Beanie Baby Badgers

Tuesday night's game against Purdue is one of Wisconsin's most important games in years. The momentum that has raised expectations over several seasons is on the verge of crumbling. The aura of invincibility surrounding the Kohl Center is fading. Onlookers are questioning the team's toughness. Beating the Boilermakers could restore the luster of the home court and make the statement that the Badgers will not ride silently into the sunset of this year's also-rans.

Then again, Wisconsin is in the kind of trouble that one game cannot fix. The last time the Badgers lost four games in a row was the final four games of the 2005-06 season, when UW went one-and-done in both the Big Ten and NCAA tournament. Despite RPIforecast.com projecting Wisconsin's final RPI to be in the top 40, the program is riding the worst Big Ten losing streak of the Bo Ryan-era.

The general consensus to start the year was that this was one of Bo's most talented teams from top to bottom. Wisconsin returned four experienced upperclassmen who contributed to back-to-back 30-win campaigns. So was everyone wrong about this team's talent? Does this bunch of players just not have the proverbial it?

One thing most people can agree upon is that Wisconsin has regressed defensively. The Badgers have an adjusted defensive efficiency rating much lower than in the previous two seasons, currently ranking 70th rather than in the top ten according to Ken Pomeroy's system. This places them in the middle of the pack in the improved Big Ten. In addition, bad positioning and perhaps a lack of inside size have led to UW committing far more fouls than usual, as John Gasaway's satire illustrates. In a related note, Wisconsin is shooting fewer free throws per field goal attempt and and scoring a lower percentage of its points from the charity stripe as well. The Badgers are taking the punishment, but not dishing out much themselves.

Once you accept these facts, it is easy to try connecting the dots from poor defense to less intensity, from lower intensity to a decrease in toughness. Even Bo questioned the hustle and toughness of his team this year. When faced with pressure, whether literal (UConn, Marquette, Purdue, Minnesota) or situational (Texas, Minnesota again, Iowa), Wisconsin's players shy away more often than they step up.

Take a look at the roster. Over the past two seasons, Wisconsin has bid adieu to one bonafide go-to player (Tucker), a streaky, fearless gunner (Kam), a tireless, lockdown perimeter defender (Flowers), a mobile, shotblocking presence capable of the occassional cheap shot (Stiemsma) and a fiery 7-foot former McDonald's All-American (Butch). Each of these players had a swagger about them. Several were true leaders and confident enough in their own abilities to take risks.

In case you missed it, Badger Centric took a fresh angle on what's been ailing the Badgers -- not enough bad shots from aggressive players. At the very least, an interesting thought. The current Wisconsin players appear uncomfortable stepping into the role of carrying a team on their back when needed. Balanced teams are great (see: 2007-08), but what you and I fear is a collection of highly-rated role players.

Having a team of skilled, "soft" players is not the only problem right now, but it cannot be swept under the rug. The toughest guy on the team is Joe Krabbenhoft, hands down. Krabby had an excellent game against Illinois, perhaps the only bright spot amidst terrible Wisconsin shooting. [box score] It is hard to spot any of his teammates playing similarly, however. I could make arguments for Tim Jarmusz and Kevin Gullikson possessing that intangible toughness and hustle, but neither is skilled enough to crack the rotation's top seven. That is a problem.

Jon Leuer is probably the most aggressive Badger offensively and you can see shades of that trait already in Rob Wilson. (Speaking of Wilson, Bo simply did not play the freshman enough against the Illini, which was inexcuseable in my mind. Wisconsin desperately needed his length and athleticism to slow down Demetri McCamey, as well as someone to shake things up on offense). In the starting five though, Trevon Hughes is the closest thing to a go-to guy and he's already been benched once this year. Marcus Landry and Keaton Nankivil are too laid back. Jason Bohannon is beyond laid back.

Collectively, Wisconsin has been forced out of its comfort zone. As a team and as individuals, the response has not been up to snuff.

Right now, I see a bunch of complimentary players. To turn the season around, Wisconsin needs to find some warriors.

