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 When the Big Ten Conference restructured its women's soccer schedule last offseason, adding a week of regular-season play to replace the conference tournament, one of the 11 teams had to play its 10 league matches in a shorter timeframe than the others.
University of Wisconsin coach Paula Wilkins accepted the tough schedule.
"I basically took it because I figured, we're young, we're not going to the NCAAs, we're not going to be sitting around waiting to get in to the NCAAs, we're still probably not exactly there yet," Wilkins said Thursday.
"Now, I'm kind of kicking myself. We got third even though we had the most difficult schedule in the Big Ten. I wonder what these kids could do if we could have lengthened our season."
The Badgers (9-5-5) hope they'll find out Monday night that their season will be lengthened in the form of their first NCAA tournament berth since 2005.
UW was 31st in the NCAA Ratings Percentage Index released last week, before the Badgers beat Northwestern 2-1 in their regular-season finale Monday night. The RPI is one of the "primary criteria" the NCAA selection committee will use to determine the 30 at-large berths in the 64-team tournament.
Other tools the committee can use are won-lost record, strength of schedule, record against common opponents, head-to-head competition, results against team already selected for the tournament and late-season performance, defined as the last eight games of the regular season.
"The positive, optimistic side of me says yes," Wilkins said when asked if her team would make it. "I'd say we're 75 percent in, 25 percent out. ... If you look at the computer details and everything like that, you kind of say, 'OK, we're OK.' But there's the human factor, and you don't know how the games this weekend in conference (tournaments) are going to play out."
Making matters a little more frustrating is that while many teams had the chance to improve their records and RPI with games this weekend — most in conference tournaments — UW players and coaches were limited to going through training sessions and watching scoreboards.
"It's excting and a little nerve-wracking," said Wilkins, who was going to have the Badgers play a scrimmage today to simulate a game — if they make the tournament their opener would be Nov. 13, meaning an 11-day layoff between matches. "It's out of our control now. ... We're just waiting for Christmas right now."
There's plenty on the good side of the Badgers' resume.
Their strength of schedule is a plus, bolstered by five matches against teams in the top 15 of the RPI — according to one unofficial site, UW's strength of schedule ranked 25th through Friday. Their "worst" loss was a 1-0 setback to Tennessee (No. 57), and UW tied games against Penn State (No. 10) and Ohio State (No. 12). And the Badgers are 4-1-3 in their past eight matches.
But on the bad side of the ledger, there isn't a "signature" win. In fact, all nine of UW's victories came against teams that are below them in the RPI, including 1-0 wins over North Dakota State (No. 177), Northern Illinois (No. 246) and UW-Green Bay (No. 257).
"I think the biggest thing is that we don't have a big win," acknowledged Wilkins, whose team didn't win any of its games by more than one goal. "We have no bad losses, maybe Tennessee because they've fallen below there. But we have no bad losses, and we actually did well on the road (4-2-1)."
The Badgers were unbeaten in their five Big Ten road matches (4-0-1) after closing their non-conference schedule with a brutal 6-0 loss at top-ranked Stanford on Sept. 20.
"Our goals this year were to be in the top half of the Big Ten and then get an NCAA berth. With the schedule that we had, we were a little bit leery of that ... especially when we came back from Stanford," Wilkins said. "I thought we were just done. Losing 6-0, being embarrassed out there, it was not very good. And I thought going into the Big Ten, 'Oh, this is going to be a nightmare.' But they've kind of used it as a badge of honor like, 'We played Stanford, it's not going to get any worse.' Actually, it's had the right result for us."
The only question left is whether all of that will result in Wisconsin's name being called when the brackets are unveiled Monday night on ESPNews.
Wilkins is used to watching the NCAA tournament announcement show after her distinguished career at Penn State — the Nittany Lions made the tourney all six years she was their head coach and six of the seven years she served as an assistant. Their main concern was where they were seeded, not if they would be in the field.
"Now it's a little bit different feeling, so it's going to be interesting and kind of exciting to do it from this side," Wilkins said. "It's part of building a program.
"They've kind of gotten addicted to winning now — I think that's what they lacked before. So I kind of want to get in there just to get them a little more addicted."
What about the Big Ten tournament?
This year marked the first time in the 16 years the Big Ten has sponsored women's soccer that there wasn't a conference tournament.
The event was taken off the schedule because the conference coaches coaches couldn't come to a consensus on a format, Wilkins said, and its future appears to be up in the air.
The tournament has been an eight-team event, with quarterfinal matches on Thursday, the semifinals on Friday and the championship on Sunday, and starting in 1997 the tournament champion earned an automatic NCAA tournament berth. With 11 teams in the Big Ten since 1999, only the top eight teams (or the top seven and the host team) qualified for the event.
However, Wilkins said that several coaches believe that playing three games in four days leaves their teams worn out, battered and bruised heading into the NCAA tournament, therefore minimizing their chances on the national stage.
"They thought that put the teams that we want to compete nationally at a disadvantage," Wilkins said. "I'm not really in that mind-set. I was at Penn State for 13 years, and probably the flagship team, and I never complained about that once."
Wilkins said that several proposals were made to change the tournament, including changing it to a six-team event or putting all 11 teams in, but none got support from all corners. One potential solution would be to start the tourney on Wednesday to give teams more recovery time, but the Big Ten won't allow that because it doesn't want players missing three days of classes.
"Since the coaches were all over the map, the Big Ten just said 'none,' " she said.
For Wilkins, it's a case of the conference needing to establish its goals.
"What is the conference trying to do? Are we trying to win a national championship, or are we trying to get as many teams as possible in the tournament?" Wilkins said. "And again, everyone was so split in what they wanted to do. ... It's unfortunate, but I think it will sort itself out after this year. I'd like to see the tournament come back."
There is a little benefit for there not being a Big Ten tourney for Wilkins and the Badgers this year.
"I don't know that anyone in the Big Ten can jump over us, RPI-wise, so it's actually probably good that we don't have a tournament right now," she said. "But that's just one year. I don't want to look at it that way."
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