Bucky, Meet Bubble

The 2008-09 Wisconsin men's basketball team in all likelihood will be remembered for one thing: being painful to watch in the last five minutes of games.

As the Badgers fell to Ohio State on Friday afternoon, not only did they fail to defend their Big Ten Conference Tournament Championship, but they also placed their NCAA tournament fortunes in the hands of a committee rather than removing all doubt. With the loss, Wisconsin dropped to 4-10 against RPI Top 50 teams.

For the record, I expect Wisconsin (19-12, 10-8) to get into the tourney on Sunday. A bid would extend the nation's sixth-longest current streak for NCAA tournament appearances to 11 years in a row. This equals current streaks by Texas and Gonzaga, although all three will move up a few notches if both Arizona and Kentucky fail to get in, as anticipated. Ohio State's win over Michigan State puts the Big Ten Tournament loss in perspective too.

But that 20th win would have looked nice. There are no guarantees of reaching that plateau now, meaning the spectacular back-to-back 30-win seasons might be bracketed by two 19-win seasons.

We should have seen it from the start though -- this is the same team that needed overtime to beat Iona and one of Marcus Landry's best games to bail them out at home against Long Beach State. Trevon Hughes' off-balance jumper was the only thing keeping UW from a total collapse at Virginia Tech (a team unlikely to get in). In that game, the Badgers let a 10-pt lead with less than seven minutes remaining slip to three points and then saw the rebuilt nine-point lead with under a minute left disappear completely. That scare might have been the Badgers' highlight of the season.

To be fair, Wisconsin has won a few games in the closing minutes, as it did with Idaho State. And to their credit Hughes, Landry and the defense closed out Penn State at the Kohl Center to begin the new year. Wisconsin swept a pair of bubble teams in Michigan and Penn State to get it's best road wins of the year. Wins at home against Illinois and a now solid Ohio State team -- plus a winning Big Ten record -- are the linchpins of UW's résumé. The Badgers beat (most of) the teams they should have, but consistently came up short at times they could have gotten marquee wins.

The chances were there. Marquette pulled away after trailing Wisconsin by double-digits several times in the first half in early December. Against Texas, a costly turnover by Joe Krabbenoft turned the tide in the final three minutes of a five-point loss. The Badgers battled on the road against a poor Iowa team, but got outplayed in the extra session. The first Minnesota debacle goes without explanation. A 13-4 Purdue run starting at the three-minute mark was the icing on another painful home loss. In yet another close game, Wisconsin led by a few points at Northwestern nearly the entire second half until -- you guessed it -- the Wildcats took the lead for good with 2:26 left.

All of that brings us back to this team's lack of execution when it matters most. Wisconsin completely breaks the needle, beyond empty, at crunch time. Even as the team improved down the stretch, the Badgers squandered a 12-point second half lead at Michigan State. They went the final three minutes without a field goal at Minnesota using the infamous "stand around for 30 seconds and then miss a long jumper" offense. Wisconsin made zero field goals in the final six minutes yesterday.

In that time, Wisconsin barely touched the post at all against Ohio State's zone, underscoring the need for better passers on the perimeter that can initiate offensive movement. Hughes has some explosive ability, but has proven unreliable in the facilitator role. Combine that with the lack of a true slasher to break down defenses and it is easy to see why the team struggles at the end of games. In the end, Wisconsin's defense is not as solid as the previous two seasons and cannot cover up for the offensive lapses.

What happened versus Ohio State was something you see in the NBA. Instead of turning the ball over, Evan Turner took over. He was the best player on the floor and neither Krabbenhoft nor Landry (especially with four fouls) could keep up with him. When a coach like Thad Matta exploits a favorable match up, Bo Ryan has had nothing to counter with this year.

Brackets and Award Winners Set in Stone

Wisconsin secures a fourth-place finish, thanks to tiebreakers
Playing Indiana was a fitting conclusion to the regular season, akin to Wisconsin going out and buying a snazzy new suit before the Big Dance. The Badgers looked great.

Wisconsin posted a season-best 140.5 offensive efficiency rating against Indiana, which is great since the Badgers allowed the Hoosiers to shoot 54% from the field. For once, the scrubs even extended an already sizable lead. Eleven different Badgers scored, including senior walk-on and secret blog favorite Morris Cain. Kevin Gullikson also played one of his best games ever. [box score]

Joe Krabbenhoft finished up his Kohl Center strongly, with a career-high 19 points and nine boards. Thanks for being a rebounding machine for the past four years Joe! Fellow senior Marcus Landry suffered four turnovers, but grabbed seven rebounds of his owned and tied a career high with six assists. Trevon Hughes added five steals.

