#119: Wisconsin Women’s Basketball Head Coach Marisa Moseley: “We expect to win in everything we do.”

Marisa Moseley’s journey through college basketball includes remarkable success as a player, assistant coach and head coach. She joined SGG to discuss leading the Badgers program. We discussed:

1. What is a “bell cow”… and who were some of Coach Moseley’s bell cows?

2. Having “unfettered” access to Coach Auriemma.

3. Jay Wright. “You watch his teams and they’re so fundamentally sound…I was very much an admirer of the way he coaches and teaches.”

4. John Thompson. “How he transcended the game, how he was unapologetically black, how he led…how he was authentically himself.”

5. How do you decipher what’s “for you” as a coach?

6. Determining “our style” as a program. “I knew what kind of person I was as a person, as a coach, as a leader, as a teacher… But we needed to develop a style as a program.”

7. How program “style” affects all parts of the program.

8. Indicators of the Badgers culture: a loud gym, energy, open communication, helping each other up, quick pace, urgency.

9. Popovich: When you join this team, you don’t change us, we change you.

10. Consistency and high expectations.

11. Coaches who talk too much at practice.

12. Learning to let players play through mistakes. “It’s a delicate dance.”

13. The program pillars: Winning mindset, Integrity, Selflessness, Communication, Legacy.

14. Connectedness around the pillars. “If you are really, really connected, you have some of your best teams.

15. A simple gratitude exercise with the team.

16. What team members owe each other.

17. Deepest aspirations as a coach: “helping people become the best version of themselves.”