Things That Go Clang In The Night

The Night of the Grateful Red returned for its second incarnation last night at the Kohl Center. From missed layups and dunks in the first warm-up drill to a painfully developing slam dunk contest, the session looked every bit like the "first practice of the year" that it is.

Every year, I know this going in. Yet I still get that occasional twinge in my stomach, thinking "shouldn't these guys be better at this?" That is, until I get home and see similar contests across the league via the Big Ten Network's Midnight Madness special [highlights]. The fact is that all of these dunk contests are hard to watch.

This year's event did not include a scrimmage, so I was disappointed that we did not get to see any of the new players in action for the first time.

So on to the recap ...

This year's dunk contest field grew to five participants, including newcomers Ryan Evans and Rob Wilson. Keaton Nankivil got a nice dunk in after a try or two, but it was Morris Cain leading the way in round one. Rumors persisted that Evans was freaky athletic and that proved true as he topped Cain in the finals and capped the night off with an East Bay Funk-style dunk between the legs (after three or four tries, admittedly).

Prior to that, the seven contestants in the 3-point shooting contest displayed their skills behind the new white 20'9" arc. Jon Leuer struggled and his form still looks incredibly goofy. Frosh point guard Jordan Taylor handled himself well in his first performance on the new floor of the "Herb Garden." It was a great move to put Joe Krabbenhoft in this contest and believe it or not, he won it! We can only hope that is a sign of things to come. Maybe that has been the problem all these years -- Krabby is just too strong for the shorter 3-point line. Yeah, that's it ... too strong.

There was no way for Bo Ryan to top last year's dance video and I think they knew that. They tried to spice it up this time with an old school vs. new school dance-off between Bo and Marcus Landry that fell flat.

Despite adding cheerleaders, the whole dance concept is a little tired. However, it does give some individual flavor to each player as they are introduced. For example, Wquinton Smith is by far the best dance man on the squad. He could do Dancing With The Stars easily. I thought Jared Berggren, Tim Jarmusz and Brett Valentyn were awful. But then I saw J-Bo attempt to dance. Not pretty. Too timid. He is going to get grief from Bo all year long for that.

Final thoughts: Nankivil still looks like he should be able to pack more muscle onto that big frame of his. But after two seasons of waiting, maybe it's not going to happen ... While Wquinton was the same height as his dance team partner, Ian Markolf showed he was a legit 7-footer by kneeling next to his cheerleader and still edging her height-wise ... The cowboy hat during player intros might become an annual tradition. Last year it was Trevon Hughes, this time it was Krabby.

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Links:
- This running the hill business has taken on a life of its own. At any rate, I look forward to seeing the Bo Ryan's best-conditioned team yet.
- Mike Wilkinson is out of action due to a knee injury, so back in town for the Penn State game, he explained how fanatic Greek basketball fans are compared to Wisconsin football fans. The craziest part of the article is wife Alexis telling how she used to get death threats from Michigan fans. Ah Wolverines ... stick to football.
- One of my favorite new blogs is Jerry Tarkanian's Shark Bytes for the Las Vegas Sun. If you followed college hoops in the late '80s or early '90s, this will be a hilarious retreat.

Night of the Grateful Red

You remember the Hambone, right? Well, you only had to wait until right after the player introductions to see why Bo Ryan is still one of the best in the business. And by business I mean the "old man dancing a young man's dance"-business.

A highlight of tonight's "Night of the Grateful Red" at the Kohl Center was the video scoreboard showing Bo doing the Soulja Boy dance. He does these routines well enough to avoid embarrassment, but just well enough to be hilarious. The Big Ten Network has free coverage of the event, along with four other basketball tip-off events across the conference, on their website (IE only) if you need the visual fix. Bo blew everybody not named Howard Moore out of the water.

Of course, you can't tell much from a night of drills and contests, but you can pick up a few impressions:

- Keaton Nankivil is all limbs, even more so than I remember from his high school days. If he's not done growing, he might have a 10-foot wingspan by the end of the year.
- I'm not sure what J.P. Gavinski did during his redshirt season. He is still big and slow. By comparison, Greg Stiemsma looked like Kevin Garnett in warmups.

- According to his bio, Mike Flowers has worked on his endurance the most this off-season. I must say he did look thinner and faster to me. He is the unquestioned leader of the team.

