Men's Basketball Scrimmage Recap

Unsurprisingly, the most thorough and interesting recap of the University of Wisconsin Men's Basketball team's Red-White scrimmage comes not from the Madison or the Milwaukee papers, but from Phil over at Hoops Marinara. Based on that and other various reports, I can say with confidence that former Madison Memorial Spartan Keaton Nankivil went to town offensively (Hooray, another Badger that can dunk easily!), frosh Jordan Taylor looked impressive, the big four (Trevon Hughes, Joe Krabbenhoft, Marcuc Landry, and Jason Bohannon) all played solid games, Tim Jarmusz tussled with Morris Cain but was otherwise quiet, and Jon Leuer had a tough night, getting repeatedly rejected by (gulp) J.P. Gavinski. Sounds like an entertaining experience. And it looks like Nankivil will be the team's fifth starter, with Leuer, Taylor, Jarmusz, and maybe Gavinski and Kevin Gullickson coming off the bench.

We'll get a better idea this Saturday night, when the Badgers play host to Augusta College in their first exhibition game. That game will apparently be streamed on the Big Ten Network's website, for all the exceedingly devoted Badger basketball fans out there. Tip off is at 7 pm.

Who Will Be the Fifth?

With the University of Wisconsin football team in a frightening downslide and the Packers on vacation, it's time to discuss the happy arrival of Wisconsin men's basketball season. Bo Ryan's team already had its "Night of the Grateful Red" last week, officially marking the start of practice (although I'm totally unclear about how all of the quasi-practices, like supervised running of the hill in Elver Park aren't practice, but whatever). The first exhibition game is eight days away, on November 1, against Augustana. Plus, there's an intra-squad scrimmage on Wednesday night, which I'm disappointed that I'll have to miss.

And that's because the team is in an interesting spot. Although it only has three starters returning, that number is misleading. Really, counting Jason Bohannon, who played more than 20 minutes a game last year, the team has four starters back. The backcourt, with Trevon Hughes and Bohannon is set. As are the two forward slots, with seniors Marcus Landry and Joe Krabbenhoft at the 4 and the 3, respectively. These four guys look to receive the lion's share of the team's minutes, with Landry, Hughes and Bohannon likely to be the team's top three scorers, and Krabbenhoft the main candidate for leading rebounder. The team's fortunes this season will largely rest in the hands of this upperclassmen quartet, and if they can continue to grow and improve, as we've seen them do over the past two to three seasons, Wisconsin should have another excellent, exciting year.

But that's predictable. What's interesting to think about this year is all of the question marks behind these guys. We have three true sophomores, redshirt soph J.P. Gavinski, a walk-on senior in Kevin Gullickson, and then five true freshmen on the team. Several of those ten guys will get legit playing time, but the majority will ride the pine, and have to make their marks in practice. My guess for members of the rotation are Gullickson, frosh point guard Jordan Taylor, and the sophomores Keaton Nankivil, Jon Leuer and Tim Jarmusz.

But I still find myself wondering: of this bunch, who is the fifth guy is going to be? I don't mean the fifth starter. As Bo often says, that's kind of irrelevant. What matters is who's on the floor at crunch time-- who do you put out there in the closing seconds when the game is on the line? Some argue that it will be Leuer, based on his Dirk Nowitzki like potential and somewhat bulked up physique. Others claim it will be Nankivil, as the team will need a muscular rebounding interior presence, and the former Madison Memorial Spartan is perhaps the Badgers' best combination of brawn and athleticism.

But I'm going with the unsexy Tim Jarmusz. The steady swingman from Oshkosh played more as last season progressed, even with an outstanding three guard rotation of Hughes, Bohannon and Michael Flowers ahead of him. Plus, he's smart with the ball, plays solid defense, has a deft shooting touch, and can guard nearly every position on the court except the 5 spot. I really see Tim getting a bunch of minutes, especially late in games when big guys may have fouled out and things tend to become more guard-oriented. I'm not saying Jarmusz will start-- I bet Bo goes with a traditional big like Nankivil to fill out the starting lineup. But I pick Tim as my fifth finisher, along with the upperclassmen quartet. He's a gamer. What say ye?