Big Ten Power Poll: 1/23/09

I guess it was time for a shake-up. Eight teams changed positions in this week's power poll, with the top and bottom of the league stable, but everything else up for grabs.

With Purdue healthy again, the Boilermakers have been Hummeling along nicely. Along with Michigan State and Illinois, Purdue has emerged as one of the clearly stronger top three teams that has started to put some imaginary distance between themselves and pack behind them. While those teams just feel superior when you watch them, I call it imaginary distance because no one is too far ahead in the win column this early in the year.

My rankings try to give strike a balance between a snapshot of how each team is playing at the time and the overall body of work. Unexpected swings can be expected from week to week, but overall movement should never be more drastic than a few slots.

For instance, Northwestern just posted the best pair of back-to-back wins the Big Ten has seen this season when it spanked Minnesota at home and then toppled Michigan State in East Lansing. The Wildcats had lost four in row previously and if you look at their schedule, could continue to build a nice winning streak. But in reality, the stars have probably just temporarily aligned for Northwestern, thus they only managed to sneak up to #7.

Northwestern jumped both Ohio State and Michigan; the Wolverines continues to be underwhelming in my book. Wisconsin is completely out of sync but remained at #6 since the last two losses were near-misses in overtime. Still, Wisconsin and Michigan share the conference's longest non-Hoosier losing streak at three games. It could get worse before it gets better for Wisconsin over the next five games and Michigan's next six games on the schedule appear brutal as well.

	Rk	Team	Record (Conf)	Poll Avg (Jan. 19)	Pomeroy Rank	Key Wins
	1	Michigan State	15-3 (5-1)	7	23	Texas, @Minn, Kan, Ill
^	2	Illinois	16-3 (4-2)	24.5	16	Mizzou, OSU, @Purdue
^	3	Purdue	15-4 (4-2)	18	14	BC, Davidson, Wis, @Minn
v	4	Minnesota	16-3 (4-3)	20.5	49	L'ville, @Wis, OSU
^	5	Penn State	15-5 (4-3)	-	68	Purdue, Mich
v	6	Wisconsin	12-6 (3-3)	-	40	@VT, @Mich
^	7	Northwestern	10-6 (2-4)	-	43	Minn, @MSU, Fla. St.
	8	Ohio State	13-4 (3-3)	31	47	@Miami, ND, @Mich
v	9	Michigan	13-6 (3-4)	41.5	75	UCLA, Duke, Ill
	10	Iowa	12-7 (2-4)	-	79	Iowa St., Wis
	11	Indiana	5-12 (0-5)	-	249	TCU

Big Ten Power Poll: 1/16/09

Thursday night's game in Madison not only determined which team would rise to sole possession of second place in the Big Ten, but also held the key to whether it would be Wisconsin or Minnesota behind Michigan St. in the second Hoops Marinara Big Ten Power Poll.

The result was not 100% definitive, but it points to good things for Minnesota down the road. And for Wisconsin? A total lack of momentum. The Badgers drop to fifth this week in the poll, behind a couple of other teams who also helped to clear up the conference race a bit earlier in the week: Illinois and Purdue.

The Boilermakers were not that impressive in Evanston, but managed to escape with a victory. Survive and advance, I suppose. Illinois, however, is firing on all cylinders right now. Led by goofy 7-footer Mike Tisdale, the Orange Crush put Michigan in its place ... smack dab in the middle of the conference ladder. There was no movement in the bottom half of the league.

Four teams have played five conference games at this point, with everyone else at four games. Minnesota improved the most over the last week according to the Pomeroy numbers (even Wisconsin improved despite back-to-back losses), while Northwestern and Penn State took the two significant tumbles in those rankings since the last Power Poll.

