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?

Random Basketball Notes

- Was anyone watching the ongoing pissiness between Illinois forward Brian Randle and Marcus Landry? Landry was fighting Randle for post position quite often, and there was a lot of whacking, undercutting and waving of arms. Marcus had that great block on Randle on what looked like a total breakaway dunk. And at least twice, Randle full on shoved Landry out of offensive rebounding position, and it went uncalled. After one of these incidents, I thought there was going to be a fight as they both walked down to the other end of the court. Thankfully, it looked like Marcus thought better of it. Ugly stuff. And an ugly way for Randle to end his career, but I guess it was sort of fitting. The guy was very talented-- tall, athletic, rangy, long arms-- but injuries seemed to prevent him from developing his offensive game, and his defense often seemed to be undermined by drawing too many fouls. I guess that tendency came out in his last game, seeing his team's dream run trickle out along with his career. His frustration is understandable, but t'was not a classy way to go out.

- To flip that discussion, congrats to Marcus Landry for winning the MOP of the Big Ten tourney. His block on Randle epitomized what UW has done this season-- sick defense, hustle, and determination. Also, props to Pop Hughes for taking care of his ankle and making some solid contributions on Sunday against Illinois. Tough stuff, given how much pain he seemed to be in on Saturday. He didn't seem as quick laterally, but his forward explosion was still there as he showed on several drives to the basket. And his arching jumper at the end of the first half was enormous. I trust the UW trainers know what their doing and aren't putting him at risk for chronic ankle problems.

- A few NCAA seeding discoveries. The head of the current tournament selection committee is George Mason's AD. The head for next season is the SEC commissioner. The other members are the commissioner of the Horizon League (UWM, Butler, UWGB), and the ADs of UCLA, Ohio State, UConn, Utah, Kent State, UT-San Antonio and UC-Riverside. See here. The bizarrely circular rationale they gave for their seeding and selection decisions was that what mattered most was "how the individual team performed against the rest of the field." But they get to pick more than half the field. They'll choose you based on how you did against other people they choose? Extending their base rationale a little, it would mean that beating Coppin State or American or Portland State or University of Maryland- Baltimore County would be more meaningful than a win at Iowa or against Missouri, Virginia Tech or Syracuse. That doesn't make any sense at all. The point is-- the committee sucks. These people are career PR bureaucrats, who have made livings trying to please everybody, meaning they will steer toward the most harmless sounding rationale. I say, fire the appeasers! Get some statisticians and journalists together and let them hash it out.

- A few more congratulations are in order. At the end of the regular and post-season conference tournaments, Wisconsin finished first nationally in defense, according to Ken Pomeroy's tempo-free ratings. That's a remarkable accomplishment. So it's not just the "they play at a slow pace" thing. The Badgers really play sick defense. Unfortunately, the same ratings reveal that Wisco got a bit screwed by the committee. The Midwest regional has a ton of good teams in it, including Kansas (rated 1 by Pomeroy), Georgetown (8), Clemson (12), Kansas State (15) and USC (20). Add Wisconsin in there (rated 4), and it's easily the most top heavy regional. A tough road to hoe ahead.

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.

Brillance then Sloppiness

If you didn't see Wisconsin's game against Minnesota yesterday afternoon, you missed out. At least you missed out on a totally dominant first ten minutes, one from which Minnesota never recovered. Wisco came out on fire, with Hughes ripping a bunch of steals for lay-ups, Bohannon and Butch draining threes, and Landry floating in the lane for baskets. Plus, Minnesota's offense was completely stifled. This led to Wisconsin getting a 19 point lead at Minnesota in the first half! Remarkable.

As you could expect, the dynamic offensive display died off in the second half, and the back portion of the game turned into a turnover fest, with both teams being colossally sloppy with the ball, and playing ugly offense. I think the Badgers had something like 12 turnovers in the second period. Ugh. Thankfully, their stifling defense didn't go anywhere, and thus Minnesota never got closer than 14.

