The turning point for the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh women’s basketball team came after the Feb. 5 loss against UW-Eau Claire.
Ahead by one with 75 seconds to play, UWO could muster only one more point during the final minute while the Blugolds rattled off six to claim the victory.
The loss was the sixth of the season for the Titans that came by six points or less and was the then ninth overall for UWO—the most since the 2012 season.
The team was hanging on to a slim hope of reaching the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championship.
“We had all these plays and all these games where it seemed like nothing was going right. We were not doing things like we wanted to. Other teams were making plays. Other times it felt like bad luck…it happened again at UW-Eau Claire,” said women’s basketball head coach Brad Fischer. “We melted down again.”
Back in Kolf Sports Center the day after the loss with the players ready for practice, Fischer brought the team into the locker room to talk.
“We sat in the room and everyone talked about where they’ve let the team down, starting with me,” Fischer said. “I had a long list of things that I didn’t do a good enough job of at that point of the year.”
Fischer and the coaching staff believed if the players could own their part in the uncharacteristic start to the season, they all could move on from it, so they left the room to allow the players to have time together.
For senior guard Olivia Campbell, that meeting was a crucial moment in the season.
“We rarely see ourselves in a vulnerable state like that,” Campbell said. “Being basketball players and being on a team, we always try and put on a tough and brave face and think being vulnerable with each other isn’t the best. In that meeting, we all said what we felt and it was really good for us.”
The players discovered that they were blaming themselves for things going wrong and all felt the burden of carrying the success of the program. They also realized that they each believed the team had the talent to be successful.
“We had the talent all along, but leaving that meeting we had a better understanding of our teammates, which helped our chemistry and our ability to play together,” Campbell said.
“This team carried a burden of the program, of having to win, having to keep the 20-win streak alive, get back to the conference championship and that is not fair for every team to carry the weight of every team before them,” Fischer said. “After the meeting everybody relaxed and took a breath.”
The Titans also started to click. They rattled off four wins over the final five games of the regular season and secured the No. 4 seed in the WIAC Championship.
Playing well was one thing, but to reach the NCAA Division III postseason tournament, they also needed to win, specifically three games in the WIAC Championship.
Fischer believed his team could do it.
“The only goal we ever talk about is to be the best team we can be when the conference tournament starts, and I felt at that point in the season we were playing as good of basketball as anybody in the league,” Fischer said.
For added motivation, Fischer not only brought the 2019 WIAC Championship trophy to a film session prior to the start of the 2020 tournament, but also the WIAC Championship “belt” to remind players that “they are still the champions until somebody beats them.”
Campbell was grateful for the added motivation.
“He reminded us that we weren’t the highest seed going into the tournament, we just had to be the best team come tournament time,” Campbell said.
And they were.
The Titans rattled off a 68-60 win over UW-Stout to open the conference championship and followed that up with a lopsided 81-65 victory over then fourth-ranked and top-seeded UW-Whitewater in semifinals to reach the championship game.
This time, with a two-point lead with two minutes left, the Titans didn’t let the game slip away. They won the WIAC Championship and earned their sixth berth into the NCAA Division III Championship in seven years with a 52-50 win over UW-Eau Claire.
“I saw a different team finish games than it had a month previous,” Fischer said. “We had to play our best in the biggest games and the games that could end our season, and we did.”
The inspired play and newly minted chemistry continued into the opening weekend of the NCAA Championship. UWO opened the tournament with an easy 61-40 win over Edgewood College. The Titans then used all the experiences that hadn’t gone their way earlier this season to come back from a fourth quarter 12-point deficit to defeat Bethany Lutheran College in the second round, 67-60.
“I told my team I was never worried we were going to lose that game just knowing what we went through this year and how tough and talented we were,” Campbell said.
The Titans now head to Holland, Michigan, to face Loras College in the Sweet 16 Friday, March 13. Loras is one of those six close losses handed to UWO earlier this year. It defeated the Titans 88-83 in overtime on Nov. 16.
UWO is a different team and excited for the rematch.
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