It’s the renewal of an in-state series that hasn’t been played since 2017.
You know what we don’t usually get a lot of?
Big announcements of non-conference games for Marquette women’s basketball.
That changed up a little bit on Monday, as head coach Cara Consuegra and her team announced a home-and-home series with Wisconsin.
Marquette will host Wisconsin this season on November 8th at the Al McGuire Center, and then the Golden Eagles will head to Madison to face the Badgers at some point in the 2026-27 season.
This will be the first Marquette/Wisconsin game since the Golden Eagles picked up an 88-65 victory on December 4, 2017. At that point, the two teams had played every season since 2007-08 and nearly every year dating back to 1995. I’m not 100% sure what exactly broke off the series between the two in-state rivals, but I can guess at least a little bit. Marquette winning three straight to move their all-time record in the series to 12-13 might play a part, but Wisconsin finishing with less than 10 wins for the fourth straight season in 2017-18 might be a bigger portion of it. Remember: That was junior year for Allazia Blockton, Natisha Hiedeman, and company, and at the time, you can see how maaaaaaaaaybe Wisconsin head coach at the time (and future Megan Duffy assistant) Jonathan Tsipis wasn’t that interested in sticking his hand into a wasp’s nest again.
Wisconsin has changed coaches twice since this series was contested. Tsipis was let go after going 5-19 in 2020-21, and he was replaced by Marisa Moseley for the past four seasons. She never finished over .500 or with more than 15 wins, and with stories about player treatment buzzing in the air, she was asked to pack up her office this spring. When the Badgers come to Milwaukee in November, they will be coached by Robin Pingeton, who is coming off a 250-218 run in 15 years as Missouri head coach. FUN FACT: Wisconsin hired a power conference head coach coming off back-to-back losing seasons.
Ronnie Porter is Wisconsin’s top returning scorer from their 13-17 team last season after averaging 8.6 points in nearly 33 minutes a night. She was #3 overall, but UW’s top two scorers departed via the transfer portal after the coaching change. There’s a downstream impact on Marquette here, as Serah Williams went from scoring 19.2 points per game for Wisconsin to UConn, so that’s fun-adjacent at best.
As for Marquette, they return literally everyone from Cara Consuegra’s first season in charge that ended in the second round of the WBIT. I’m still not sure precisely how Abbey Cracknell and Lee Volker have eligibility, but I’ve also stopped asking questions.
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