Swing Aptitude

We have raised our expectations, as all successful people do. We have won the Big Ten Regular Season AND Tournament Titles (we have the nets to prove we were there) and cruised to the Sweet 16. We got bumped by an insanely hot playing/shooting school of filthy rich bastards with filthy rich parents (god bless em). And the flags go up. Are we inherently disadvantaged by our Swing offense? Are we shackled by its principles? Not enough points to win against great teams? Standards get raised and new questions get asked. This is our most salient characteristic and the foundation of science, so let's explore the question. 

Watching the other elite teams this year you notice what they do and the Badgers don't. They pressure the inbounds like crazy (TN's only strength), they press, they get handsy out on the perimeter and they push the pressure well past the 3 point line, they look to fast break on misses and blocks (UNC will beat your ass down floor even on makes), they have atleast 2-3 guys who are NBA caliber.

That last bit maybe should have come first. We do not get the NBA guys. We got one (Finley) and produced another (Harris), but in general we don't get them. That HBO piece last year explained everything, other NCAA players, including Big Ten kids, would laugh at Alando Tucker last year that he had to go to class. We need passable student-athletes. None of these guys have written theses of note, but they are passing classes and getting smarter, hopefully. So even if we switched to the Memphis/Phoenix Suns offense where the 5 moves to the weakside to create space for Dribble Drive, who's gonna execute? (BTW this offense is called Dribble Drive Kick Dribble Dribble or something ridiculous) Are we gonna run that for KrabbenBot? Is Tim Jarmusz going to the hole like the NBDLers at Memphis? Me thinks no. (BTW, is it me or do we lose all our dumb kids to Louisville?)

The Swing offense must be considered not as a underperforming stylistic choice, but instead a trait emblematic of our unique resources as a Midwestern University with unyielding academic standards. We know what happens when we try to defeat even Big Ten behemoths with high aptitude-pro stlyes. We suffer decades of futility. The Swing unites us like a phalanx against the tyranny of fake basketball prep schools that feed the High and Mighty programs. The Swing is our method. Bo Ryan looked at basketball and said: less turnovers, more free throws, good shots, solid defense. And he ran that formula over 30 years and has a tremendous resume. Come to Wisconsin and win. 

I'm convinced that if we move away from this style we will go back to losing. All emotion aside, the Swing is a proven winner. Wisconsin, not so much. Not a whole lot of talent or tradition here. But we are now (arguably) the top Program in the league and Top 15 Nationally. I think we have become a little too pompous to think that now WE are too good for the Swing. 

Can the Swing take us all the way to the title? I think so. But it may have to be tweaked a little. It seems high pressure defense on inbounds and on the perimeter needs to be incorporated. It works against us, that's for sure. And we should be more trained to go vertical against pressure. There is no reason Northwestern should be able to press and trap us. We should be passing over their heads and dunking it on their heads. 

Best MSM Article About the Davidson Debacle

Is, unsurprisingly, from the Cap Times' Rob Schultz. See here.

One for Two

So my mentioning of Badger basketball recruits Jordan Taylor ('08) and Mike Bruesewitz ('09) playing in the 3A and 4A Minnesota state high school championship games only jinxed one of them. Bruesewitz's Henry Sibley team lost to favored Minnetonka, and Mike had a relatively quiet offensive game with 9 points, though he did grab 14 boards and block 5 shots. Sorry, Mike. Congrats on a great season, and remember that you do have one more year.
Taylor's Benilde-St. Margaret's squad, however, beat defending champ St. Thomas to win the 3A championship. Jordan had a big game, with 20 points, 10 boards, 6 assists, and 2 steals, including a steal and several free throws in the final minute to clinch his school's first state title-- congratulations on going out on top, Jordan. You're one of the lucky ones.

There were also some neat compliments and quotes scattered throughout the articles covering Taylor's 3A win. Taylor sounds like he'll be a good fit on the Badgers--
His coach:
"I've got the best point guard in the state. That's a pretty good comfort zone for a coach to have." And, "Taylor is the hardest worker I've ever seen in a basketball player. He's always pushing everyone to play hard. He's always in the gym."
The opposing point guard:
"You can tell Jordan knows when to make something happen for his team," Waldvogel said. "I've played with him a lot in the summer. He's a special player."
Taylor himself:
"The strenuous drills that no one wanted to do. The complaining, the crying, the moaning. Playing 4-on-4 when the coaches didn't show up for practice, playing the littles against the bigs. So many great memories. To have it end like this with these guys is so great I can't even explain it."

A Trend, and an Unacknowledge Profile

First, thanks to Hoops Marinara for pointing out the following-- over the past half-dozen games or so, the Badgers have fallen in love with three pointers. And with good reason: they've shot the lights out generally. If you hit 40% of your threes, that's obviously equivalent to hitting a much higher percentage of your twos. So keep shooting them. But at some point, the touch may desert you, as it did with Wisconsin in the second half against Davidson, and those looks will almost always be better if they're the product of an inside-outside game. UW seemed to forget those things.

Second, in retrospect, I think Davidson was made to beat Wisconsin. That's because they're offense is mostly built around what Wisconsin tries to force teams into-- taking jumpers. Wisconsin's defensive mantra is protect the rim, guard the lane, no easy shots. This frustrates most teams, since most D-I basketball guys are great athletes who like to get to the rack or post up. But Davidson doesn't have explosive slashers, and maybe has one solid leaper and low post threat in Lovedale. However, they do have a gaggle of outstanding jump shooters, including maybe the best jump shooter in the country in Curry. So what we were "forcing them into" they were happy to take, they were designed to take. Then when UW gave up on protecting the lane in order to cover more jump shots, Davidson, Richards especially, took the penetration we were offering them, and made the extra pass for easy baskets. Also, as the Duke, Purdue and Marquette losses demonstrated, UW struggles with smart pressure defenses. The refs let poor little Davidson play-act on offense and get handsy on defense, and without Hughes, the Badgers didn't respond by driving and drawing fouls. In sum, Davidson played both the exact right type of offense and defense to beat the Badgers. As they say, the Tourney is about match-ups. Maybe this is why I was pulling for Georgetown a week ago.