But the snazzy suit UW dressed up in on Sunday didn't cover up all the pimples. A pair of freshman guards from Indiana (Verdell Jones and Nick Williams) torched the Badgers for 43 points on 13-of-19 shooting. Driving the lane and getting off good shots was just too easy a task for those two. I guess we should expect that sort of thing from UW at this point, but I was a little surprised how easily Jones burned Pop at times.

More importantly, though, the win wrapped up a "bye" into the Big Ten Tournament's semifinal round, thanks to Iowa's weekend upset of Penn State (which, oddly enough, also put an end to the craziest of the final week's conference standing scenarios). Wisconsin will play as the #4 seed versus Ohio State on Friday at 1:30 p.m. CDT. If they win, the Badgers would play either Michigan State (1), Minnesota (8) or Northwestern (9).

Minnesota has tortured this particular fan enough for one season and I want nothing to do with the Gophers as a potential Saturday foe. Assuming Wisconsin is a lock to make the tournament, a chance to upset the Spartans and improve its tourney seeding would be a great opportunity, especially since the Badgers gave one away earlier in the year to Tom Izzo & Co.

All-Big Ten picks revealed
Izzo was named Coach of the Year by the coaches as the Big Ten Network unveiled the conference's postseason awards. I thought Penn State's Ed DeChellis deserved the award and apparently the media agreed.

Beyond the coaches, the all-conference selections appeared fairly on point. I thought Krabbenhoft could have gotten a third-team nod, but Marcus Landry was the only Badger to be named to the all-conference second (coaches) or third (media) teams. I agree that Landry was the most consistent of the four Badger leaders.

Krabby and Hughes managed honorable mention nods from the media, but Joe was conspicuously absent from the same list by the coaches.

It was a foregone conclusion that the Wisconsin+Bo Ryan streak of consecutive first-team All-Big Ten selections was going to end after such an up-and-down season. In my opinion, it will be tough for Wisconsin to start another streak like this seeing as all five of the first-teamers were sophomores. In all, nine of the 15 players named all-conference were in only their second season of Big Ten play. Sure Hughes or Leuer could blow up next year, but it will take some major improvement. All in all, this is a huge positive for the conference though.

Michigan State cleaned up the awards, with Kalin Lucas winning a well-deserved Big Ten Player of the Year trophy. However, if I had a vote, I would have given Damian Johnson the defensive player of the year award over MSU's Travis Walton. Remarkably, Johnson was in the top 30 nationally in both steal % and block %.

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Links:
- Binghamton's top player gets blackballed by America East coaches in all-conference voting. Yet the coaches and athletic directors protested Coach Kevin Broadus' recruiting methods by naming him Coach of the Year?
- St. Mary's -- even with Patrick Mills back -- lost big to Gonzaga. But thanks to some heads-up scheduling, the Gaels get one last tune-up before the NCAAs.
- If you missed it, enjoy Wisconsin's video Senior Salute to this year's four-man graduating class.
- Mild Racine-Oregon connections lead to mild upset in the Jamil Wilson sweepstakes.

Big Ten Champs Grab A 3-Seed

Wisconsin will ride a 10-game winning streak into the NCAA Tournament as a 3-seed in the Midwest region. The Badgers will play Thursday versus Big West champion Cal-State Fullerton (24-8) in Omaha, NE.

I think the Badgers had a legitimate argument to be a #2 over either Duke or Texas based on performance in the last 10 games, but I'm not surprised that the Big Ten seedings were down in general. Wisconsin's thorough domination of Illinois to capture the Big Ten Tournament title did not come into play during the seeding process of course, thus Georgetown's loss to Pittsburgh and Texas' loss to Kansas could not drop them below the Badgers.

Still, UW fared better than other Big Ten teams. CBS' Seth Davis felt fifth-seeded Michigan State was a likely upset candidate, while Purdue fell to a 6-seed. The crumbling Indiana Hoosiers were given an 8-seed and Ohio State saw its bubble burst Sunday afternoon.

Looking ahead, I hope Michael Flowers has the chance to shut down freshman phenom O.J. Mayo. For the record, Wisconsin should advance to the Sweet 16 against either USC or Kansas State in my opinion, but first they will have to get past the 14th-seeded Titans, who have a shutdown defender of their own.

I'm still a little bummed about not getting third shot at Purdue this past weekend. As a consolation, UW has captured both conference championships in the same season for the first time ... hopefully the first of many conference trophy sweeps. More importantly, at 29-4, Wisconsin has every opportunity to win 30 games for the second year in a row and break the school record set last season.

The game also featured a couple of plays that are quickly becoming Wisconsin trademarks. Just as Jim Nance and Billy Packer were discussing the early days of NCAA basketball being financed by NCAA boxing income, Krabbenhoft laid out an Illinois guard with another vicious pick. It was the very same kind that knocked Eric Gordon down and temporarily made thousands of Illini supporters become Badger fans. Secondly, inbounding from under the opponent's basket against full-court pressure, Michael Flowers threw the ball off of the back of unsuspecting Calvin Brock to start an unlikely fast break.

