Stout!

Right. Sorry for the absence, but election duty and my sports writer friend called. I decline to talk about the Packers debacle and the football Badgers costly success until tomorrow. But I did attend the first home basketball game of the season, against division three UW-Stout, part of Bo's effort to play his way through the WIAC. Stout was interesting, because it had one player, half of a 7-foot twin tower combination, named Jacob Nanemacher, who is a legitimate Division I player. The rest of the team, yeah, not so much. Nanemacher didn't do much on offense, but he made our big men's post moves look bad. I don't remember Chappell taking a shot in the post, but Butch and the pre-frosh Gavinski did not get off a decent interior shot against him. So that seems to be an area where, alas, our big men have not made significant improvements.
But our man defense looked good, and our outside shooting looked excellent. Bohannon, Butch, and especially Chappell were hitting outside shots consistently. Bohannon looked great actually-- making smart cuts to the basket, giving good help on defense, running intelligent breaks. Hughes, while be didn't dunk, also looked solid. He's a committed on-ball defender, and very fast on the break. Gavinski should definitely redshirt. He didn't look so impressive.
Two players I expected to stand out-- Alando and Marcus Landry-- didn't do too much, though Alando hit a nice looking 3-pointer. Landry has busted out the Bo Outlaw style goggles, in an interesting fashion move.
The starting five was, as predicted, Butch, Chappell, Alando, Flowers and Kammron. And despite my lack of enthusiasm, that group played the best out of any combination on the floor. They opened up a big lead at the start, and controlled the game better than any other group of players. I guess Bo actually does know what he's doing.