What's Been the Difference?

Like many fans of Wisconsin Men's basketball, I'm a bit bewildered by what's happened to the Badgers this Big Ten season. After three solid wins to start the conference schedule, they've dropped five straight, two losses coming in overtime and two in a row at home. Three of those losses were clearly winnable games, games that UW has pulled out more frequently in prior seasons, and two were games that nearly anyone looking at the conference schedule in December would have marked as wins (at Iowa and Minnesota at home). This leads us all to wonder-- what's been the difference? Why are so many games that UW would have dominated last season turned into close wins, and so many close wins turned into narrow losses?

Randy gave his own theory below, with his conclusion being (I think) that the team lacks talent overall, and that the coaching staff has been too safe in their recruiting strategies. He's also ranted to me over the phone about how the team lacks "heart," meaning there aren't enough guys who are busting their asses on every play. I agree with that to an extent. But my take is slightly different.

Namely, I think UW is suffering from a lack of depth and experience. In the last two seasons, UW has shown it can win either with a couple of very, very good players, and some guys in complementary roles, or when it's deep and experienced. I don't think it can win when it only has four upperclassmen, and none of them are dominant players. (Hughes can be dominant at times, but he's been on a frustratingly ineffective streak lately-- not shooting that well from long-range, not nabbing many steals, not drawing enough fouls and missing bunnies when he gets to the rim.) Last season the team had five upperclassmen. The year before, (until Butch got hurt), UW had one great player (Alando), one very good offensive player (Kam), and six upperclassmen. That's how you almost beat an Ohio State team with three lottery picks late in the season in their own building.

Hughes certainly can be great, and is at times. But he isn't able to carry the team, at least not when he's lacking a real back-up. (Hopefully, the development of Jordan Taylor should aid Pop over the rest of the season.) Bohannon is a heady player and a streaky shooter, but he's been in a slump, and seems to be trying to do too much. The only potential back-ups for those guys are a guard-forward who will never be a primary ball-handler (Jarmusz), and two true freshmen. So the team's two juniors and only experienced guards get asked to do a ton, and have worn down and become ineffective. Especially in this last five game stretch, where UW has faced five teams that play tight, pressure man-to-man defense, which really stresses opposing guards.

The two seniors, and only legitimately experienced frontcourt players, Krabby and Landry, are in similar predicaments. Krabby is doing everything you would have expected of him this season. He's a rebounding fiend, he defends very well, and he's showing much better touch than years' previous. But he's not a guy who you can go to when the shot clock is running down. Landry is a more skilled offensive player, but he has just never developed that lateral quickness needed to drive to the basket, and his low-post game looked a lot better in previous seasons when he was posting up the other team's forwards, not their center. With no Butch or Stiemsma on the floor, bigger, lankier defenders like Purdue's Johnson or Illinois' Tisdale are stymieing him in the post.

Although there's more depth there with Leuer and Nankivil and Gullickson rotating in occasionally, and the two sophs have both shown excellent offensive potential (although Leuer has been in a slump lately) neither of those guys are experienced defenders. Their breakdowns at key moments in games (like Nankivil failing to rotate back to the right man late in the Purdue game, leading to Kramer's wide-open three pointer), have been an absolute killer. But it's hard to expect more from them. This is their first real year of playing, and Bo is so quick with the hook that they're in and out constantly, and thus have trouble settling down and gaining the needed experience. And at this point, Jarmusz is only a decent back-up to Krabby--- his issues on offense, whether it's a lack of confidence or ability or both, make him a bit of an afterthought.

So really, I agree with Randy, it does come down to personnel. Four upperclassmen, none of whom are consistent stars. Five scholarship freshmen, only one of whom is currently contributing. Three inexperienced and tenative sophomores. That leads to a tough year, folks.

It's true that Ryan has had success with thin teams, but that's partly because he's been blessed with two of the best players in UW history in Devin and Alando. And last season did show that with just a lot of good, experienced (not great) players, UW could excel. Unfortunately, both things are missing this season. I don't think that's because they're recruiting coachable, hard-working, lesser talents. It's more about total misses in recruiting and development, and a failure to recover from those misses. I'll explain more in the next post.

One Moment

Illinois has never been an easy place to play for Wisconsin. For the most part, that has been due to great coaching and recruiting on the part of (most recently) Lon Kruger, Bill Self and Bruce Weber. Three exceptional coaches. Last year Illinois was 5-13 in conference & 16-19 overall. Horrible by anyone's standards. Seemingly bad enough to leave them vulnerable for at least a year or two. But alas, quite the job has Bruce Weber done over the last year, and on Saturday, quite the hand did Bo Ryan lend him. The results, for Badger fans, were agonizing to watch.