The Badgers, Flowers in particular, routinely proved Packer clueless during the game by burying 3-pointers. Wisconsin hit 9-of-18 treys and only shot two free throws [box score]. Marcus Landry was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player and was joined on the all-tournament team by Flowers, who added three more steals against Illinois.

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Off-topic, today was my first exposure to the very sweet new Pontiac G8 GT commercial which recreates the old Spy Hunter video game. Two thumbs up!

Wisconsin Owns The 26th State

Even from Indianapolis, Wisconsin drinks Michigan's milkshake. And whatever Tom Izzo is drinking these days.

With two more wins this weekend, Wisconsin ran its record to 8-1 over the neighboring state's flagship programs in the past two seasons (and 5-0 this season).

Bo Ryan's crew made headlines with its plodding 51-34 demolition of Michigan (10-22) Friday, holding Big Blue to the lowest output in Big Ten Tournament history. The top-seeded Badgers started the game with a 10-0 run and added another 10-point spurt in the final minutes of the half to lead 26-18 at the break. When Brian Butch picked up his first foul immediately, with only 10 ticks gone by in the second half, I'll admit I panicked for a split-second. Luckily a 9-0 run ensued, powered by six straight from Marcus Landry, including a punctuating one-handed throwdown off a J-Bo behind-the-back pass that prompted a Wolverine timeout. Greg Stiemsma was able to pick up Butch's slack with relative ease, finishing with 7 boards and 2 blocks. [box score]


A big key to holding Michigan to 20% shooting was Michael Flowers shutting down Manny Harris. In the post-game interview with Erin Andrews, Flowers mentioned the previous Harris explosion as a possible reason he did not win conference Defensive POY, but he was more politically correct in the press conference afterwards.

Michigan managed only two points over the final eight minutes. No disrespect to the Badger defense, but that is simply an atrocity to the game of basketball. I don't mind commentators claiming that Wisconsin "won ugly" if the Badgers have a lot of turnovers and a low shooting percentage. The pace they like to play at will not cover up those things with a bunch of points. But whatever the pace, scoring 50% more points than your opponent is impressive. It's comparable to winning 90-60 in a faster-paced game. Glitzy television analysts will never acknowledge this.

The best thing I can say about Wisconsin's win over Michigan State is that I have full confidence in the Badgers winning any close game in which they are involved. Even though the team lost its best leader ever in the offseason, UW still starts two juniors and two seniors. Those two classes have racked up plenty of experience and will probably end up with the most victories of any two groups in Badger history.

Two such players, Brian Butch and Marcus Landry, paced UW with 19 and 18 points respectively; they teamed with Joe Krabbenhoft to grab 26 of UW's 34 rebounds [box score]. Butch shot 6-of-10 from the floor while Landry struggled -- although the begoggled one sank nine of his 13 free throws after missing four of his first five attempts.

My longstanding rule is that no matter how poorly Wisconsin plays the first 36 minutes, if it is within five points with four minutes remaining the game is theirs to lose. Such was the situation after Michigan State's bizarre parade of big men fouling out that started in the 35th minute. And much like the Texas game, Wisconsin played terrific basketball with Trevon Hughes out of the lineup. Watching the game, Hughes didn't really seem to be adding much to the offense prior to the umpteenth tweaking of his ankle. So the 24-10 run that Wisconsin used to close out the game really was not much of a surprise.

Izzo is not taking it well [audio]. Bo now owns an 11-3 record all-time versus MSU's headmaster.

In other Big Ten Tournament news, I said Minnesota would upset Indiana, but I sure did not predict the frantic finish to that contest. With a nice tourney run, Minnesota could have realized the promise of Tubby Smith's early-season boost. But alas, Illinois was the true Cinderella of this tournament, snipping the Gophers in another low-scoring affair. I would say that Illinois has no chance today versus Wisconsin, but sometimes dreams come true.


Links:
- Alando Tucker is headed back to the D-League: Tucker's blog
- Mike Bruesewitz scored 18 points to lead Henry Sibley to victory in the MSHSL Class 4A boys playoffs.
- Princeton will not continue in Class 3A after losing 73-71 to a Monticello team it had already beat twice in the regular season. Jared Berggren scored 18 points.
- Jacob Jenkins, a Class of 2009 "person of interest" talks about why he would love to play for Wisconsin.

Fine-Tuning the Tourney Machine

The goal for the Badgers during the Big Ten Tournament is to get another shot at Purdue and avenge their only two conference losses. Doing so would provide a most valuable boost of confidence for Wisconsin and display real improvement in adjusting to a quality opponent's more aggressive style. Proving themselves to themselves in such a scenario is even more important than impressing any selection committee.

