Tuesday afternoon when the Badgers (3-15 Big Ten, 7-22 overall) fell 76-72 to the Northwestern Wildcats, the Wisconsin career for five seniors officially came to a close. It didn’t take much longer for head coach Bobbie Kelsey’s time in Madison to end as well, as the UW Athletic Department announced Friday Kelsey had been officially let go.
Kelsey had a strong pedigree as a player, as well as an assistant coach, helping her alma mater, Stanford, reach four consecutive Finals Fours before coming to UW.
But her numerous accolades as both a player and coach were not enough for her to retain her job after five disappointing seasons in UW.
“Bobbie has a lot of good qualities. Her assistants have a lot of good qualities. They put a lot of hard work in,” Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez said in the release.
“But in the end you have to have some results, and we just didn’t have the results and the progress we needed. We felt at that point we needed a change and shake things up and try to get the program back on track.”
The Badgers were 47-100 (.320 winning percentage) under Kelsey and never finished higher than ninth in conference play, which occurred in Kelsey’s first season. The lack of improvement was one of the reasons for Kelsey’s dismissal.
“I never say you have to win ‘X’ amount of games or you have to win a championship,” Alvarez said. “But I have to see improvement and I have to feel that progress is going the right way.”
Kelsey graciously thanked both Alvarez and senior women’s administrator Terry Gawlik for the opportunity.
“I’ve enjoyed my time at Wisconsin and I won’t regret anything going forward because they did not have to give me an opportunity and they did. I will always be appreciative of that,” Kelsey said in the release.
“Obviously it didn’t work out the way we planned. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. But I felt like we did all the things that were asked of us to try and make the program better. It just fell short, and it does sometimes, but that doesn't negate anything I feel about Coach Alvarez, Terry and all the other coaches. They were very supportive.”
Senior point guard Dakota Whyte openly acknowledged that conversations about Kelsey’s job status were picking up in the community as the season winded down, and while Kelsey didn’t get the wins needed to retain her job, her impact did not go unnoticed with her players.
“Me and her go way back. I feel like she has made me a different person today in terms of her toughness and her challenging me every single day. It’s kinda weird because you wouldn’t think that’s a typical coach player relationship because we battle. We battle hard,” Whyte recently told The Daily Cardinal.
“Whatever happens with her I wish her all the best. And I hope she learns from everything that she’s learned here at a different program or if she’s still here, applies it here.”
Junior transfer forward Avyanna Young echoed Whyte’s sentiments last week as well.
“This season she gave me an extra opportunity that a lot of people probably wouldn’t have coming from the Horizon League. She had faith in me that I could come to the Big Ten, a tough league, and help, and I think I helped some,” Young told The Daily Cardinal. “She believed that I could do this. She went out on a limb for me and I will always thank her for that.”
Young later added, “I’d go to battle for her any day the same way I know she would go to battle any day for us.”
But that battle is fought not by the players but instead is handled by Alvarez and the athletics department.
“It’s never easy to let someone go because it’s not one person. “Alvarez said. “It’s a family. It’s a staff. It’s change.
“But in this profession everybody understands the profession. It’s the way it works. You hear it time after time after time: You have to win. You have to put people in the seats or you can’t survive. Yes, there’s a personal side where you feel terrible for the people, but you have a responsibility to get it right.”
Alvarez and his staff plan on immediately conducting a national search to find Kelsey’s successor.