The end result was that Wisconsin scored almost twice as much in the first half as they did in the second, but the margin at halftime was the same as the ultimate margin of victory-- 16 points. Wisco averaged a pretty average 1.02 PPP, which reflects how ugly the second half got, while holding the Gophers to an absurd .75 PPP. That's simply outstanding defense.

Notes and observations--

- Al Holen, number 0 on Minnesota, is a real player. He's the kid I mentioned in the previous post who has an absurd rate of steals. He was really impressive-- a total thorn in the side of Wisconsin's backcourt whenever he was on the floor. He's long, quick and aggressive. He should be an all conference defensive team next season, when he'll get some more minutes with McKenzie graduating. Now if he could only stop turning the ball over on offense.

- Second straight game where Butch did not look impressive on the offensive block. (The picture to the left is Brian getting denied by a much shorter but more springy help defender.) He hit a three and made a nice runner, but you'd like to see him effectively working the post. That's a little worrisome.

- Wisconsin held Minnesota frosh, Blake Hoffarber, to zero three point attempts. This is the kid who's leading the league in shooting. That he didn't even get off an attempt shows you how totally discombobulated Minnesota's offense was. That's on top of Coleman, Tollackson and McKenzie all having mouse-like offensive games.

- The hot start leading to the big lead was a product of hot outside shooting. Hughes, Bohannon and Butch all hit threes to run up the score in that stretch. It's that same feeling you get with Wisconsin-- since they play such solid defense, if they can just hit a few more shots, then man . . .

- The hot start led to an embarrassingly quiet Barn. Except for two or three stretches, that place was as quiet as the Kohl Center on a Wednesday night game against Florida A&M. That's a big advantage that Minnesota loses, and what a boost of confidence to Wisconsin-- hearing the quiet, and knowing it's because you're utterly dismantling the home team.

Next up, Iowa on Wednesday night in Iowa City, Iowa (Iowa). Iowa is one game below five hundred, and has a good shot at getting an NIT berth. Their defense is pretty good, led by excellent defensive rebounding, but their offense has been a bit stagnant. They do attempt a truckload of threes and pass the ball well. The good D was exemplified in their holding Sparty to just 36 (!) points a few weeks ago. Plus, they just beat a good Ohio State team, holding the Bucknoses to only 48 puntas. Both of those victories came at home. Don't you sort of wish that Wisconsin had played Iowa at Iowa a few weeks ago instead of in Madison? Since the Badgers beat them back in January, they've gone 4-4 in the league, including winning two out of their last three, the only loss coming by one point at Purdue. So it looks like Iowa's getting it together a little. Which is a bit worrisome, despite the Badgers recent stretch of great defense. The game is at 8 pm Central on BTN.

Overly Close?

Wisco's ten point victory over the Fightin' Fibs was fraught with a little too much drama for me. Illinois has been in a bit of a swoon, which is attributable to a temporary (unfortunately) dearth of talent and some injury problems. As a brief aside, their recent struggles are not due to coaching or some other problem. I may dislike (intensely) the University of Illinois, but Weber is a native son of Wisconsin and a fine, fine coach.

Anyhoo, since the Illini had been struggling (losing to Penn State and Miami of Ohio at home) the hope was for the Badgers to deliver a semi-serious beatdown. But it was not to be, at least not until about four minutes were left in the game. Though Wisconsin had several leads of 8 or more points, Illinois played a plucky game, with guys like Trent Meacham and Calvin Brock hitting bit shots. Plus, Wisconsin had two serious issues that kept Illinois in the game: the Hoft and Flowers got into foul trouble; and Bucky got beat, badly, on the boards.

Flowers and Krabby are the teams' two best defenders and its secondary and tertiary ballhandlers. They're probably the two headiest players on the team, and two huge leaders. So understandably, if you go back and watch, Illinois made their runs toward leveling the score when Michael and Joe were out of the game. Neither guy fouled out, but both got two whistles quite quickly and sat a large chunk of both halves; Michael got four pretty early as well.