Sure, this mostly worthless weekend is good for working out the kinks in a tournament setting, but there is no reason Wisconsin should slip up as in years past. Bucky's first victim, the Wolverines, have warmed up already, though they certainly did not get hot. Wisconsin and Michigan begin a busy Friday for the tournament and unfortunately the game is at 11 a.m. Central, which means Big Ten Network or not, most people won't be seeing this game live.

With the field pared down to eight to start the day, I see the only possible upset being Minnesota over Indiana. I know, I know ... that is crazy talk, considering Minnesota had to come from behind to beat Northwestern. But Tubby's team just needs to continue the play on both ends of the court that led to its 34-18 second half yesterday. It's tough to beat a team three times and Indiana has lost two of its last three games. The toll of the Kelvin Sampson saga is sneaking up at the worst possible time for the Hoosiers.

Plus, Minnesota has something to play for. If they win the Big Ten tourney, they're in! More realistically, the Goofs are jockeying for a position in one of the other postseason tournaments. Something that hasn't gotten any mention around Madison (and hopefully never does) is the brand new postseason tournament that will compete with the NIT for the bubble scraps. The College Basketball Invitational will be a 16-team field featuring a three-game series for the final round. Despite it's ugly stepchild persona, the NIT could always claim the bright lights of Madison Square Garden in its corner when it came to drawing teams after the NCAA selections. The CBI hopes to counter this lure by allowing teams to host up to five home games in the tournament. Fox will broadcast the games through its three college sports outlets (FCS Atlantic, Central and Pacific).

Update: Recruits, state tournaments, etc.
Jordan Taylor and Jared Berggren both notched big wins last night. Taylor blew up with 29 points for BSM in a 74-57 win over Washburn. The Red Knights will play second-seeded Academy of Holy Angels (notable alum: Larry Fitzgerald) next Tuesday in a sectional final. The two teams played a nailbiter earlier this season that BSM won thanks to another big game from Taylor. Princeton beat Annandale 62-41 in the Section 5 quarterfinals behind 24 points from Berggren. The Tigers play again on Saturday.

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Diamond Taylor's team was eliminated fairly early in Illinois's IHSA playoffs but Lenzelle Smith, Jr. is a name Badger fans might be hearing more very soon. Smith is a very athletic 6'3" shooting guard that Hoops Marinara has been tracking on the recruit list for 2010. His team, Zion-Benton, has advanced to the final four of the 4A state tourney. I guess he opted to skip the slam dunk contest, in which Isiah Nunn participated. Ah, few places do high school basketball better than Illinois.

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It looks Royce White might not have any trouble playing next season after all, according to speculation by Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

"Look for 6-foot-7 Royce White, considered the top high school junior basketball player in the state and recently dismissed from DeLaSalle for behavioral issues, to switch residences with his mother and become eligible for his senior season at a suburban Twin Cities school. The Gophers, who have offered a tender, remain in the recruiting hunt."

Even so, it was a somber moment when I officially removed White [Rivals :: Scout] from the list of UW's 2009 prospects. From the game recaps I have read this season, White seems to excel more in the AAU environment than a structured team scenario. (3/14 EDIT: Cooper, Hopkins and St. Bernard's are the basketball powers being mentioned now as likely destinations)

And if you think I've lost my mind with all this recruiting nonsense, something called Midwest Future Hoops Report is ranking 8th graders!

Broken Badgers

AP Photo/Brian Kersey
I wish my first post came under better circumstances. All in all, we saw a brutal finish to the Big Ten Conference Tournament.

Wisconsin did not display the heart of a champion this afternoon. The Badgers folded "like a two-dollar bill." Instead of attacking the intimidating Greg Oden, Wisconsin abandoned any semblance of an interior game plan, jacking up 23 three-pointers (shooting an abysmal 17.4%). Personally, I would have rather seen them go down swinging. I know Greg Stiemsma was ready to take a few swings ... something about Oden's beard gets the Steamer in a chippy mood.

Oddly enough, there were positives. Kam Taylor struggled through a tough first half to lead the team in scoring. He had a decent tourney and seems to have found his touch again. Stiemsma looks like he's growing into his role with increased minutes. And as we all know, Jason Bohannon is a breath of fresh air: 27 mins, 4-7 FGs (9 pts), 4 rebs, 2 assts, 1 blk, 3 TOs, 3 fouls.

The bad news, as expected: UW's bigs (Stiemsma, Marcus Landry, Jason Chappell and Joe Krabbenhoft) combined for eight points on 10 shots.

The result? A #2 seed in the Midwest Bracket and a trendy pick to suffer a second-round upset.