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| Anna Mutch feels the moment after her 31 points, 12 rebounds, and pure force of will helped move UW-Stout into the Sweet 16. Photo by Wade Gardner, d3photography.com |
By Riley Zayas
for D3sports.com
MENOMONIE, Wisconsin — When Hannah Iverson took over at UW-Stout in 2018, she sat down and asked herself three questions about the program she aimed to lead: What did she want it to look like? What did she want it to feel like? What did she want it to sound like?
If a picture were to have been painted from her vision then, it would have shared plenty of similarities to the scene, and the winning team, inside Johnson Fieldhouse on Saturday night.
With a crowd of 1,246 on hand for a second-round tournament tilt between UW-Stout and Whitman, the Blue Devils battled with their trademark toughness. They out-rebounded Whitman by seven, scored five more second-chance points, and blocked two more shots. An obvious height disparity — fairly common at this point for a Midwest team with three starters at 5-8 or shorter and none above 5-11 — was made up for by their physicality.
There was a certain edge to the Blue Devils, one that erased Whitman’s 10-point lead with 1:49 until halftime, and pushed Stout to a 75-69 win, punching a ticket to the third round for the second year in a row. The Blue Devils will face WIAC rival UW-Whitewater at Scranton on Friday.
“That’s what our culture fosters,” Iverson said Tuesday. “Someone wants to compete? That’s great. Someone shows up and wants to give you their best? That’s awesome. Someone shows up and wants to punch you in the face? That’s what we’re here for. We’re not afraid of competition. We’re not backing down from anybody.”
Perhaps that mentality is best summarized by a five-word phrase reiterated often by Iverson, particularly when it’s brought up that her starting five is made up of four guards and a 5-11 forward. And even more so when facing a team such as Whitman, whose lineup included two senior forwards standing above 6-0, including 2024 D3hoops.com Preseason All-American Korin Baker.
“I probably say it once a shoot around: ‘We're undersized: Get over it,’” Iverson said with a laugh. “That's our message. It’s not changing. We're just figuring out how to work with what we got. And again, it goes back to what we built this program on: confidence and competitiveness, and the willingness to do whatever it takes to accomplish what we want to do.”
Winning evaded Stout for quite some time prior to Iverson’s arrival in Menomonie. While not for a lack of talent or effort, the Blue Devils’ last win in the WIAC Tournament had come in 2010. Their last NCAA Tournament appearance, 2007. And the 2017-18 campaign saw an 0-14 record in WIAC play. A singular Sweet 16 appearance seemed to be a distant dream, much less two in two years.
But as a first-time head coach, Iverson had a vision and stuck to it as Stout began its climb towards the top. The program, whose campus sits in a town of just over 16,000 in western Wisconsin, always had a sort of blue-collar toughness to it. But as time went on, the competitive edge only became a bigger piece of the Blue Devils’ identity, something the coaching staff intentionally recruited to. Iverson inherited a team that bought in early, going from seven wins in 2017-18 to 18 wins in 2018-19, giving early confirmation that the characteristics she had emphasized from the moment of arrival in Menomonie were not just talk but directly produced results. Perhaps more importantly, it was also around that time that the cornerstones for Stout’s most successful run in program history — the run the Blue Devils are currently in the midst of — began being laid. And it started on the recruiting trail.
Iverson vividly remembers the first time she saw Anna Mutch play. A summer league game was taking place inside a mostly empty gym near where Mutch grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of Apple Valley, Minnesota, and one of Iverson’s assistants had already seen the hard-nosed, 5-8 guard in person, coming away impressed. It wasn’t long before Iverson came to the same conclusion.
“The first play I walked in on, Anna got a steal, threw it out ahead, and her teammate got an “And One” layup on the complete other side of the floor,” Iverson recalls. “Remember, this is a high school summer league game. Not a sound in the gym, about six people in the stands. And Anna Mutch screamed at the top of her lungs, ran the entire length of the floor, she’s chest-bumping this kid, hyping everyone, and getting the rest of her team to rally around her and this kid. Right there, I’m like, ‘Yep, love her. Where do I sign?’”
Fast forward to the present day, and her energy hasn’t faded in the slightest. One of three fifth-year seniors on the roster, Mutch took charge on Saturday’s win, going for a career-high 31 points in a game that saw her repeatedly come through with much-needed scores. Less than three minutes in, her physicality was put on display, as she blocked out a Whitman defender just below the basket before leaping up for an offensive rebound putback. With 1:23 left in the fourth and the score knotted at 67 apiece, Mutch received an inbounds pass and went right at the rim, drawing a foul on a hard baseline drive as her layup fell through. The roar inside Johnson Fieldhouse was deafening. The fans felt the momentum building again, and they saw the hard-nosed will to win in the eyes of the five wearing “STOUT” across their chests.
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| Hannah Iverson, right, and the Stout bench react in a key moment in the fourth quarter of Saturday's second-round win vs. Whitma. Photo by Wade Gardner, d3photography.com |
“I think that helps us so much, just seeing the energy she carries,” Amanda Giesen, a fellow fifth-year who had 18 points against Whitman. “It’s hard not to follow that. It's so contagious, and it makes us want to do that same thing.”
