Senior Night Reflections

Click here to watch this year's senior class tribute.It was a great night at the Kohl Center for Badger fans as Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon relished their final performance in front of the home crowd.

The duo scored 12 of UW's first 14 points and set the tone for one final creampuff blowout against the undermanned Iowa Hawkeyes. From there, the rejuvenated Jon Leuer had his way, scoring 10 points in a row on dunks and treys to put Wisconsin up 26-10. The lead ballooned to 20 by halftime and got as large as 30. [box score]

Action got a tad sloppy as the players smelled the blood in the water and tried to make their own highlight reel play. Pop took some wild shots that ended up distorting his FG%, but you cannot blame a guy for trying to impress his momma in the stands, who was seeing her son play live in Madison for the first time as a Badger believe it or not.

Leuer, who finished with 18 points, might have stolen the show and even got to exit the game with the two seniors. In general, the Badger big men did whatever they wanted -- Leuer and Nankivil combined to shoot 11-of-13 from the field. With such a large lead, 15 different Badgers saw aciton.

But in the end, the focus was rightly on the seniors. Hughes finished with 15 pts, 4 rebs, 4 assts, 3 steals and 2 blocks with just 2 TOs. Bohannon finished with 11 pts, a career-high 9 rebs, 3 assts and only 1 TO.

Both seniors continued to move up the career list for 3-pointers. Hughes is finally knocking on the doorstep of the UW's top ten in career assists as well. He had a few beauties that resulted in huge dunks for his big men, which had recruits in attendance like Marshall Plumlee cracking ear-to-ear smiles. Pop also passed a few legendary Badgers on his way to tying Michael Flowers for third on the all-time steals ladder.

Player - Career Steals (Season Total)
1. Mike Kelley - 275
2. Tracy Webster - 183
3. Trevon Hughes - 171 (49)
3. Michael Flowers - 171
5. Mike Wilkinson - 169
6. Michael Finley - 168

Player - Career Free Throws (Season Total)
7. Devin Harris - 362
8. Sean Mason - 332
9. Trevon Hughes - 319 (92)
10. Dick Cable - 316

Player - Career Free Throw Attempts (Season Total)
7. Joe Franklin - 476
8. Paul Morrow - 449
9. Trevon Hughes - 443 (129)
9. James Johnson - 429

Player - Career 3-Point Field Goals (Season Total)
1. Tim Locum - 227
2. Kirk Penney - 217
3. Michael Finley - 213
4. Jason Bohannon - 208 (64)
5. Trent Jackson - 193
6. Devin Harris - 187
7. Trevon Hughes - 167 (66)
7. Tracy Webster - 167

Player - Career 3-Point Attempts (Season Total)
1. Michael Finley - 631
2. Kirk Penney - 561
3. Jason Bohannon - 539 (155)
4. Devin Harris - 499
5. Tim Locum - 481
6. Sean Mason - 471
7. Trevon Hughes - 465 (165)
8. Kammron Taylor - 430
8. Trent Jackson - 430

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 %.

: : :

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.

Amen!

Wisconsin, 2007-08 Big Ten Conference Champions
... for the third time in head coach Bo Ryan's seven seasons at the helm. 'Nuff said.

Almost. I wanted to comment on the game's box score, since I missed the second half to play our city league hoops game (an overtime thriller!)

First of all, this is the kind of carnage (final score: 77-41) that you like to see from a team entering the postseason. Critics can only knock your schedule so often if you are beating conference foes by 30+ points. In a game where seemingly everyone played well, Michael Flowers deserves kudos for putting up nine assists, two steals and zero turnovers while pulling down eight rebounds. Phenomenal. In fact, the the Badgers had 17 assists as a team, which is very solid. It appears that Jon Leuer is still cold, but J-Bo is back on track from deep. Greg Stiemsma's minutes were very impressive as well.

From the scoreboard, you might expect a few more players to be in double figures scoring-wise, but as was the case year all year until this point, this was a classy, team effort. And Tanner hit his trey to boot! I've dogged Tanner a bit in the past, but what he did for the team was very commendable and his feel-good story is something the whole state should be proud of.

Senior Video Tribute: http://uwbadgers.com/video/default.aspx?mid=2027

And speaking of Flowers, enjoy this piece about Mike and Max Bass, courtesy of the Big Ten Network: