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The women’s basketball program at Wisconsin has gone through eight head coaches who’ve struggled to have much success in Madison. That includes current skipper Marisa Moseley, who has now ended up on the receiving end of some worrying accusations levied by a former Badger.
In 2021, Marisa Moseley was hired to replace Jonathan Tsipis as the head coach of the women’s basketball team at Wisconsin after her predecessor posted a 50-99 record during his five seasons at the helm.
That change didn’t exactly spark a drastic turnaround for a team that hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2010, as Moseley has failed to post a winning record in any of her first three seasons and faces an uphill battle in her quest to get over the hump this year when you consider the Badgers are currently sitting at 10-10 and are 1-8 in conference play (with all of the losses in that second category coming during an ongoing eight-game losing streak).
Moseley has dealt with a fair amount of turnover during her tenure; all three of her assistant coaches left for another gig after the season ended in 2023, and a number of players have transferred to other programs.
That second development isn’t necessarily too notable in this day and age, but the nature of those departures has been cast in a new light based on what former Wisconsin center Tessa Towers had to say bout what allegedly transpired during her time with the team.
According to Dillon Graff of Badger Notes, Towers (who transferred to Ball State ahead of the current season after leaving Wisconsin) called out Moseley on TikTok in now-deleted posts where she said her former coach subjected her to several ultimatums while she was dealing with mental health issues, including forcing her to seek inpatient treatment and provide access to notes from her therapy sessions while being told she’d be kicked off the team if she didn’t comply or admitted to having suicidal thoughts during them.
Towers took a leave of absence during her freshman season in 2022 and strongly implied Moseley’s treatment exacerbated the struggles she grappled with while playing for the Badgers; as Graff notes, she added she was “excluded from team trips, forced to undergo testing for autism against her will, and being subjected to a three-strikes policy that was unique to her.”
Several players who played at Wisconsin before transferring echoed Towers’ sentiments, with current UIC guard Krystyna Ellew commenting “I’ve been through that too.” Tessa Grady—who is currently enrolled at Wisconsin but hasn’t played since the start of January—seemingly acknowledged she’ll be transferring once the season ends, saying “Now that sounds familiar” while using “s—t hole” to describe the team environment.
Neither Moseley nor the university have responded to the allegations as of this writing, but it’s certainly not a great look.