When the eighth-seeded Wisconsin women's basketball team takes on ninth-seeded Arizona State Saturday in Nashville, Tenn., recent history may favor the Sun Devils.
In the Pac-10 Tournament championship game, Arizona State capped one of its most successful regular seasons by defeating then No. 2 Stanford, 70-63.
After losing nine of its last 10 regular season games, Wisconsin fell to No. 24 Penn State in the third round of the Big Ten Tournament after victories over Northwestern and No. 18 Minnesota, sliding from a fifth-ranked 16-1 record in mid-January.
However, while Arizona State's Pac-10 conference produced only two playoff teams, Wisconsin is one of six Big Ten teams to appear in the NCAA tournament.
\I'm extremely happy that someone will recognize now the strength of our conference, that an 8-8 record is not that bad in a conference that gets six teams in,"" Albright said.
Riding the optimism of its NCAA playoff berth, the Badgers hope to regain some of their midseason momentum.
In a press conference after the announcement of their NCAA invitation, Head Coach Jane Albright said the team's recent losses only reflect the quality of the teams it has played this season.
""With the exception of one loss we had this year, none of our losses were even considered bad losses when you're playing the caliber teams we were,"" she said.
UW senior guard Tamara Moore said she is not planning for any games beyond Saturday's matchup.
""I just think now we're in the tournament, we're going to work hard to get that win in the first round. We're not going to look past Arizona State at all,"" Moore said. ""This is a chance for us to prove what type of team this is. I don't think we're going there anxious or urgent or anything like that. We're just going there knowing everyone is 0-0.""
Coming off of a 1,000 career-points season, all-Pac-10 honoree senior guard Amanda Levens helped ASU overcome second-half deficits in each of its post-season tournament victories, scoring 16 of 19 points against Oregon and 17 of 22 points against Stanford after halftime.
Albright, who said she knew Levens during her high school years at the Northern Illinois basketball camps, credited the Arizona State Pac-10 championship victory to the senior's final season.
""She used to come to our camps at Northern Illinois, and in fact we recruited her at Northern Illinois. She went to Old Dominion and then transferred to Arizona State,"" Albright said. ""She's a great player. She had one of those going-off games against Stanford, which, in my opinion, is why they won that game.""
Should the Badgers win over the Sun Devils, they will face the winner of No. 4 Vanderbilt, who is top seeded in their bracket, versus 16th-seeded Oakland. However, players say they are only looking to one game at a time.
""All in all, I think we'll be ready for Saturday,"" Albright said. ""We'll go down there very humble, and see if we can make a little bit of noise.\
