"We've got NCAA-caliber talent on this team,"
Sheffield stressed to his players. "Not only that,
we're not going to pigeonhole ourselves by
saying how far we can go. We've got talent
here – dream as big as you can."
"The older kids, I think, were excited," Sheffield
recalled. "They've believed and bought into everything we've said since day one."
One of those older kids, senior Annemarie Hickey,
remembered that first meeting with Sheffield and
"how he focused on us being big dreamers."
It definitely resonated with Hickey.
"I was like, 'You're right, we're all on board with
what you're saying. We're all in and we all want to
follow. We want to do big things, we want to change
this program."'
Later, she also remembered Sheffield bringing attention to the schedule.
"He asked us, 'Did you notice anything about
your schedule that is different this year from past
years?"' Hickey recounted. Well, did she? "Not re-
ally," she said.
Sheffield then pointed to the small print or the
equivalent thereof. The printed schedule included
dates for the first and second rounds of the NCAA
tournament.
"We kind of thought that was pretty cool," Hickey
said.
It allowed the players to visualize a destination
― one they will reach Friday night when they play
an NCAA tournament first-round match against Milwaukee.
Looking forward to performing in front of a home
crowd at the UW Field House, Hickey summed up
the journey by saying, "Hard work does pay off."
Sheffield has been down this path before. He
took the Wisconsin job on the heels of taking seven
straight teams to the NCAA tournament, five at Dayton and two at Albany.
Four made it to the second round.
"It never gets old," said Sheffield, who has now
had nine of his last 10 teams make the NCAA field
with the inclusion of the Badgers.
"I told the kids, 'I don't care if it's your first time
or your fifth time, whatever, it's always one of the
coolest things you'll ever experience as an athlete.
Embrace it, enjoy it."'
There was a kicker. "Do some damage," he emphasized.
In mid-September, the Badgers did just that after losing to Kansas in the opening match of the
InnTowner Invitational. They bounced back to win
the next two matches convincingly.
That included a 3-1 decision over their NCAA
first-round opponent, Milwaukee. After viewing the
video, Sheffield said, "We just looked like a very different team back then than we do now."
The differences? "We're a lot more confident," he
said, "a lot more powerful."
The body language, he noted, is so much different
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