Positives and Negatives

Well, the Big Ten announced their annual awards this afternoon and alas, Michael Flowers did not win defensive player of the year. That went to Purdoodoo's Chris Kramer, who did lead the league in steals. Still, I'd take Flowers over Kramer any day of the week. And I have no doubt that Flowers could equal Kramer's steal total if the Badgers played Purdue's style of pressure defense. Kramer is, undoubtedly, an excellent player, but it's a shame. The coaches bought into numbers over substance, in my opinion.

The positives were that Michael was named to the all-defensive team, for the second straight season. Joining him on there was Joe Krabbenhoft, someone who doesn't get enough credit for being an awfully good defender. Michael, deservedly so, was also named second-team all conference by the media and third-team by the coaches. (I guess the coaches were just generally a little more down on Michael than the press, unfortunately.) Similarly, Marcus Landry was second team by the coaches and third team by the media. Congratulations, Marcus, and I hope you'll continue to develop during the rest of your time at Wisconsin. In a surprise, Butch was named first-team all conference by both the coaches and the media. Congratulations and well done, Brian. I believe Brian was honorable mention last season. Also, Trevon Hughes made honorable mention all-conference in both squads. I have no doubt that, barring injury or tragedy, Hughes will be a first team guy during the rest of his time here, however long that is.

The great and suprising award-- Jason Bohannon as sixth man of the year. Amen to that one. Without his shooting, capable defense, and smart decision-making, I don't know where Wisconsin would be. Certainly not atop the Big Ten. The complete list can be found here.

As far as my predictions, my main problem was drastically overstating everyone's opinion of Northwestern's Kevin Coble. I guess my opinion was biased by his total en fuego-ness against Indiana a few weeks ago, when NU gave them a scare. He scored 37 points, I think. None of the Hoosiers could stop him. And I underrated everyone's infatuation with Robbie Hummel who was a unanimous first-teamer, even though he lost out on freshman of the year to one-and-done Eric Gordon. I also can't believe Drew Neitzel made first team from the coaches. He had a rough season and Sparty underachieved.

Anyhow, congratulations to all the Badgers mentioned for their excellent achievements. It's remarkable that every one of the Badgers' top six players won some form of all conference recognition. Simply remarkable. And congratulation to the rest of the team for helping get these guys the recognition-- through hard work and dedication.

Addendum! The Journal-Sentinel, I guess as a product of being the largest paper in the state, named Flowers its "Division I State Player of the Year". See here. That apparently means, the best or most important player on any of Wisconsin's four Division I programs (UWM, UWGB, Marquette, and Wisconsin). A nice and well-deserved honor for Michael. The J-S also named Bo its Division I Coach of the Year. See a write up of that here.

Easier than It Looked

That's what Wisconsin's victory Saturday afternoon over Northwestern was. Close and frustrating (because, predictably, of too many turnovers from Northwestern's zone press), until the last few minutes of the second half. Then, NU stopped scoring, and Wisconsin calmed down, stopped turning the ball over, and worked their way inside for decent looks, or crashed the boards hard for rebounds and tip-ins. Northwestern's biggest guy is 6'8" and none of their guys are very stout. Their most muscley player is probably their freshman point guard. That's why they play a 1-3-1 zone-- they're trying to keep the ball out of the perimeter, because they know if you get decent post position on them, you have an excellent chance of scoring. That's what happened from the 15 minute to the 30 minute mark.

Combine smart offense with what happened on defense, where Wisconsin stopped overplaying Northwestern's cuts, and you have a serious Wisconsin style "run"-- no scoring from the other side, consistent, but not spurting offense, and after a while, a big fat lead. It was 19 points with 10 minutes left, basically insurmountable given Northwestern's O and the Badgers' D. Wisconsin relaxed a little bit, and let NU trim the lead to 11, but the game was essentially over with 10 minutes left. All in all, that was a fine accomplishment given Wisconsin's history of frustrated, lackluster play in Evanston, both on the basketball court and on the football field.

