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 ...

Scratch That: Another Chicken Stays in the Coop

Word came out yesterday that Sterling, Ill. junior Joseph Bertrand has verbally committed to Illinois, swiping one of Wisconsin's prime '09 recruiting targets right off the table. Bertrand is capable of playing either guard spot and will probably wind up playing point guard for the Illini even though he's said to be still growing.

The commitment completes a very nice recruiting class for Bruce Weber, one he sorely needed if you ask those who live and bleed orange. All three players are well-regarded backcourt talents, which could lead to a hellish flashback for opponents in a few years. You cannot blame Weber for trying to recreate the Dee Brown/Deron Williams/Luther Head magic. Combine his 2009 class with a top-notch freshman guard (Demetri McCamey, from Isaiah Thomas' alma mater) and an early commitment from 5-star stud Jereme Richmond for 2010 and you just wonder why it took so long.

While it is sad to remove an excellent player's name from UW's list of potential signees, the completion of Illinois' class means that the Badgers have playing time and open arms to offer Bertrand's capable AAU teammate Diamond Taylor.

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.

Note to Self

Full calendar months passed without posting: 1

New players signed to Wisconsin men's basketball program: 0
Internet-reported offers extended to high school superstars: 6

Days until Wisconsin opens the new season vs. IUPU-Fort Wayne: 40
Changes to the official tip-off time to accomodate Packers fans: 1

Weeks until Wisconsin visits Duke: 8
Weeks until the Badgers beat the Blue Devils: 8

Could It Be ... Yi?

I felt like I should get at least one post in during the month of August, even though it has been one of the busiest months of my life.

My plan to discuss some of the recent Badger basketball history and players over the course of the summer turned out to be a complete sham. As I found out, continually updating the site with recruiting info through the dry spell involves many unexciting rumors and wasn't nearly as worthwhile as I anticipated.

Luckily, the only news pertaining to Wisconsin basketball lately has involved the horrors of the Big Ten Network implementation. As of now, 11 of UW's 18 conference games are scheduled to be shown on the BTN. So if you don't have DirecTV, good luck catching every Badger game. Both the cable companies (like Charter) and the BTN can suck an egg.

More pertinent news came yesterday with a few roster moves that affect the Milwaukee Bucks. In Yi Jianlian's case, the calm came after the storm. Larry Harris and the Milwaukee brass quietly got the deal done that they had to get done. They even traveled to China (*gasp*) and it looks like everyone will save face. Even Yi's cute girlfriend.

As expected, however, Ruben Patterson moved on to greener pastures -- and warmer weather -- after having a career year with the Bucks last year. So in the course of one day, Milwaukee lost its best defender and took on another player who will perennially be in the running for "worst defender."