MADISON — When the final buzzer sounded at the end of Wisconsin’s 65-60 loss to Saint Louis in the WNIT Great 8 on Monday, April 1, head coach Marisa Moseley hugged senior Natalie Leuzinger as they walked off the court.

Leuzinger, a 2020 Black Hawk graduate, began her Badger career as a preferred walk-on, earned a scholarship in the 2022-23 season and worked her way into a starting role this year.

“My time at Wisconsin has been magical,” Leuzinger said. “I had a job to pay for college and had to find my own time for workouts and stuff. It was all worth it in the end. I wasn’t expecting a scholarship in my four years here.”

But the Monroe-native proved that hard work truly does pay off. Despite leaving Black Hawk as the program’s leading scoring, Leuzinger announced on Sept. 14, 2019 she would join Wisconsin’s basketball team as a preferred walk-on. Then-head coach Johnathan Tsipis told Leuzinger that, if she worked hard, she’d earn a larger role.

In her first two years, Leuzinger played 87 minutes and scored five points with two rebounds. But she continued to work hard in practice, and Moseley, who took the reins in 2021, noticed.

In a team zoom call on Aug. 25, 2022, Moseley announced that Leuzinger had earned a scholarship for the upcoming season. That year, Leuzinger played in 25 games, more than doubling her minutes from freshman and sophomore year combined.

In her junior season, Leuzinger scored 32 points with 30 rebounds. She shot 47.6% from the field and 75% from the free-throw line.

Entering her senior season, Leuzinger was surprised with another announcement — she’d be a starter. In the 2023-24 season, Leuzinger started 29 of 32 games, averaging 7.7 ppg and 3 rpg. She scored a career-high 18 points against Purdue on Feb. 25, where she drained four 3-pointers. 

But Leuzinger really turned it on in the postseason. In four of her last seven games, she scored in double figures and averaged 11.6 ppg in that span.

“We got a taste of the postseason — that survive and advance feeling,” she said. “We got to play into April and feel the magic of March. I’m a senior, so my next game wasn’t guaranteed.”

With Wisconsin’s loss on Monday, Leuzinger concluded her four-year undergraduate career with the Badgers. Leuzinger has one year of eligibility remaining due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Badger Extra reported April 3 that she is undecided on using it. 

Although the loss was tough, Leuzinger is excited for her future.

“It’s a weird feeling because I’ve been playing basketball since I was 3 or 4,” Leuzinger said of basketball’s impact on her life. “I got accepted into graduate school at UW, and I’m at that age where I’m prepping for my career. I don’t want to stray too far from basketball — I might get into coaching.”