Da Boss
 

In her five years at Wisconsin Jane Albright has changed all the rules.

Simply put,  a level of success that used to be only a hope is now unacceptable.  That is good.  With that has come an ever increasing level of demands on the coach.  While it makes sitting in the coach's seat more uncomfortable at times, that is also good.

Wisconsin has played women's basketball for 25 years.  Jane has been the coach for five of them.  She has five of the twelve winning seasons, three of the five 20 win seasons and three of the four NCAA bids.

When she was hired, Jane's personality made a favorable first impression.  She is just a nice, classy woman.  She's not a typical coach.  She rarely raises her voice to her players.  She praises much more than she criticizes.  She refuses to say negative things about her team or players publically--even when the negatives are true.

But that's Jane.

As the team struggled early this year,  her almost constant stream of upbeat optimism came under scrutiny.  People questioned if she was tough enough on her team.  That's a fair question.  The huge gap in performance at home and on the road is, in large part, due to a lack of mental toughness.  The team, at times, did not work as hard as they should have.

There are times when this team needed to have their collective behinds kicked.  That is not something that Jane does well.  It's who she is.

To be fair, there is another side to her personality that can be easy for people to overlook as they are beating their heads into the nearest wall.

Unquestionably, Jane's strength has been her recruiting.  She has taken players away from national powers Tennessee, UConn and Georgia in the past few years.  Prep all-Americans LaTonya Sims and Tamara Moore were key components in the team last year while Jessie Stomski was named Big 10 Freshman of the Year.  Her recruiting culminated this year with the signing of the consensus prep Player of the Year, Nina Smith of Iowa.

I doubt if many programs with the relatively modest success that Wisconsin has had have had the recruiting success that Albright has had in the past few years.  Every one of these kids has said that they want to play for Jane--for the person she is.

She has to figure out a way to impose more discipline on her team.  But she'll have to find a way within her personality to do it.

Personally, I'll take a coach who's too nice and can get some of the best players in the country here over a tougher coach who's recruits are more in line with the level of success the program has had in the past.  Of course it'll still be tempting to tear some more hair out the next time she says how proud she is of her team after a non-competitive loss.  But, if her teams play close to their potential, there shouldn't be many such opportunities.

Although recruiting has been her biggest success, it has also been the area of her biggest mistake.  Jane only recruited one point guard in her first four classes.  That guard has not lived up to expectations.  The result has been a game of musical point guards where we frequently end up playing the person who's hurting us the least.  The coaches have been close to signing a top point guard for the past couple of years.  But there hasn't been a plan B when they couldn't finish on those kids.

On the court, Albright has a definite style she prefers.  She is an aggressive coach who likes to take chances and doesn't mind losing a gamble periodically.  Her teams at Wisconsin have never been had the athleticism to play her preferred style.

As the season went on this year, she went more and more away from her preferred style.  The team played a variety of zone defenses and had a lot more success than they had had playing a man.

She went to more of a half-court offense, which maximized the skills of her players.  Her post players, LaTonya Sims and Jessie Stomski, were as proficient as any inside duo in the league.  The offense worked well in getting those two the shots they deserved.  However, her guards often seemed unsure of when to shoot.  The lack of an outside game allowed teams to collapse inside and hurt the team in several games down the stretch.

Under Jane, Badger teams have never been fundamentally sound rebounders.  Several players seemed to have deeply held philosophical objections to blocking out.  This got better as the season went on, but it needs to continue to improve.

This past season, she substituted liberally.  At times, her substitutions seemed to disrupt the flow of the game.  Again, as the season went on, this became much less of an issue.  Whether it was due to injuries or was a conscious decision on Jane's part, I don't know.  But it made the team run more smoothly.   Next season, the Badgers will have depth like they never have had before.  There will not be enough minutes to give every player time if they deserve it.  She's going to have to sit players simply because someone else is better.

To succeed, a collegiate coach needs to do three things.  They need to recruit players, create a system that gives the players their best chance to succeed and give the team the mental toughness to compete at the highest levels.  Jane has done an excellent job at the first, a good job at the second and struggled with the third.  She made strides in all three areas with the 98 team.  If she continues, Wisconsin should be a force in the near future.

Honors:  1996 Head Coach Gold Medal Jones Cup Team
               1995 WBCA District IV and Big Ten Coach of the Year
               1993 Mid-Continent Coach of the Year
               1991  Head Coach US Olympic Festival Gold Medal Team
               1990  WBCA District IV and North Star Conference Coach of the Year
               1989  North Star Conference Coach of the Year

Head Coaching Record:
 
 

1984-85	N Illinois	15-13	11-7
1985-86	N Illinois	8-19	6-12
1986-87	N Illinois	11-16
1987-88	N Illinois	14-14	6-4	4th N Star Conf
1988-89	N Illinois	23-7	12-2	2nd N Star Conf
1989-90	N Illinois	26-5	12-0	1st N Star Conf	NCAA 2nd Round
1990-91	N Illinois	25-10	12-2	2nd N Star Conf	7th WNIT
1991-92	N Illinois	18-14	8-4	2nd N Star Conf	NCAA 2nd Round
1992-93	N Illinois	24-6	15-1	1st Mid Continent Conf	NCAA 1st Round
1993-94	N Illinois	24-6	18-0	1st Mid Contintent Conf	NCAA 1st Round
1994-95	Wisconsin	20-9	11-5	3rd Big Ten Conf	NCAA 2nd Round
1995-96	Wisconsin	21-8	12-4	3rd Big Ten Conf	NCAA 2nd Round
1996-97	Wisconsin	16-11	8-8	T6th Big Ten Conf
1997-98	Wisconsin	21-10	9-7	6th Big Ten Conf	NCAA 1st Round
1998-99	Wisconsin	18-14	9-7	T4th Big Ten Conf	2nd WNIT
Total	15 years	284-162
Wisconsin	5 years	96-52	49-31

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