Experienced Duo Knocks Out Wildcats

In a game where Wisconsin's lack of front court experience had everyone nervous, the senior back court said resoundingly, "don't worry 'bout it."

Jason Bohannon used a variety of moves to pull the Badgers even, 27-27, in a slowed-paced first half against Northwestern. Bohannon led all scorers with 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting, in spite of hitting only 1-of-5 on his 3-pointers.

Bohannon then passed the torch to Trevon Hughes. Hughes, apparently unsatisfied with his reputation as an ACC sniper, completely took over down the stretch. After 33 minutes of terrible shooting, Hughes caught fire, turning a three-point deficit into a seven-point lead that #13 Wisconsin (14-3, 4-1) never relinquished. Pop hit five of his last six shots, including 4-of-5 from distance to scratch out a 60-50 road victory in Evanston. [box score]

Both of the seniors played all 40 minutes. Sophomore Jordan Taylor logged 37 minutes in his first start, notching 7 assists and zero turnovers. Hughes led a balanced rebounding effort (each starter grabbed at least five) with 7 boards. Still, the three-guard lineup looked pretty gassed with five minutes to play, especially Taylor. But Bo Ryan's thoughtful timeout before the last media timeout allowed the team to maintain the momentum that Hughes was providing.

Having Hughes and Taylor on the floor together is very comforting when playing a trapping team like Northwestern -- I am not nearly as nervous as I would have been two years ago. This is a game that the team might have let slip away even last year. Hughes' sense of the moment and emotional leadership prevented that from happening.

For a some great new background info on one of tonight's stars, head over to Luke Winn's article at SI.com. It is very insightful, clearing up some common misnomers about the nickname "Pop" and digging a little deeper into Hughes' path to Wisconsin. I found it ironic that a national writer brought some of these items to light (I may have missed it if local articles covered this stuff years ago), so Winn should be applauded for that.

After picking up a huge win versus the Wildcats (12-4, 1-3), the Badgers will prepare for another important road game against red hot Ohio State. Like the Wildcats, the Buckeyes will throw some zone at Wisconsin so this was good preparation for Saturday.

Ohio State (12-5, 2-3) doesn't have much in the big man department either, so you might see roughly the same rotation (ie: no Jared Berggren). Mike Bruesewitz was efficient on the offensive glass, but the three reserves totaled only 18 minutes among them. In the absence of Jon Leuer, fatigue is going to be an increased risk.

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Oh, and this is also awesome: Club Trillion founder Mark Titus strikes mixtape gold. [video]

Ding-Dong, The Streak Is Dead

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Monday, predicting six more weeks of winter, but I am calling shenanigans. The "Deep Freeze of 2009" began to thaw tonight as Wisconsin closed out a big home win against Illinois to snap a ridiculous six-game losing skid.

I had a good feeling this week about the Badgers catching a break against the Illini due my reservations about Illinois' guard play. Those hopes were realized in a game where a Badger opponent was finally the one suffering from ice cold shooting. Illinois will have no complaints about the number of open shots it took. With center Mike Tisdale in foul trouble, Illinois had to rely on more outside shooting, which never materialized after a couple of early Demetri McCamey buckets. Illinois sank only 4-of-21 on threes. [box score]

You can attribute some of Illinois' 33% shooting to improved Wisconsin defense. For the most part, Wisconsin did a good job on the perimeter staying in front of penetration. McCamey was able to drive past Joe Krabbenhoft on a number of occasions, but the other Badgers picked up the slack to hold the Illinois sophomore to 12 points -- 13 fewer than he had in the previous meeting.

Wisconsin was impressive in the paint on both ends. With Keaton Nankivil sitting with a sore ankle, Jon Leuer got his first start. He and Marcus Landry combined to score 31 points and grab 12 rebounds. Jason Bohannon's hot start opened up the offense (funny how that works, huh?) so the post men could be aggressive going to the basket. This resulted in more free throw attempts for Wisconsin. More importantly, the Badgers made those bunnies that they worked so hard to get. Easy baskets and defense win games.

Though Wisconsin got pounded on the offensive boards, guys like Leuer, Landry, Krabby and Kevin Gullikson boxed out well so that those rebounds that Illinois did get were not automatically converted into gimmes around the rim.

If you compare the numbers from the Northwestern loss and this win, you realize that college basketball is just an odd thing. And it confirms that defense cannot really be measured, because Wisconsin did not all of sudden solve all of their defensive problems between these two games.