We out-rebounded them (29-28). They had way more turnovers than us (5-12). They got called for just as many fouls as we did (15-13 [which is a bit misleading because we were fouling @ the end of the game*]). So what was to blame for this latest chapter in Wisconsin's momentary lapse of a season?
Was it the TWO shot clock violations in a 3 minute span, down by 10 with 8 and 5 minutes left in the game respectively? yes.
Was it the worst missed lay-up i've ever seen (courtesy of Joe "chained to the floor" Krabbenhoft)? yes.
Was it the garbage that Chester Frazier was getting to go in the basket? nope.
Was it the fact that with 3 minutes left, our best shooter had been on the bench for 3 minutes, replaced by Kevin Gullickson? absolutely.
But it was another moment in the game, that forecast all of these:

Down by 2, under 4 minutes into the game, Trevon Hughes used his quickness to take the ball from Illinois' latest bird boy center, "Mike" Tisdale. The result was a 2 on 1 break where Hughes had super sopht Keaton Nankivil in space over the 1 defender back. However Nankivil stayed away from the rim like it was covered in small pox, and Hughes was forced to continue his 3 year streak of alley-oop-less basketball, in favor of the, not-always-the-best-idea-but-usually-our-only-option-trevon-hughes-pull-up-jumper. He made it.

For the rest of the game Wisconsin seemed to be out of sync, not trusting each other enough to make crisp aggressive passes, and bogged down by the oppressive :35 second collegiate shot clock. Illinois sucks. This game, to me, was way worse than the Minnesota game (the one where people seem to have forgotten, Minnesota needed 2 bombs to force overtime), because we looked like we had nothing. Leuer was gone. Bohannon was gone. Landry got punked like he does often. Jarmusz and Nankivil continued to look ready to go back to high school. We fucking sucked. And Illinois had waay too many defensive breakdowns for me to listen to talk about how tough they are. We had plenty of space to work with, we just didn't know what to do with it.
I grew up watching Wisconsin basketball. I am eternally grateful for winning as often as we do in recent years. But the Big Ten is about to get real good. We will win a lot less, and we will be a perennial bubble team if we keep touting the "character" of our recruits, instead of the basketball skills that are paying their way through school. I don't want to watch Keaton Nankivil.

This year, the Big Ten is full of great coaches. Matter of fact college basketball in general, is full of ambitious, personable, respectable coaches with great records and accomplishments. I love Bo Ryan. I love his demeanor and I love his record. But we went to the Final Four before he got here. The Kohl Center is a state of the art facility and Madison is a beautiful place to live, play or coach. At a certain point, expectations will and should, move past quiet grumblings about how thankful we should be. Bo Ryans style of play keeps us off TV. I care about that.

What worries me most though, is the arrogance i've recently witnessed from Ryan regarding the players (HIS players). At the press conference following the Golpher game, Ryan was asked the following question:

"Coach their press gave you quite a bit of trouble down the stretch, what were you guys missing getting the ball up to half court?"

After a long pause, he asks to have the question repeated. It is. And he replies:

"The fact that the other team got their hands on it".

Oooo k. I appreciate protecting his players from criticism, be it about their decision making, or lack of quickness and ball-handling skills, but I'm worried that Bo is under the impression that the "bit of trouble" they had getting it over half court was not directly attributable to his players' lack of quickness and ball-handling skills. Anyone else?

I really do appreciate that Ryan takes character guys. However, to be a character guy, you don't have to be slow. There are smart, responsible athletes in California. I understand that they tend to be the ones getting offers from Duke and UCLA, but I feel like Ryan is hell bent on protecting his players' weaknesses from criticism, (in part, because he has given up on getting a higher caliber athlete?) to the point that he simply wont allow the question-'were your players good enough to win tonight?'. Which sucks. Because sometimes they aren't. And I see no reason for that to be the case. Especially as the program continues to be solid, and Devin Harris prepares to (eventually) put on an Eastern Conference All-Star Uni for the NEW JERSEY Nets, a team with a tremendous presence in the biggest market in the country. That wouldn't give us access to better players? Guess it doesn't matter because we've given all our scholarships away through 2022. Fuck it.

*It's real boring to me that it's just a given that the home team gets fewer fouls called on them. By a lot. Even when it happens for us. It's totally gay and might be my least favorite thing about college basketball. It rarely doesn't happen.

More Evidence that Bo Ryan is the man.

Here's a great article on Ryan and Gard's recruiting philosophy. I especially like the part about the rental cars. It just sums up Bo Ryan perfectly.

http://www.badgerbeat.com/news/article/id/313815

Another recent discussion I heard about Bo involved somebody questioning whether he would feel dissapointed or had failed somehow if he never made the Final 4. His response was that his job was to teach boys how to be men, to help fill the world with better people. Amazing.

HIilarious

UW-Platteville takes down D-I Bradley University (remember Bradley making a decent run in the tournament a few years ago?) in an exhibition game, in Bradley's home stadium. Most excellent. I have no idea why, but the D-III UW system schools have great men's basketball programs, year in and year out. Some credit, obviously, should go to current UW-Madison coach Bo Ryan, for turning Platteville into a national D-III powerhouse, but still, several other schools in the state (like UW-Eau Claire, and UW-Stevens Points) generally tend to be very good every year. Weird, but very amusing.

