Lisa Stone will return for a sixth season as University of Wisconsin women's basketball coach, but it appears her margin for error has never been smaller.

"I'm going to support Lisa, but our results have got to get better," UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said Tuesday.

"I'm going to try and help her be successful. She's got my support, but you've got to get it done. This is a tough racket."

The Badgers are coming off a season in which they were 16-14 overall and 9-9 in the Big Ten Conference. Much more was expected from them given the talent on hand — including guard Jolene Anderson, the program's all-time leading scorer — and the belief the program had turned the corner.

UW had losing records overall (33-51) and in the Big Ten (14-34) in its first three seasons under Stone, an Oregon High School product who had great coaching success at UW-Eau Claire and Drake prior to taking over for Jane Albright, who resigned.

When the Badgers improved to 23-13 overall in 2006-07 — which included a runner-up finish in the Women's National Invitational Tournament — it appeared Stone had her team on the cusp of bigger and better things.

But preseason talk that UW would challenge for its first Big Ten title this season fizzled in the face of a 1-6 start and wildly inconsistent play.

Alvarez compared Stone's situation to that of his long-time friend, Dan McCarney, when McCarney was the football coach at Iowa State.

McCarney was 13-42 from 1995 to '99, but the former UW defensive coordinator under Alvarez proceeded to lead the Cyclones to bowl games in five of the next six years.

"He earned the sixth year because of what he did, being a team player and all of that," Alvarez said. "Sometimes you stick with those people a little longer."

Stone is like that, according to Alvarez.

"She does everything right," he said. "She's a great person. She's very good in the community. People like that — the way I look at it — earn an opportunity to be successful."

Stone's contract, which paid her a base salary of $274,205 this season, runs through 2011. Alvarez was asked if the prospects of buying out more than $800,000 in salary factored into his decision to back Stone.

"You take a look at everything," he said.

"The easy thing (is) just to whack somebody, fire somebody. I know there are times that you have to do that, and I have done that. But there are reasons why you don't.

"Can she get it done? I think she can and I'm going to give her that opportunity."