Krabby's absence exacerbated the second issue-- a poor rebounding performance. Joe is one of the best rebounding guards (if you can call him a guard) in the nation, and probably the second best rebounder on the team, after Butch. But even when he was in the game, Bucky just got straight out beat on the boards, in embarrassing fashion, something that hasn't happened in quite a while. The stats bear this out-- Illinois missed 34 field goals, and the Badgers only garnered 20 boards. That means Illinois got 40% of its own misses. Conversely, the Badgers missed 23 field goals, but pulled down only 4 offensive boards, getting less than 20% of its missed shots. Those are terrible percentage to give up. And what's odd about this, is that the Badgers have been one of the best rebounding teams in the nation. Their calling cards have been playing good defense and holding teams to one shot, and following their own misses to get second chance points. Maybe they missed the physicality that Gullickson could have provided, had he not been benched for underage drinking (only six more weeks to 21, Kev).

I guess it was good that the Badgers could fail to do something that they've been doing well all season and still come out with a win. That seemed to be due to three things-- they shot very well, over 50% for the game, Hughes especially nailing jumper after jumper; they continued to play solid defense, though they didn't rebound well; and they didn't turn the ball over-- only 9 times on the game. The shooting percentage and the turnovers are impressive stats considering that Illinois is a solid defensive team. Butch's performance (16 points) was impressive as well, coming against Illinois center Shaun Pruitt in large part, who was the best returning low post threat in the league.

Also, as the media has made clear, this was definitely Hughes' best game of the year. He had six steals, shot lights out, made several great passes and played under control,
giving up only two TOs, one of which was Butch's fault. Plus, he played a ton of minutes with Flowers in foul trouble. It was interesting to hear Weber, after the game, differentiate between Hughes and the rest of the Badger team, talent-wise. He said something like "Hughes has what we're missing, and the rest of the guys are just good, solid college players."

What We Learned on Saturday

- Despite their awful record, the Minnesota football team isn't that bad. Consider the evidence:
(A) They're clearly improving, despite their horrific record. They only lost at Iowa by 5, and they gave UW a serious run for the money, taking an early lead, and coming back to make the game close at the end.
(B) They have a fair amount of young talent-- the Gophers' quarterback is a player, and he's only a redshirt freshman; sophomore wideout Aaron Decker burned Jackie I. repeatedly, and "decked" him in the crotch; and their entire starting D-line, which performed decently at times, is made up of sophomores.
(C) They appear to have a fair amount of talent coming in, and in fact have outrecruited UW for some talented guys, including Chicago receiver Brandon Green. In fact, according to Rivals.com, it looks like Minnesota has a better recruiting class coming in next year than UW, though that may be due to the team missing wide receivers coach Henry Mason this year. (Heal up, Henry!) The point is, UW fans should enjoy this victory now because it looks like the rivalry between the schools will become more closely balanced quite soon.

- The Metrodome remains a terrible place to play football. The morbid lighting, the unnatural color of the crappy artificial turf, the lingering smoke from the fireworks, the poor air quality, the overall dimness. That place just stinks. Hubert Humphrey must be rolling over in his grave, and Minnesota players and coaches must be counting the days until their new, open-air on-campus stadium opens.

- Jack does not look ready to go pro. No offense to Ikegwuonu, who's a very good player and seems like a smart guy. But if you get burned repeatedly by some sophomore from Minnesota that no one has ever heard of (the aforementioned crotch puncher, Aaron Decker) you probably won't be a first day draft pick, and if that's the case, you're probably better off taking out an insurance policy and staying in school another year. And Jack may need to focus on his legal problems. The fact that his case goes to trial on a felony burglary charge in January is not at all good. As a UW fan, I call for the DeKalb County State's Attorney to dial it down a notch already, and offer a plea deal for a reduced misdemeanor charge and probation. (Note to the DeKalb ASA handling the case-- Jack is a nice kid from a good family and has no record whatsoever, and he's accused of stealing an X-Box, a property crime, not a violent crime.) And if I'm Jack, I take that deal rather than risk my liberty on a trial, regardless of my innocence. The risk is just too high.
Getting back to football, Saturday was a downer of a day for both of the Badgers' potential early entrants-- Beckum hurt his shoulder stretching out for a touchdown on a nice play, and dropped some catchable passes before that. I may be a greedy UW fan, but I don't see how a 220-pound tight end makes it in the NFL. Beckum needs to start power lifting and eating a lot of grass-fed beef. If he could muscle up a bit more all over, and not lose his speed, I could totally see him being a very high draft pick. But at 220, strongside NFL linebackers are going to blow right past him, and I don't know if he's fast enough to be a pure wideout. Maybe he should have a talk with Owen Daniels about taking on NFL blockers.