	Rk	Team	Record (Conf)	Poll Avg	Pomeroy	Key Wins
	1	Michigan State	14-2 (4-0)	7.5	24	Texas,@Minn,Kan
^	2	Minnesota	16-1 (4-1)	17.5	40	L'ville,@Wis,OSU
^	3	Illinois	15-2 (3-1)	27.5	16	Mizzou,@Purdue
^	4	Purdue	13-4 (2-2)	19	18	BC,Davidson,Wis
v	5	Wisconsin	12-5 (3-2)	33.5	37	@VT,@Mich
	6	Penn State	13-5 (2-3)	-	76	Purdue
	7	Michigan	13-4 (3-2)	24.5	51	UCLA,Duke,Ill
	8	Ohio State	12-3 (2-2)	44	41	@Miami,ND
	9	Northwestern	8-6 (0-4)	-	56	Fla St.
	10	Iowa	11-6 (1-3)	-	63	Iowa St.
	11	Indiana	5-11 (0-4)	-	237	TCU

The Missing Ingredients

What a choke job from the Badgers. Wisconsin made Minnesota look like high schoolers for 33 straight minutes in the middle of Thursday's game. With about three minutes left, Tubby Smith FINALLY reapplied full court pressure and the wheels came off.

Then the Badgers looked like the high school team. The trademark defense that Wisconsin rediscovered in the first half melted away like strawberry jello. In the waning moments of the second half, Minnesota drove to the rim at will to dump in uncontested layup after uncontested layup.

Normally you would expect the team who rebounds well, takes care of the ball and scores more off of free throws to win, but the disparity in easy buckets by the end of the game was too much for UW to overcome. [box score]

Stats by StatSheet.com

On the other end, Bo Ryan's crew had no idea where to go for a key bucket. The referees stopped bailing them out. Were they gassed? Marcus Landry certainly did not have the legs to power in the available looks he got in the post. On numerous occasions, players like Landry, Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon failed to finish on the press break when open layups were presented to them (although I think J-Bo's was goaltended). The result was a heartbreaking 78-74 overtime loss.

Wisconsin was no better than Northwestern tonight, who also handed over a victory to a ranked opponent. So instead of continuing to blog in disbelief, I'll leave you with the story I would have written if the Badgers had held on ... you know, if Wisconsin was actually a quality team this year ...

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Poise. Movement.

Wisconsin's offense possessed both of those ingredients against #18 Minnesota for 33 straight minutes in the middle of Thursday night's game. As a result, the Badgers were able to turn a terrible start on its head, dominate the Golden Gophers and deny Minnesota its first win at the Kohl Center.

Oh, and one more thing: Defense

Most viewers were probably wondering what took Tubby Smith so long to go back to the full court pressure that made the first four minutes of the game pretty miserable for Wisconsin. Well, the Badgers were playing lock down defense for the remainder of the first half and continued doing a decent job on defense through much of the second half. Without being able to score, Minnesota could not speed up the game with a consistent press.

That brand of defense has been the element most absent from Wisconsin's game plan so far this year. If the Badgers can sustain that kind of defense (closing out on shooters, disrupting passing lanes and rebounding) for 40 minutes, UW will be a conference title contender once again. Defensive intensity, poise and good movement on offense are the three missing ingredients to a successful 2009 season.

Kevin Gullikson, of all people, opened up the offense for Bo's boys. Gullikson -- aka Captain America -- played a superb first half. He made spectacular entry passes to Landry and it was contagious. You had players cutting to the hole religiously and effortlessly, which led to easy buckets when the Badgers kept their eyes peeled.

I cannot believe Gullikson did not get more minutes actually. This is the first time I remember genuinely questioning how Keaton Nakivil's career will turn out with the Badgers. The sophomore forward is giving his team zero quality minutes right now.

Once again, Trevon Hughes shows how valueable he is to Wisconsin. Pop really toyed with the Gopher guards for the majority of the game. Except for some lapses when Minnesota reapplied a the late press, Hughes was virtually flawless in the second half. The transformation was remarkable.

But my fists were still clenched through the whole game -- with good reason. Minnesota was determined to make it a battle and frustrated many of the Badgers with pressure. Nothing new. With Jordan Taylor not yet trustworthy, the only reliable ballhandlers/decision-makers other than Hughes are Bohannon and Joe Krabbenhoft. Neither of them are quick enough to get separation from quicker players, which comes back to bite the Badgers in those situations.

