There is often a fine line between elation and frustration in the world of sports.

This past week, the Wisconsin women's basketball team tripped from one side to the other.

"I'll be totally honest and say that I'm frustrated on a lot of levels right now,'' UW sophomore forward Jessie Stomski said after practice Thursday. "Not only with our record but with myself. I think a lot of people are feeling frustration right now.''

What a difference a week can make -- for all the wrong reasons.

A week ago today, the Badgers had a 4-1 record, a No. 25 national ranking and an abundance of confidence. At the time, the UW's only loss was a 63-61 setback at then-No. 8 Rutgers, while one of its wins came at then-No. 24 Nebraska.

Wisconsin then played tough against perennial national power Tennessee for much of last Sunday's showdown at the Kohl Center before a late 17-1 surge by the Lady Vols led to an 85-62 loss.

Wednesday night in Milwaukee, the Badgers played an emotionless, sluggish game before falling to a good Marquette team, 69-65.

Suddenly, the Badgers (4-3) are a frustrated group heading into Sunday's game against Indiana-Purdue of Indianapolis (3-4). Tipoff at the Kohl Center is 1:30 p.m.

"I hate losing,'' said UW freshman center Nina Smith. "I hate it more than anything. And that's hard for me. Right now, we've lost almost as many games as my high school lost in four whole years.

"And it's not acceptable to say, `Well, everybody loses to Tennessee.' Because we were in that game and we could have beat them.

"And a loss like we had (at Marquette) just totally eats away at you. We come from one night where we're playing with Tennessee, to losing against a team that doesn't even compare. So for me, this week has been very, very hard.''

While it's still early -- very early -- a once-promising 1999-2000 season is now full of question marks. After Sunday's game, the UW heads straight for the grueling Big Ten Conference schedule, which begins Dec. 30 vs. Purdue.

If there is any good news to come out of the past week, it is that the Badgers don't appear to be playing the blame game. Instead, they seem intent on avoiding a repeat of the roller coaster ride of a season that was 1998-99.

"I think right now everybody is pointing the finger at themselves, which is where it should be pointed,'' said Stomski.

While the Badgers have been hurt by turnovers all season (24.4 per game) and got beat badly on the boards in each of their two losses this week, UW coach Jane Albright appears to be most concerned with her team's inability to pound the ball into Stomski and Smith down low.

Stomski is averaging a team-leading 16.1 points per game, and is hitting 53.6 percent of her field goals. Smith is averaging 11.0 points per game, hitting 67.3 percent of her shots. But Wednesday at Marquette, that duo combined to take just 13 shots -- hitting eight -- en route to a combined 19 points.

"I don't think teams are coming into games with strategies to totally take us out of our post game, I think we're kind of doing that ourselves,'' Stomski said of the Badgers' reluctance to pound the ball inside.

"It's extremely frustrating for me because I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, like not trying to post up hard enough or not giving my guards a good enough look,'' Smith said of her limited touches. "So it's frustrating in that aspect. But it's also frustrating because I know that if I don't get the ball, I can't score down low.

"We need to have the ability to get it down low. We have to be able to make those passes and get them down there when it's time to. When our guards are having a night where they're hitting a bunch of 3's, we'll keep kicking it back out to them. But I think we need to go with what's working.''

And so far, Stomski and Smith are what's working. Combined, the duo is hitting 59.5 percent of their shots, while the rest of the team is shooting a combined 40.0 percent. Sophomore guard Tamara Moore (44.4 percent) is the only other UW starter shooting above 40 percent.

"We've never told our guards that they can't shoot,'' said Albright. "But basically what we've told them now is it's a numbers game, and aside from Tamara Moore, they need to know where the first option is.

"We're not telling them not to shoot, but we need to be more efficient and right now the numbers say we're not very efficient when we're shooting from the outside. We need to go inside.''

To do this, the UW guards will need to use better ball-movement or dribble-penetration to break down opposing defenses which will pack the paint. It would also help if someone could consistently score from the outside to loosen up the opposing defense.

In addition, the UW post players must be strong and determined inside to gain position on the block. Once they're there, they must give UW guards a big target to hit, and hold onto the ball once it comes inside.

"It's definitely not the sole problem of the guards,'' Stomski stressed.

Most importantly, according to Albright, is the Badgers must make a concerted effort to go inside -- even during the fastbreak.

"We have to be more disciplined,'' said the UW coach. "We need to get our post players more touches, especially in transition. Our guards are going to have to hit some open jumpers, and then we have to do a better job of reading zones when they pack it in.

"It's not going to be easy, but we have to get better at this.''