on my head this year, it's because of them. You're welcome in advance.
But no, so excited about this young core that we have. Five true freshmen.
One of the things that I think was really important this summer is that we took a foreign tour to Italy, and it really bonded this group of young women together, and this is the most cohesive unit that I've had since I've been here, but we have an uphill battle to get back to the NCAA Tournament, but that is absolutely the goal, and we feel very confident that we will be able to accomplish that this year.
With that, I'll answer any questions.
Q. You mentioned the 50th anniversary of women's basketball for Wisconsin. Any special celebrations planned this season?
MARISA MOSELEY: Yeah, so obviously with any celebration you need a logo, so we have that for sure. But no, we're also going to have some honorary captains. We'll have a patch on our uniform. There will be a lot of information that we share throughout the season, both on socials and within the arena, to celebrate the women who have come through our program.
Last year we actually retired the jersey of Theresa Huff, who was a great at Wisconsin, and will be coming back this year with her family to some games.
I think it's just an overall kind of fantastic way to feature the women who came before us. We have pillars in our program. One of them is legacy, and that we have a responsibility to the women who came before us to leave the place better than we found it.
For us, that's really important that we do that, not only in word but in action.
Q. Obviously you had nine freshmen last year and quite a few again this year. What are some of the benefits of building with a young team when you're trying to rebuild one of the top teams in the Big Ten, and on the flipside, what are some of the difficulties year after year?
MARISA MOSELEY: Yeah, I think for sure the benefits are they don't know what they don't know, so you come in and you're extremely confident, you've been kind of the best where you're coming from in high school, and each year that I'm here you're getting another core group of kids who are bought into who you are and what you're trying to accomplish as a program.
Their youth can be a benefit because they're excited. They're bright-eyed and bushy tailed. They're excited to get after it.
At the same time, they have quite a bit to learn. They're going against grown women when they step on to the floor, especially once you get into Big Ten play.
Only time can give you experience, and we often tell our kids that time is undefeated, so they're going to keep getting older.
My goal is that each year not only do we add another core group of young players but that we're absolutely kind of making sure that that group that came before them and before them, we're retaining them.
I think for me my philosophy has been in recruiting that in order to sustain success and get to a certain level and then sustain it, we've got to make sure that we have younger players.
I haven't been as -- pretty well documented, haven't been as heavy in the portal, and for me, my mentality has been in order for us to really build a championship program, we've got to get four-year kids who are dedicated to Wisconsin and to what we're trying to build.
Q. On that note, which freshmen are you looking to contribute right away for the team?
MARISA MOSELEY: You know, it's funny, I just got this question at our Wisconsin media day the other day, and I told the young reporter who asked me that was a setup, that they were trying to come for me with those young players and their parents.
No, really I'm quite excited about all of them. During our foreign tour and the seven weeks that we had leading up to our 10-day trip, at every different point, one of them did something or a few somethings that really excited both myself and the coaching staff and even their teammates.
You know, I don't know, because again, the youth piece, every day is a little bit different. We're still kind of identifying who's going to really show up and be consistent. I think consistency is probably the hardest thing when you're young. Heck, it's hard when you're 41. I didn't get these thighs by myself, you know what I mean?
But yeah, I think it's important to keep putting them in positions to be successful, and hopefully by the time we get to Big Ten, we've identified that all of them can help in different ways to make us a really strong contender.
Q. Wisconsin has always been on the cutting edge of innovation, and the 50th year anniversary is right on the heels of Title IX. I'm curious to hear how you and your team are really going to lean into that and reach out to the Wisconsin community. What activity will you have that sort of bridge the two together?
MARISA MOSELEY: Yeah, I mean, for me, it's been kind of a central part of my philosophy since I got hired to make sure that we are bridging the gap between the university and the community.
I'm well aware kind of in any type of a thing that you're trying to sell, you first have to have people fall in love with the people before they can fall in love with the product. And so we have been in the community, both myself -- I'm sure people in our community are tired of seeing my hands, kissing hands, shaking babies -- just kidding.
I was just seeing if anyone was paying attention. Shaking hands, kissing babies, and making sure that we are really one with the community.
I think that there's a myriad of different events that not only are planned already, but will continue to take place because what I don't want to have happen, much like we did with the 50th anniversary of Title IX, it's an ongoing celebration.
It's not just one year. It's not just one game. This is something that we have to continue to recognize and hold up and make sure that people 50 years from now are still understanding the impact that those women, those trailblazers did for our game.
Q. Part of that 50-year history is Coach Qualls, who was the first coach of color to be hired by a school in the Big Ten. Have you ever talked to your kids about that, kind of the history that Wisconsin kind of made there?
MARISA MOSELEY: Yeah, I mean, for me, when we're talking in recruiting, when we're talking to our current team, as a Black female myself, I really try to lean into not only our history of the women who came before us, but I also think that it's important that they see representation continue to happen.
I give credit to the University of Wisconsin for hiring me but also for continuing to put women of color in positions to be successful because I think our kids, if you look at my team, we're pretty much the United Nations. I have the first Indian woman to ever play at a Power Five. I have kids who are Nigerian and kids who are Dominican and kids who are Mexican and kids who are run-of-the-mill white, because they're still there, too.
So I think it's really important -- and my mom is white just so no one is offended, my mom is a white woman from the Berkshires, very white, okay.
But no, I think that representation is so important, and you oftentimes -- as a society, if I could get on my soapbox here, I would love for us to get to a point where we're not having to talk about the first of anything, that it just becomes part of the fabric of who we are, that we're not the first women's basketball coach of color to be here, the first woman to do this or the first woman to do that.
For me, I think it's important that we just are, and we're absolutely celebrated for the people that we are instead of trying to have to always break through barriers and break through glass ceilings.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports