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On Thursday, the Big Ten Conference announced the women’s basketball conference matchups for all 14 teams in the Big Ten. Per the conference, “each school will play an 18-game conference schedule, facing five schools both home and away and playing the eight remaining schools once. Of the single-play opponents, schools will play four at home and four on the road.”
The Big Ten Tournament will be held March 2-6 in Indianapolis at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The Maryland Terrapins have won the last two tournaments.
Our 2021-22 Big Ten opponents are set! pic.twitter.com/izPgwHWkkZ
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerWBB) June 17, 2021
If you can’t read the embedded tweet, here is how Wisconsin’s schedule shakes out in Marisa Moseley’s first season at the helm in Madison.
Home & Away – Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Purdue
Home Only – Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, Penn State
Away Only – Maryland, Northwestern, Ohio State, Rutgers
As mentioned above, the Terps have had a stranglehold on the conference of late and only have to play them once, even on the road, is a good break for Wisconsin. As far as some fun home games to attend, seeing Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (National Co-Freshman of the Year) or Michigan’s Naz Hillmon (Big Ten Player of the Year) would certainly be worth your time.
On the recruiting front, the Badgers have offered Aaliyah Crump (Minnetonka, Minn.) out of Hopkins High School and the Minnesota Metro Stars AAU program. She is in the class of 2025 (!!!) and will be a freshman at Hopkins in the fall.
Thank you to Coach Moseley, Coach Merritt and the staff for running a great camp. I’m very thankful to receive a D1 offer from the University of Wisconsin. #OnWisconsin @marisamoseley @smerritt18 @BadgerWBB ❤️ pic.twitter.com/unpQI1FQyp
— Aaliyah Crump (@crump_aaliyah) June 17, 2021
As far as I can tell from her Hudl profile, Crump played both JV and Varsity (I think she was just on the varsity roster and didn’t play) as an eighth grader and, quite frankly, didn’t look out of place despite playing against players many years older than her. She is listed as 6-foot tall and has a sweet shooting stroke to go along with her ability to get to the rim.
Scrolling through her Twitter account, I didn’t find any other tweets announcing offers from other schools but seeing as she hasn’t even entered high school yet her recruiting could blow up and sooner rather than later. Hopkins is one of the best teams in the state and has highly rated prospects like forward Maya Nnaji, a top-10 player in the country for the class of 2022, and point guard Amaya Battle, the No. 37 player in the country, so there will definitely be coaches aware of Crump.