Bo Ryan is Hilarious

So after the game, I was looking on the UW athletics website for news on whether Paul Chryst is going to abandon Wisconsin to be Quarterbacks Coach for the friggin' Cowboys (basically a lateral move--Barry, just throw a bunch of money at him already!), and found post-game press conference transcripts from Bo. He is really, really funny.
For example, in regard to a question about Bohannon's three 3's-- "He hit them. But he can. That’s what that scholarship is for, and playing defense and making good passes. "
Then in response to a question about Stiemsma's nice passes-- "He can pass. He works at it. His high school team ran the swing a little bit. It’s part of what they do. He just needs to keep gaining that confidence and get comfortable. He only made the one tough decision in the first half where he did the ball fake. He thought Marcus (Landry) had the guy beat in behind the defense and the Penn State guy kind of set him up. See there are nice people in Randolph that wouldn’t do that to him but what he doesn’t realize is that there are guys out there trying to sucker him into making that pass. Can you imagine that?"
So according to Bo, the Stiemer was tricked into a throwing a bad pass in the first half because the people in Randolph, WI are too nice. Also, Bohannon has a scholarship because he can shoot three pointers. Awesome. You can find that here.

Anyway, besides the lack of dunks, the Badgers' 75-49 victory over Penn State was resounding. What was neat is that a lot of different guys contributed. Bohannon finally showed his shooting touch--hitting three straight 3's, two of which were heavily contested. I think he played the most of any game so far this season. The Stiemer had five assists, and also played a bunch more than usual. Kam hit four 3's, and A-Tuck responded from an ice cold first half to end up with 22 points. UW hit an outstanding 12 of 23 three-pointers, to end up with an equally outlandish 1.19 points per possession. You aren't going to lose many, if any, games when you score that efficiently.

Much of the efficient offense was due to impressive passing, particularly in the second half. The Badgers seem to have gotten quite comfortable moving the ball against zone defenses, particularly one as small in stature as Penn State's. Several second half possessions were positively Gene Hackman in Hoosiers-esque--everyone touched the ball and the result was an easy lay-up. For example, there was a beautiful possession at around the 10:45 mark in the second half. Including the inbounds, the Badgers made 10 passes and every player touched the ball. The last two were interior bounce passes, one from Krabbenhoft to Stiemsma, who was in position to take a contested short-range shot but instead made the second, to Alando for a wide-open lay-up. It was Harlem Globetrotters-like. Beautiful.

With this victory, as the papers have noted, Wisconsin has won more games in a single season than any team ever before, a remarkable accomplishment, but as Bo and several team members noted, not something you want to be praising yourself for just yet. This is a subject for discussion that should be saved until the end of the season. Now, the Badgers are facing there most difficult stretch of the year-- a very quick turnaround until at Sparty on Tuesday, then five days off, and at the Ohio A&M College next Sunday, then Sparty at home the weekend after. Making matters worse, Sparty came off their most dominant home game of the season--absolutely pounding Iowa in East Lansing yesterday. I guess you hope they're overconfident? Since they're moderately on the bubble, they'll definitely be fired up to play. Lets hope Bo's solid record against Izzo and his own personal 'Zone' stays intact. It's too early for me to be talking about the OSU game. Plus, thinking about it makes me irritated because I'll be visiting the in-laws next weekend, and thus, if I'm even able to watch the game, will have to constrain myself because of the company. Curses. Anyhow, look for a special President's Day entry come the 'morrow. Rocking...