The task staring the University of Wisconsin women's basketball team in the face is an imposing one.

Four wins in four days at the Big Ten tournament is likely the only way the Badgers will find themselves in the NCAA tournament when Selection Monday rolls around March 17.

Eighth-seeded UW begins what it can only hope is a long and arduous weekend Thursday when it faces ninth-seeded Illinois at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

No team that's played on the tournament's opening day has ever won the event and thereby secured the conference's automatic NCAA berth. Only two teams — seventh-seeded Ohio State in 1995 and seventh-seeded Penn State in 1998 — have ever advanced to the championship game.

"It's just something, mentally and physically, that we have to be ready for," Badgers senior guard and leading scorer Jolene Anderson said.

Should UW (16-12) beat Illinois (16-13), it would face top-seeded Ohio State Friday night. A win over the 22nd-ranked Buckeyes would improve the Badgers' resume, but they still likely would need to do more.

"I don't think anything is guaranteed unless they win it," Jerry Palm of collegerpi.com said in a phone interview.

Palm said three wins could put UW "in the discussion," but that any Big Ten team after Ohio State and second-seeded Iowa is "iffy."

ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme said even if the Badgers had knocked off the Hawkeyes in Sunday's regular-season finale, they still probably would have needed to win the conference tournament.

"The Badgers are certainly playing better now, but they did dig a pretty big hole," Creme said in an e-mail. "They need to get really hot."

To do that, UW also will be battling its history. The Badgers are 6-13 at the Big Ten tournament — the only teams with worse records at the event are Minnesota (5-13) and Northwestern (3-13) — and have never won the title. UW has only advanced to the semifinals once: as the sixth seed in 2002.

"If we want the NCAA tournament, we've got to win this," freshman forward Lin Zastrow said.

The Badgers do have several factors working for them that would suggest their task isn't impossible.

First and foremost, the league is more balanced this season — the five conference losses by co-champions Ohio State and Iowa were the most ever by a title winner. UW twice nearly beat the Buckeyes, losing by five on the road and three at home, and one of its losses to Iowa was in overtime.

The Badgers also enter the tournament having won five of their last six and eight of their last 11.

And UW's depth has been showing more and more as the season has worn on.

"It's a tough task, but it's not one we're afraid of," Badgers coach Lisa Stone said. "Look at our team right now. We've shown some resiliency, some toughness. And we're out there, we're swinging, we're doing everything we can. And I like that. Our team has not folded and they know that this is ... another season for us. The Big Ten tournament's anybody's, and we match up well with every team out there."