Tim Jarmusz did not have a good game. To be honest, I question why he was in the game at the end against the full court pressure -- he's almost out there by default. His handle is not that good and he is not quick enough to get open either. One of those wide-open 3-pointers would have been nice Timmy.

On a brighter note, Wisconsin made 12-of-14 FTs over the last nine minutes of the second half to salt away the win. The Badgers finished 23-of-28 (83%) from the charity stripe -- a pleasant surprise.

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Finally, there were more than enough questionable calls in this game to warrant mentioning. And for the most part, I thought Wisconsin got the better end of the deal (non-Badger fans are toasting their brethren right now). And Ed Hightower wasn't even involved ... just his running mate Ted Hillary.

The calls/non-calls included:
- Paul Carter's goaltending on J-Bo's shot
- Hughes' fourth foul when he poked the ball out of Westbrook's dribble
- The whirling Westbrook drive that ended in a surprising and-1 ... I didn't see any contact there
- Damien Johnson got screwed when he cleanly blocked Pop's layup attempt in the closing minutes.
- Johnson was also called for a foul earlier when blocking Landry's jumper ... looked clean

Recruit Review: 1/12/09

Now seemed like as good of a time as any to recap the weekend for those soon-to-be Wisconsin Badgers still playing at the high school level. Hopefully this can become a regular addition to the site, much like the Recruiting Roundup over at UMHoops.

For more details on each recruit, seek out the Prospect Profile pages in the recruiting sidebar. The collection of news, videos, stats and pictures opens up once a player has verbally committed to Wisconsin. Four such players donned their school colors this weekend, with mostly positive results ...

2009

:: Diamond Taylor led Bolingbrook to a 68-40 win against a depleted Romeoville squad in the second head-to-head meeting between future Badgers this season. The Raiders (10-4) were not impressive during a four-game losing streak earlier in the year, but it is good see Taylor leading the team back. The senior guard scored 19 points and was instrumental in a 10-0 first quarter run that gave Bolingbrook control. The most recent Wisconsin recruit, sophomore Devon Hodges, paced Romeoville with 10 points.

:: The recent Twin Cities battle in which Hopkins topped Henry Sibley, 77-65, has already been documented here. Standout forward Mike Bruesewitz did not have his best game, but got to the line and was his usual self on the boards (10 rebs). Bruesewitz continues to show off his versatility against the toughest competition. With Sibley's guards unable to handle the pressure imposed by Hopkins, Bruesewitz took over some of the point guard duties in the second half for the Warriors. The previous week, Bruesewitz had 20 pts, 11 rebs and 5 assts in a tough loss to Madison Memorial before posting 20 & 12 in a win over Tartan. Sibley (8-2) will try to bounce back Tuesday night against North St. Paul.

2010

:: Madison Memorial traveled out of state yet again this past weekend. The Spartans (9-0) took care of business, too. Jeronne Maymon's monster game led Memorial past the Lafayette (Mo.) Lancers, 65-62, in a St. Louis-area invitational on Saturday. Lafayette features senior forward Tyler Griffey, a well-regarded Illinois recruit, and just recently dropped out the area's top ten rankings. Memorial junior Vander Blue aided the winning effort with two more 3-pointers en route to 17 points. Blue's outside shooting ability was one question mark about his game coming into the season, but he is systematically removing that criticism with each passing week, hitting multiple treys in six of nine games so far. A well-rounded Blue will be much more valuable on the perimeter for Bo Ryan's offense once he hits campus in the 2010.

:: Eau Claire North took its first loss in the Big Rivers Conference last Thursday, 47-44, as it continues to wait for center Evan Anderson to return from his ankle injury. The 6'11" Anderson is expected to return at the end of the month, but will probably be eased back into the lineup.

2011

:: See above. I hope to have an interview with Devon Hodges on Hoops Marinara in the near future. Stay tuned.