I Don't Think I'm Ever Doing That Again

Watching "Live Streaming Video" on the Big Ten Network's website is, uh, awful. The speed of the feed kept slowing down, speeding up, stopping, etc. And the sound, the radio broadcast for the game, which could have been great, was about three minutes ahead of the video. Ugh. What crap. Again, why did the Big Ten Network opt to show volleyball on its television channel instead of some men's basketball exhibitions? I like volleyball, but I'm almost certain the ratings will be higher with basketball, even an exhibition game. So yeah, the point is I watched the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team beat Augustana College in their first exhibition game last night, on the Big Ten Network's website, and it was an unpleasant viewing experience.

Anyhow, here's the box score. Again, Augustana College is a D-II school, which means some of their guys are on scholarship, and they did make the D-II tournament last year. They had some decent ball-handlers, and they had some good jump shooters. (I love Bo's post-game comment that "They can shoot it. Division II, Division III teams, you don't play H-O-R-S-E with them." As a former D-III athlete, I agree.) But Augustana was not tall, I bet their tallest guy was 6'8", and they were not particularly athletic. Thus, the Badgers scored a fair amount of points in the paint.

In particular, Landry scored a lot, although about a third of his points were two three-pointers that bounced around the rim. He's looking very fluid and confident on the offensive end. Leuer looked like you'd want him to-- hit a three, scored in the paint, took his guy to the basket once or twice. Bohannon nailed a bunch of threes-- his release looks to be quicker than the last two seasons, which is very exciting. Frosh Jordan Taylor was strong with the ball, and made good decisions; plus, that kid is flat out built. He looks more like a running back than a point guard. Mystery frosh Ryan Evans played a fair amount and looked pretty good, grabbing some offensive boards, slashing to the basket a couple of times. That was reassuring, because after reading that he didn't do much in the scrimmage I was starting to get a bit worried. The frosh big men-- Ian Markolf and Jared Berggren-- looked fine, large, not awkward with the ball, and reasonably mobile. No worse than Stiemsma or Butch as freshman, and well above the Gavinski/Mader level, at least in my opinion. But I bet one or both redshirt. And yes, the frosh can play in these exhibition games without burning their redshirts. It'll be interesting to see what happens on that front. All I know is that Taylor is not redshirting. That kid is going to be a consistent contributor.

Finally, regarding frosh Robert Wilson-- ATTENTION, ATTENTION: we have an impending paradigm shift! Wisconsin is no longer a clean cut and wholesome team! That is, (the horror, the horror)-- Wilson has a visible tatoo. The team's Hoosier-esque, 1950s image is irretrievable shattered. What's next, players with unkempt hair or, god forbid, headbands? Hell, we might as well join the Big East. What a terrible recruiting oversight, Bo. This is what happens when you give a scholarship to a kid from Cleveland.

(The above paragraph was said in jest, of course. Wilson looked quite good, a legit 6'4" or 6'5", smooth with the ball and his shot and scrappy on defense; he does not seem to be a redshirt candidate.)

The Curtain Rises

This evening, the University of Wisconsin Men's Basketball team is finally revealed to the public, with the Red vs. White intrasquad scrimmage. The doors to the Kohl Center open at 6:30, and tipoff happens at 7 pm. This will be our first real glimpse at the team's personnel this season, and should offer some hint at the big question mark surrounding the team-- namely, what's the deal with all the freshmen and sophomores? There'll also be other fun things to observe, like whether the upperclassmen seem to have improved, how the team interacts and competes with each other, and, of course, how much attention Bo can draw to himself even without coaching either team. Needless to say, I am very piqued about the event.

Unfortunately, as I no longer reside in Madison, I will not be in attendance. And sadly, as per this press release, it doesn't look like the scrimmage will be recorded, taped or broadcast in any manner, not on the web, not on the radio, and no highlights shown by the Big Ten Network. Bummer. Thus, I'll be in the same club as anyone else who misses the scrimmage--trying to get an idea about how the team looked by cobbling together news reports and blog posts. (Speaking of that, I encourage everyone to check the thoughtful UW basketball blog Hoops Marinara sometime tomorrow to see what its author has to say.) The event is free though and the team will be signing autographs afterwards, so if anyone in the greater Dane County area wants a first unadorned glimpse of this year's squad, head on down to Dayton Street and give the team a look.

Bo is hilarious.

If you have 15 minutes to spare, listen to Bo Ryan's post-game press conference. Here: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=713531. I think his quote of the night was in regards to a question about Krabbenhoft's put-back of (yet-another) errant three-ball by Bohannon:

Reporter: I'd just like your reaction about the play off of the Bohannon miss.
Bo: Which one?
Reporter: uh...I think it was Bohannon, wait maybe it was...
Bo: By the way, he says he's going to make one of those next game.

How the reporters don't wet their pants with shit like that, I don't know.