Accentuate the Positive

I'm definitely going to discuss the Davidson Debacle (that has a nice ring to it, don't you think?) more later, but now I wanted to pass along some encouraging tidbits. That is, two of Wisconsin's recruits, Benilde-St. Margaret's senior Jordan Taylor and Henry Sibley junior Mike Bruesewitz, will be playing in the various Minnesota high school state championship games.

Bruesewitz's team has never even made it to the state tournament before, and just dispatched a team with one of the most talented juniors in the country on it. Apparently Bruesewitz and this other touted junior got into a bit at one point and the other guy got a technical. Bruesewitz had this to say after the game-- "I'm just a country kid from Litchfield, but I had to stand up for my team." Hilarious. Bruesewitz's team is the underdog in the 4A championship game--the largest division in the state. Taylor's team plays in the second largest division, 3A. He had 43 points in his team's quarterfinal victory, and 19 in 21 minutes in an easy semi-final win. Congratulations to both these guys and good luck in the championship games. As U-65 said earlier, the Badgers are a program. They'll reload and keep on trucking.

p.s. Go Kansas!

Helpless

i'm a total bitch for posting this, because i thoroughly enjoyed jumping on the bandwagon of my favorite basketball team as if they had solved any and all offensive problems after a miserable loss at Duke. But it turns out that they really never changed, and that their ability to run an offense and play team defense was only
as imposing as their conference counterparts allowed it to be.
They still run the swing offense.
Despite having superior athletic talent, the swing looked like the inferior system. It made a huge difference that they (davidson) shot the lights out of course, but still, let there be no illusion to the fact that the swing is easily defendable by even the slightest of capable, athletic opponents.
No matter how athletic our recruits get, and no matter how disciplined our system may be run, I seriously doubt that the swing will ever be dominant in an NCAA tournament setting.
Hopefully someday soon I will be proven wrong, but this year's team was the best badger basketball team I had ever seen and I am not going to hold my breath waiting for another group to prove the swing more accomplished and athletic than it is. We need to be more diverse. We need to be more athletic. As much as it pains me to say, Hubert Davis was right. We need to score more points.

So What the F*#%k Happened?

Well, first off, Wisconsin played the second worst game of the season. The worst still, in my mind, being the Duke game. Ok, maybe they're tied. Whatever. Fundamental things that they've been doing pretty well all season-- like getting back on transition defense, having the ball touch the post, not turning it over-- were totally lost. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

As folks have said, they didn't look like Wisconsin. They turned the ball over. They fouled too much, especially in the second half. They let pressure defense, from the champion of the Southern Conference (a team that swept Elon this season), rattle them and prevent them from getting the ball into the post. They shot not great jumper after not great jumper-- doing what UW usually does to opposing teams. Given the low number of decent looks, it's not surprising that they shot 39% from the floor. Terrible. Awful. Ugh. Again, reminiscent of the Duke blowout.

That said, two things that were mostly out of the Badgers' control occurred. First, Trevon Hughes got injured. The loss there cannot be understated. Defensively, Davidson is guard and forward heavy. Hughes is our second best perimeter defender, and would have been able to keep Richards (#2) out of the lane had he been healthy. Offensively, Wisconsin desperately needed capable ball handlers to dribble drive past Davidson's handsy pressure defense. Hughes is easily the team's best penetrator. So him going out was even worse offensively. Maybe this is the fruit of Mickey Perry transferring, because Wisconsin needed another good guard, and Bo obviously didn't feel comfortable putting Jarmusz out there. As Papa said to me, the Badgers never got burned by injuries all season, until this game. (Good thing UW has two capable looking guard recruits coming in next season.)
Second, Davidson came in on fire from outside, and stayed on fire. That stretch where Curry drained two threes in about a minute, after the Badgers had cut the lead to three, was staggering. Both shots were generally contested. It didn't matter. Davidson got some open looks, and often made UW pay for them. If a team takes 24 threes and makes half, they're almost always going to win. That's just how it works. The three point shot is the great equalizer. This is the first time that I've thought "well, I'm glad they're moving the line back next year." It's gotten to be too much of an advantage.

Finally, I'm rooting for Kansas. I hope they stop these little handsy, "someone else does our laundry", three-ball brats. Seriously, UW's team is full of middle class kids, from strong families, like Michael Flowers. Davidson has a bunch of foreigners with questionable immigration statuses, and an NBA legacy with a hot mom, an Oedipal complex, and a family fortune in the tens of millions. Lame. Booooo. Enough free press for the darling Cinderella. I want to see Darrell Arthur hammer dunks over and over again. I hope Kansas friggin' stomps them.

If I sound more sane than you'd think I would, it's because immediately after the game, I went and cooked a grass-fed steak (from this place) according to this recipe. Holy Christ, was it good. I had a NY strip, so I added three more minutes in the oven. Best home cooked steak, I've ever eaten, hands down. Life seems a little less grim when you've been wonderfully fed. Anyhow, say goodbye to meaningful sporting events until the draft in April, the UW Spring Game, and Packer training camp in August. I guess I'll have time to finally read Dostoyevsky's "The Possessed". Crap sandwich.