- Following in his mentor's footsteps, Marcus Landry seems to be one of the kindest and most likable athletes on campus. He went waaaay out of his way multiple times to get to the kids in attendance to slap high-fives.
- I realize there is no way to say this without sounding racist, but ... seeing this team together for the first time on the floor instead of just on paper makes you say, "Wow, they have a very white team." The only reason this could possible matter would relate to recruiting, where frankly, this type of thing does matter to players. A kid is going to go play basketball where he feels most at home among other things.
Landry and Cain are from Milwaukee, Pop Hughes is originally from NYC and Flowers is home grown. That's it for diversity on this basketball team. It's a known fact that despite its progressive attitude, the UW-Madison campus struggles to maintain a significant African-American population among its students. The composition of the basketball team reflects that. One of the reasons why Chicago phenoms aren't knocking down Bucky's door is because when they come to hang, they run into a bunch of kids from up north that love ice fishing. Thankfully having Coach Moore on staff probably alleviates some of that disconnect. Besides, racial makeup has nothing to do with how well the team plays basketball.

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Question: Why does the three-point shooting contest stand the test of time and the slam dunk competition does not anymore?

It's an accepted premise even at the pro level. You get the same thing every time in the shooting competition, yet the minute someone gets on a hot streak, you're glued. On the other hand, unless you see someone dunk the ball in a way you've never seen before (almost never these days), the thing never lives up to the hype.

I was a bit off on my predictions. The highlight of the three-point shooting portion was Butch draining the whole fourth rack of balls ... and still missing out on the finals. Frosh Tim Jarmusz looked legit in topping Bohannon in the finals. The foursome in the dunk contest each had their moments, including a nice leaning one-hander by Flowers. However, the Landry-Flowers showdown left something to be desired.


The official Badger men's basketball blog on UWbadgers.com features a moment-by-moment breakdown of the evening. Look out for those 1940-41 throwbacks on Dec. 3 ...

Midevening Madness

Wisconsin's first public appearance of the season comes this Friday at "Night of the Grateful Red" which is UW's version of the now-diluted Midnight Madness concept. The sneak peak at a Badger practice starts at 7 p.m. and will feature a slam dunk and three-point shooting contest.

Former Maryland coach Lefty Driesell gets credit for starting the madness back in 1971 when he tried to get a leg up on the competition with the earliest possible practice. Hundreds of fans found out and showed up despite the late hour. A year later when the practice turned into a scrimmage, thousands of rabid basketball fans attended and a phenomenon was born.

Basketball hotbeds like Kentucky can sell thousands of tickets to Big Blue Madness and actually make money off of the first practice of the year. Thankfully for hoop heads, Wisconsin is still a football school and lets fans in for free. Ever since 2005, when the NCAA allowed schools to move the practice up to about 7 p.m., you would be hard-pressed to find a campus without such an event, each branded with its own variation of the "Madness" name.

Now, if I were a betting man -- and I am -- I'd say that either Marcus Landry or Trevon Hughes would win a Badger dunk contest. Hughes has the "wow"-factor advantage because of his small stature, while Landry is simply the most athletic player. But it's much more fun to just declare that Morris "Sugar" Cain will take home the honors.

As for the long-distance shootout, another pair of front runners jump to mind: Brian Butch and Jason Bohannon. I recall Butch taking home some sharp-shooting hardware at the McDonald's All-American festivities, but J-Bo is the clear favorite. Frankly, if Bohannon doesn't win this contest, I will be worried. For all the hype and hope Badger fans have heaped on the sophomore's shooting prowess, it ought to be in the bag. Considering the scoring void left by Tucker and Taylor, Wisconsin needs J-Bo to be a confident, dagger-tossing killer behind the arc. Every waking minute.

If you're more in the mood for an intra-squad scrimmage, the Badgers have one of those too, on Sunday, Oct. 21. I hope to personally take in a bit of each event and then report back on what haircut Greg Stiemsma will be sporting this year, which freshman needs to redshirt, and whether or not Joe Krabbenhoft is still frightened by open 16-footers.

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The Bucks beat the Bulls in LaCrosse in their exhibition opener last night. Now that the international Yi incident has been put to bed, the Chairman should concentrate on staying on the floor with better defense. Yi fouled out in 15 minutes of play. [See video here]

Don't worry Yi, you're not the only one.