- Zach Brown has improved. He was noticeably tougher to bring down in this game than in previous outings, and he's decision making, particularly deciding when to cut back, has gotten better. At the start, it seemed like he would always go where the play was supposed to, regardless of how the defense responded or how the blocking worked. This made him a stark contrast to Lance Smith, who looked to freelance at every opportunity. But Zach seems more comfortable, and thus more judicious-- he's seeing backside cuts and taking them. It looked like he was doing that against Michigan as well. That really enables him to take advantage of his best attribute, which I think is his ability to accelerate. He sees a hole, cuts, and shoots right through at top speed. Now if he could only learn how to finish long runs . . . Nonetheless, a good game against a fired-up Minnesota defense.

- Trevon Hughes is a talent. I continue to feel sad for all you Big Ten Network-less folks, as you missed another dominant performance by the UW basketball team in their twenty-six point depantsing of Colorado. And again, Hughes put on a show, nailing several threes, playing harassing perimeter defense, snatching rebounds and taking off on the break, drawing fouls, and throwing out precision passes for assists and drawn fouls. It's highly unlikely that Trevon will continue to shoot 57% from the floor or 53% from beyond the arc, as he did in the past three days. Indeed, the four teams they've played so far were so unimpressive that UW's RPI is only 155th, despite their 4-0 record. And Trevon will definitely face better backcourts in UW's consecutive games against Georgia, at Duke (why couldn't this game have come last season?), and against the hypocritical papists of Marquette. (Didn't you love the dual announcements by the U.S. Bishops Conference that (1) the increase in pederast priests was really not an epidemic because it was in line with increased molestation rates nationwide and (2) that if you don't vote pro-life you're going to hell?) And I'm sure Trevon will go through tough times, whether in those games or later. But regardless, Hughes has star potential, and has been playing up to that potential so far this season. As Ricky Bobby says when he catches another guy looking at his package at the urinal, "Yeah, it's the real deal down there."

- UW men's basketball could surprise some people this year. UW totally shredded the two-three zone of a pretty athletic Colorado team, racking up 21 assists and making only 8 turnovers. Unless a guy is deep in the post, every player looks to pass, a remarkable and "Hoosiers"-like quality. They're very patient, but opportunistic when a good option opens up. And if the shot clock gets low, Hughes or Flowers will drive, or Bohannon will look for a runner. Those are solid options. And they resulted in UW averaging a astoundingly healthy 1.27 points per possession against CU. In fact, UW improved offensively as the tournament went along, going from 1.17 PPP to 1.23 PPP to the aforementioned 1.27, even though CU was easily the most talented team that UW faced in that series. That bodes very well. Plus, most of the time, the team played excellent help defense-- Stiemsma had five blocks, including four in quick succession, Flowers and Hughes were harassing perimeter opponents and cutting off passing lanes, even the Hoft cracked open his head by drawing a charge.
I'm not saying the team doesn't have things to work on. CU did run a give and go play that worked repeatedly, but things look very good so far. They've got talent, they're motivated, they're unselfish, and they seem to work well together on both defense and offense. I think the team should handle a Georgia squad that is missing its two top returning scorers due to off-the-court issues, and just suspended a replacement starter. (See this, this, and this.) As for Duke three days later, well, we'll see. At the least, it should a learning experience and an interesting gauge for where they're at.