Mutch started all nine games on Stout’s 2-7 team during the abbreviated 2020-21 campaign. She still hasn’t forgotten the kind of wake-up call that was, getting a clear idea of the WIAC’s competitiveness for the first time. But it also built a stronger resolve in Mutch, who has evolved into one of Stout’s most vocal contributors.
“That energy is just coming from heart,” Mutch said. “I love competing down to my soul. It really is what gets me up in the morning. I think in those moments, instead of projecting inwards, basketball is the most fun when it’s being celebrated. I take that responsibility really highly, to be one of those people for my team. It’s just me being willing to do whatever it takes to win.”
There are times when that means scoring 31 points. Other times, it means dishing out five assists or grabbing four rebounds, as she did in last Friday’s 30-point win over Ripon. And that’s fine with Mutch; it’s the same mentality throughout the roster. She isn’t the only one known for taking charge. There’s Raegan Sorensen, who is 72 points away from becoming Stout’s all-time leading scorer. Giesen’s turnaround jumper is known for sparking scoring runs. Wagner, who transferred in last season, ranks third in the nation in 3-point percentage (48.9%). Balance is what wins Stout games, particularly on the offensive end, and every night brings about the possibility of someone different stepping into the spotlight.
“We have to recruit kids who do it the way you want it to be done,” Iverson said. “The way you think it’s right. And one of the ways my staff and I believe you do it right is by playing really hard for someone more than yourself. That’s what this group does. All these kids, they don’t care who does it, it just matters that it gets done.”
Stout is the only WIAC team averaging above 70 points per game (72.3), shoots a league-best 46.8 percent from the field, and averages 14.5 assists per game, 1.9 more than UW-Whitewater, who is No. 2 in the WIAC in that category. The team-first emphasis has played into that, and it only makes Stout a tougher matchup for opposing defense. Even if they lack some height compared to other teams in the national conversation.
“It’s funny how our size is talked about as a disadvantage, when in reality, we have five threats on the floor at all times,” said Mutch, who averages 13.4 points and a team-high 2.5 assists per game. “If you want to double our All-American [Sorensen], we’re going to kick it out to Lexi Wagner shooting 48 percent from 3. If you want to chase her off the line, you’re going to give a double-gap to Amanda Giesen, who is 5-11 going against 6-2 people, who has an advantage moving laterally. There are threats everywhere.”
The significance of back-to-back Sweet 16 runs is not lost on the Blue Devils. As the success has accumulated, the crowds have only increased, and the program’s support across Western Wisconsin strengthened.
They rank fourth this season in D-III women’s basketball in attendance, and Iverson says that community support goes deeper than just a crowd showing up to see a winning program in action. It’s the style the Blue Devils play with — unwilling to give up an inch and do whatever it takes to fight through contact on a layup at the rim — and the way in which her squad plays together.
“That's why we're fun to get behind, because it's kids doing it the right way,” Iverson said. “It's not just one kid going and putting on a show. It's a collective effort of 16 individuals, surrounded by a big outer circle that are supporting us and yelling for us.
“These guys just leave it all on the floor. I think it just makes people see their heart, their intensity, and want to be a fan. It’s a special thing that’s not everywhere. And it’s something we’re going to hold onto as long as we can.”
The seniors, of which there are seven, feel the same. They were at this same point last year, coming off two tournament wins on the opening weekend and into the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006. That magical trip to Whitewater, preceded by six straight wins to close the regular season and three more in the WIAC tournament just to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament, saw Stout push defending national champion Transylvania to the wire. They led 29-23 at the half before struggling through the third quarter and falling, 63-58.
There are no plans of repeating history twice for this group, and even more so against an opponent — UW-Whitewater — that knocked them out of this year’s conference tournament just over two weeks ago. Yet, for as much as a storyline of revenge or familiarity will be talked about with the rematch, the focus inside the locker room is on the 16 standing there, just as it was in the second half of Saturday’s second round win.
“We might be overlooked, which can add some fuel to our fire,” Mutch said. “But our main goals and motivators are extremely intrinsic. We really want to win the national championship, and showing up with that edge every day in practice helps fulfill that in game time. That’s our winning mentality.”
Iverson shares a similar sentiment. That mentality has been cultivated over a span of several years and even specifically in the case of this season, a number of months. From the early losses taken to Gustavus Adolphus and Concordia-Moorhead with Sorensen and Wagner injured, to the narrow wins over Berry and Bethel at the end of non-conference play, to a 6-1 start to WIAC play, Stout has grown through the hills and valleys of a memorable season.
“Maybe the more important thing is the mental edge,” Iverson said. “How do you show up in an NCAA environment and not be rattled? How do you keep your head when there’s 2,000 fans screaming? How do you read things telling us that we’re not the ones that are supposed to go, and say, ‘That’s fine’ and still go do your job? Those are habits we foster in our culture. I wish everybody could see how much of it is these girls. They’re hungry. They’re competitive. And they’re ready to go.”