Random game notes--

- Trevon took a bit of a beating in this game. He had a few turnovers, got shoulder checked in the face on a moving pick, Coble backhanded him in the gnards on an obvious uncalled foul, and the game ended with one of the Northwestern seniors, Tonjua Jones, a back up guard cursing him out, and getting called for a technical foul. (On senior day, no less!) Nice job, jackass. You would have hoped your $200,000 education had sunk in a little more. Thank goodness Trevon totally ignored the guy. Way to keep your cool, Pop. You're the big winner.

- The excellent statistical games of Landry in the first Northwestern game (21 points), and Butch in this one (20), demonstrate Northwestern's problem. They have no bigs, and their zone scheme is only effective when it forces turnovers or keeps the other team out of the post. And the secondary flaw with their zone is that it takes their 100-pound weakling of a team and puts it in poor rebounding position. You get a strong, reasonable-sized competent post player, and they're going to go to town on NU. First time around, it was Landry with the lay-ups and the tipped misses. This time around it was Butch. I think that's actually quite encouraging, and shows that Butch has improved his quickness, because on the defensive end, whoever your frontcourt guy is, he has to run guard what are essentially a bunch of small forwards. Butch got all the points because Bo was comfortable leaving him in defensively. That was not as much the case in the first game, where Brian played fewer minutes.

- If they want to get better, which they apparently don't, Northwestern has got to do some serious things. I've got three steps.
Step one-- lower the admission requirements for basketball players. As Duke has shown, a school can benefit tremendously from having a good men's basketball team. And hell, the number of students you have to make exceptions for is tiny. It's three or four kids a year. Northwestern has a pretty campus, is an excellent school in a big league, and sits atop of one of the nation's hotbeds of basketball talent. They shouldn't have to rely on Eastern Europeans and French-Canadians to fill up their roster.
Step two-- play more attractive basketball. This step may require the school to fire Carmody, who only seems to know irritating zone defenses and the intensely boring Princeton offense. That offense lets smaller, less athletic teams make up their physical deficits with smarts and skill (passing and shooting). Unfortunately, in the Big Ten, you get teams, like Wisconsin, that are bigger, more athletic, and just as smart and skilled. Or teams (like Sparty and Indiana), that are so much bigger and more athletic, that it doesn't matter. After this year's one-win team, it's time to go back to the drawing board. I suggest playing a more attractive style of basketball to attract the less academically qualified recruits they'll now be admitting.
Step three-- fix that awful "arena." Welsh-rarebit is an embarrassment. Even though it's tiny, it's always half empty, except when visiting fans overwhelm it. Then there's the weird lighting, terrible concessions service, and awful layout (concession lines blocking bathroom access). It's easily the worst basketball stadium in the Big Ten. Hell, UIC's and UW-Milwaukee's stadiums are far nicer. It might be the worst basketball stadium in the Horizon League.
Of course, hopefully, from Wisconsin's perspective, Northwestern will do none of these things and remain a doormat. The less competition the better, I guess.

- Jason Bohannon is now one of the best free throw shooters in Wisconsin history, having made more consecutive free throws than any other Badger player ever. I love that this had happened-- that he's become the ice-man at the line. It's great to have one of those guys on your team. Plus, he's confident about it. Check this out, from Rob Schultz in the Cap Times-- "Bohannon's knees weren't exactly knocking after he stepped to the line with 3:44 to go to attempt the free throw that would break [Wes Matthews Sr.'s] record. He stunned junior swingman Joe Krabbenhoft by turning around to face him while doing a little play-by-play before he took the shot. 'He looked back at me and said, "This is for the record,"' Krabbenhoft recalled. 'I said, "Turn around and shoot it. Don't even think about it." Of course, he goes up and knocks it down.'"
Awesome. Confidence is a good thing.

The Big Ten tournament awaits, starting Thursday. The Badgers' first game is Friday morning at 11. Since the tourney has relocated to Indianapolis for the foreseeable future, you'd think that gives a homefield advantage to IU and Purdidn't, but thankfully, with the Badgers winning the Big Ten outright, those two teams are on the same side of the bracket, so will likely knock each other out. Bucky will face the winner of Iowa and Michigan, two transitioning teams that have made some improvements as the year progressed. Wisconsin swept both of them in the regular season, but had to work hard for the wins the second time around. The third round could get interesting. If Wisconsin manages to beat the winner of Iowa/Michigan, then it would play the winner of OSU/Sparty in the semis in another likely very tough game. Should be a fun week of basketball ahead.