The Badgers shot better from the field and from the free throw line against the Wildcats than they did against the Illini. Wisconsin also outrebounded Northwestern, yet still lost. Really the only two areas where Wisconsin improved versus Illinois were turnovers and fouls.

The biggest bench contributions were Gullikson's post entries and Jordan Taylor's defense. Taylor also hit an important 3-pointer with about 12 minutes left to regain the momentum lost on J-Bo's missed dunk. If you count Tim Jarmusz, Bo Ryan went eight men deep. Rob Wilson saw three minutes and the team finally got to empty the bench again. A very good feeling ...

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

Badgers Tame The Same Old House Cats

If you saw the Power Poll from the other day, you already know I didn't think too highly of Northwestern in spite of their solid Pomeroy rating. Wednesday's beatdown at the hands of the Wisconsin Badgers may have doomed the Wildcats to lower end of the conference standings once again.

I find it amazing that Northwestern's football team can rise up every 8-10 years and put a nice product on the field, but the basketball team cannot seem to make any progress. Wisconsin's lead ballooned to 30 points in the second half, thanks to Jason Bohannon's sharpshooting. Bohannon actually quietly set or matched career highs in points, rebounds and assists. Wow. On the flip side, no Wildcat scored in double figures. [box score]

The Badgers have started out 3-0 in conference, but in my opinion, have bested three teams in the bottom half of the league. Associate head coach Greg Gard called the team's free-throw shooting the biggest disappointment of the night. A late rally by J-Bo and Marcus Landry left the team at 63.6% on the evening, so I suspect Gard had Trevon Hughes and and Jon Leuer (they shot a combined 3-of-9 on freebies) in mind when he said that. If that is the worst thing you can say about your team's performance, you are always coming away with a 'W' against Northwestern.

Wisconsin certainly had its way inside with Landry and Leuer, which was fun to watch. I mentioned before halftime that anything less than about 16 points from Marcus would be a disappointment. Unfortunately, he caught a few bad bounces on good looks, winding up with 12 points and five boards.

Leuer asserted himself early and often, stuffing the stat sheet with 15 pts (6-of-9), 8 rebs, 3 blks & 2 stls. His active hands and improved defense have led to an increase in playing time, much to the amusement of Badger fans.

Stats by StatSheet.com

Another positive was the starting backcourt combining for nine assists. A couple of Pop's dimes were particularly pretty. I am still amazed at how much criticism Hughes took after the Texas loss. It was totally uncalled for; Hughes is one of, if not the most valuable player on this Wisconsin team.

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Links:
- Iowa's Matt Gatens is the only Big 10 frosh to make BP's list of the Top 25 freshman in this "down year".
- I am hoping to get to a Madison Memorial game soon. I wish I could have seen the Spartans squeak passed Mike Bruesewitz's Henry Sibley squad last week, where future Badger recruits squared off against each other and fellow D1 talent.
- Harvard! Finally good for something besides hockey and spawning The National Lampoon. Can you say "let down" game? And Michigan fans, haven't we heard this Amaker story somewhere before?

A Cyber Shout Out

Over the last few days, you may have noticed the addition of a new website under the Links section along the right side. I don't know how I missed this site before, but Basketball State has really impressed me in the little I have been able to enjoy without becoming a subscriber. It's only a matter of time, truthfully.

Basketball State is an offspring of the Kyle Whelliston phenomenom and I don't mind sounding like fan of his because I am. However, the website's look, feel and content speak for itself. The front page is simple and attractive in blue and gray. Right away, you -- the NCAA basketball nutcase -- have access to information that you have to dig through a monster site like ESPN.com in order to get.

The most prominent features are:
- a trademarked up-to-the-minute ranking system that gives more weight to RPI, performance in recent games, efficiency and playing well at home
- a nightly college hoops scoreboard utilizing Google map technology
- national statistical leaders
- graphs and tempo free box scores for each team
- a revolving door of other goodies that includes anything you ever wanted to know about each NCAA Tournament to information on your most despised enemies -- the officials.

And you can get some of the content for free on your iPhone!

Peruse the site a bit if you can before being bombarded by the SIGN UP NOW! screens. Before long you might find yourself considering a membership like me, an admitted cheapskate.

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Yeah, so Wisconsin does indeed host a Big Ten contest on Saturday. Forgive me for not getting too revved up that Northwestern is coming to town. It's true that sophomore Kevin Coble, a former three-time prep Player of the Year in Arizona, returned to the team in time for the start of the conference season. However, despite Coble exploding for 34 points against Michigan, the Wildcats have lost all four of their Big Ten games by at least 10 points. It is going to be an apathetic crowd at the Kohl Center tomorrow night.