When you think of Horizon League women’s basketball, the first team to pop into your head is probably the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

The Phoenix have been the dominating force for the last decade, winning eight of the last 10 Horizon League Tournaments. The only other team to have captured a bid to the NCAA Tournament in those 10 years is you guessed it, UW-Milwaukee.

This was supposed to be the year of the Panthers. UWM was picked to finish first in conference, and, if that is not enough, the Panthers also had the preseason player of the year, Traci Edwards.

However, two earlier season conference losses at the hands of Wright St. and UIC found the Panthers in a must-win when the Phoenix came to town. But as history would continue to repeat itself, the Phoenix had the Panthers’ number once again and were able to leave Klotsche with a 79-64 victory.

So the question was brought up. Why can’t the Panthers seem to beat the Phoenix? Since the Panthers and Phoenix joined the conference in 1994-‘95 season, the Phoenix have a significant edge over the Panthers, leading the series 43-17.

So after taking a look back into the history books I came up with four reasons as to why the Phoenix just continue to dominate.

1. Defense- The old saying goes “defense wins championships” and the Phoenix have proven it to a ‘T.’ Green Bay has had the top defense 12 of the last 13 years. They have been beating teams by an average of 12 points per game over the last nine years. And we all know what good defense leads to…

2. Scoring- Besides just playing the best defense in the league, the Phoenix have also had the best offense. GB has led the league in field-goal percentage nine years straight as well as led the league in team scoring the last six straight years. When you can get your players to give 100 percent on both ends of the floor, like the Phoenix have been doing for the better part of a decade, it’s no wonder they have been to the NCAA tournament eight times.

3. Recruiting- When it comes to recruiting Wisconsin’s top players, GB doesn’t fall too far behind Madison, and I would dare to say they have the edge over Marquette considering they hold a 27-6 edge in the series vs. the Golden Eagles. The Phoenix have had six Player of the Year selections to go along nicely with their four Newcomer of the Year selections.

4. Coaching- No disrespect to our own Sandy Botham, but when it comes to coaching, former Green Bay coach (1998-07) now Michigan coach, Kevin Borseth just had Sandy’s number. Hell, he had every coach in the conference’s number for that matter. He posted an astonishing 125-13 record against league foes. That is a .906 winning percentage and he did that in just nine years, averaging out to just over 14 wins a year. Pretty impressive considering they only play 16 games a season. And during 1997-2000 seasons they only played 14 games.

By no means am I saying that the season is over for the Panthers (11-9, 7-3), as they sit just two games back of the Phoenix (16-4, 8-1). But it is going to take a little luck for them to fulfill the preseason pick of them winning conference.

They will travel to Green Bay on March 3 to try to get some redemption, but it will take another conference loss by the Phoenix for the Panthers to get a share of the regular season crown.

If the Panthers are unable to get it done during the regular season, nothing washes away a poor regular season like a conference tournament championship, something the Panthers were able to accomplish just two seasons ago.

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