What can you say?

UW just keeps finding a way to win. Total ugliness but clutch three point shooting in the first half, then mistake free basketball in the second, but poor shooting. Ohio State scored 7 points in the last ten minutes of the game. UW hardly shot any free throws and gave up a bunch of offensive rebounds, and turned the ball over a dozen times in the first half, but still came out on top. Craziness. Random thoughts--

- The most interesting development in this recent string of big victories is Flowers and Bohannon getting hot from outside. Both have been stroking it of late, and made three pointers will make up for several other ugly possessions. Flowers is having a hell of a senior year. He may not make first or second team all-Big Ten, but if you did an All-League Senior team, he would have to be on it.

- Did Hughes score any points this afternoon?

- Does it seem like OSU has more talent than the Badgers but significantly worse results? I know they lost four starters, but they have three seniors on the team, and a lot of talented guys, so it still seems to me like they're underperforming this year. They don't seem to play that intelligently, especially on offense, and they're just not that cohesive. I guess you could say it's youth, but Cook, Lighty, Oden and Conley all played huge minutes for them last year. Also, did you see all the empty seats in Columbus? OSU is on the bubble, they're playing against a top ten team who was their biggest in-conference rival last year, in the middle of the afternoon on Sunday, and there are hundreds of visibly empty seats? Sure, the drop-off from Conley and Oden is a bummer, but come on. Get some loyalty, Buckeye fans. Maybe last year's success in football and basketball spoiled them.

- That was the last tough road stretch of the regular season. Coming out 2-0 from games at Illinois and at Columbus was enormous. Crazy to think that the only road games Wisconsin has lost this season, so far, are at Duke and Purdue. UW now has home games against Sparty and Penn State, and then finishes at Northwestern. (I won't even get into how nerve-racking an ugly game in Evanston could be with a possible league crown on the line. Ugh.) Sparty should be tough stuff, although they've laid some huge eggs on the road this year. I'm sure they'll be looking to redeem themselves and get some momentum going for post-season runs. Penn State has been adapting to losing Claxton and is playing far better than they were when UW hammered them.

- It's interesting to see that Tim Jarmusz, who I earlier criticized for not redshirting this season, has gotten over ten minutes in both of the last two games. He hasn't been an impact player, and he doesn't wow you with his physical abilities, but he hasn't had any huge screw-ups, and he's been able to deepen what had been a three guard rotation. Sounds like he's just been busting his ass in practice, and earned his minutes. Way to go, Tim. Guess I should have been on the former (Madison Memorial) Spartan, Nankivil, to redshirt instead. I was wrong, although I maintain my position that five free years at UW is not something that should be scoffed at. Anyhow, this is a positive development, and it's good to see the team will have some guard depth next year after Flowers graduates.

- Was anyone else a little embarrassed that this ugly a game was nationally televised on a major network? And right after a Notre Dame-Syracuse game where the scores were in the 90s? Any of the Indiana or Purdue games would have been preferable. Also, it has become clear that Billy Packer just makes things up in order to have something to say. For example, toward the end of the game, Diebler for OSU was being guarded by the Hoft, and he slipped and fell to the ground, and called a timeout. Packer said that Krabby tripped him. The Hoft did not get anywhere close to tripping him. Earlier, Flowers hit Bohannon on a nice in-bounds pass for a quick lay up. Packer said Bohannon's man got cut off by a "backside screen". I rewound and watched the play repeatedly. J-Bo's defender was not only not "screened," he wasn't even touched by any player, either on OSU or Wisconsin. Packer also kept saying that J-Bo was unable to drive to the basket, a fact that was been repeatedly disproven over the past few weeks. In summary, Packer makes things up and does a poor job of scouting the teams he "covers". He makes me yearn for Big Ten Network color commentating, which for those of you who don't have BTN, is really saying something.

UPDATE-- The Journal Sentinel's coverage of the game says it was played "in front of a sellout crowd of 19,049." Sellout? Maybe. But there's no way in hell there were 19,000 people in that place.