Hoops Marinara

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Revenge Will Have To Wait

I was not feeling too good on Sunday afternoon and laying in bed watching the Badgers play poorly did nothing to raise my spirits.

Wisconsin had a great opportunity to put some useful distance between itself and the conference wannabes with a road win in West Lafayette, but the return of Robbie Hummel and Chris Kramer proved how much of a fluke an 0-2 conference start can be.

JaJuan Johnson had a double-double for the Boilermakers, but I think his great game was more of an effect, rather than the cause, of the 65-52 spanking delivered by Purdue. [box score]

Take Hummel for example. He played 28 minutes, scoring 16 points and grabbing five rebounds. No one on the Badger roster was able to stick with him on the court. Hummel shot 4-of-8 from behind the arc and I swear every outside shot he put up was uncontested. You could see it coming ahead of time: Landry, Leuer, Nankivil, Krabbenhoft, Jarmusz ... I cannot remember who all got a chance to guard him, but you saw the defender going under a pick repeatedly, giving Hummel just enough separation to hit a few daggers. And to their credit, the Boilers found their go-to guy in the right spots.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's best offensive players did throwing up terrible shots and then missing tons of easy ones. I am looking at you Mr. Landry, Mr. Leuer and Mr. Hughes. Very simply, UW came out flat and nothing went it's way as a result. Once again, Wisconsin shrank and cowered in the face of pressure defense, rather than exploit it.

Make no mistake: Purdue's defense was outstanding. They consistently extended pressure on the ball all the way to half court and basically suffocated the Badgers, who settled for too many jumpers. Wisconsin hit 6-of-20 threes (30%), but I think any time UW hoists more than 15 or 16 from that range, you know that the offense is out of sync.

To be fair, neither backcourt was very impressive in this game. Wisconsin held Purdue's leading scorer, E'Twaun Moore, to four points on 1-of-12 shooting. I cannot recall who guarded Moore, but I know Jason Bohannon got blown by a few times, so maybe Moore just had a bad day finishing too. J-Bo did not make up for it on offense either.

While Bohannon was merely invisible for most of the game, Trevon Hughes was just bad. This came on the heels of the Capital Times giving Hughes props for developing into a top on-ball defender. Though it was not very evident from the box score, I thought pint-sized freshman Lewis Jackson schooled Hughes on a number of occassions, both offensively and defensively. Hughes finished with five turnovers, matching his season-high from the UConn game.

I was really disappointed (and surprised) that Rob Wilson did not get more playing time. The team needed his aggressiveness and I have to nitpick at Bo Ryan's rotation in this game. Yes, Wilson is a freshman and it was a tough road environment, but what did Bo have to lose?

I never thought I would say this, but Joe Krabbenhoft was clearly the best offensive option on the court for Wisconsin. With Wilson collecting dust on the pine, Krabby was the only one playing smart, aggressive basketball. He missed only one of his seven field goal attempts and was the onnly Badger in double figures.

On the bright side, I watched the Illini absolutely crush the Hoosiers on Saturday and thanked the Wisconsin Athletic Department out loud for splitting up the Northwestern and Indiana games on the half-season ticket packages.

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Links:
- Get the mainstream media and one blogger's perspectives on the recent #1 vs. #2 class in Minnesota prep hoops. Mike Bruesewitz and #2 Sibley fell, 77-66, to the high school all-star team known as Hopkins. Everybody is already anticipating a rematch for the state title in March.
- The Wages of Win Journal concludes that the more Devin Harris shoots, the better the New Jersey Nets play. Check out Table Two for a comparison between Harris and an average NBA point guard. The mythical "Wins Produced" projection tells you what Badger fans already know: Devin is the man.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

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?

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Big Ten Power Poll: 1/7/09

Injuries are already causing havoc within the Big Ten standings.

A bad back has rendered Robbie Hummel ineffective over the last few games. Without Hummel and Chris Kramer in the lineup last night, Purdue dropped to 0-2 in conference play with a loss at Penn State.

David Lighty's extended absence has sent Ohio State into a tailspin, adding to the troubles the Buckeyes were already having at point guard. The team has lost three of its last four games and will get little help from the schedule. Ohio State gets the gift of Indiana squeezed in between four straight road games to start the Big 10 season.

Anthony Tucker's slow return from a suspension in Iowa is also being attributed to an illness now. It's no surprise then that the team who recently welcomed back a key player is atop Hoops Marinara's first Big Ten Power Poll of the season.

With Goran Suton back in the starting lineup for the past four games, Michigan State is heating up. Road wins against Minnesota and Northwestern, plus Tuesday's win over Ohio State puts Michigan State alone in first place with a 3-0 record.

Wisconsin, who has avoided the injury bug so far, is the only other undefeated team in league play and hosts Northwestern on Wednesday night. The Badgers posted an impressive win in Ann Arbor and then withstood the Nittany Lions to start 2-0. Bo Ryan's crew boasts the second-best non-conference strength of schedule among Big Ten teams and always seems to have the right stuff come January.

There were only three Big Ten teams (MSU, Purdue, Minnesota) left in the traditional polls entering the week. Meanwhile, the conference settled into fifth amongst all conferences in Ken Pomeroy's ratings. While the league might be as competitive as it has been in years, chances are the teams will be beating up on each other, preventing the true breakout year that many anticipating in the early going.

So despite four teams with three games played already (and Indiana with only one), let's get this inaugural list underway, shall we?

Rk	Team	Record (Conf)	Poll Avg	Pomeroy	Key Wins
1	Michigan State	12-2 (3-0)	10	23	Texas,@Minn,OSU
2	Wisconsin	11-3 (2-0)	34.5	48	@VT,@Mich
3	Minnesota	13-1 (1-1)	20.5	63	L'ville,OSU
4	Illinois	13-2 (1-1)	30.5	21	Mizzou,@Purdue
5	Purdue	11-4 (0-2)	14	18	BC,Davidson
6	Penn State	13-3 (2-1)	-	65	Purdue
7	Michigan	11-3 (1-1)	27	57	UCLA,Duke,Ill
8	Ohio State	10-3 (1-2)	34	42	@Miami,ND
9	Northwestern	8-4 (0-2)	-	39	Fla St.
10	Iowa	11-4 (1-1)	-	50	Iowa St.
11	Indiana	5-8 (0-1)	-	226	TCU

Monday, January 5, 2009

Thoughts On The Devon Hodges Commitment

Things are suddenly looking a bit brighter in the land of Badger basketball. On the heels of Wisconsin's 2-0 start in Big Ten play, Bo Ryan's program received their first pledge in the 2011 class from Romeoville, Illinois sophomore Devon Hodges.

From what I have read, Hodges does all of his damage from inside the three-point line. He played a little center for Romeoville last year as a freshman and at age 15, could still grow a few more inches. Hodges has 31 blocked shots this year in 10 games.

Corralling Hodges continues one of the recruiting trends of the Bo Ryan-era: pouncing on virtual unknowns quietly before their recruitment heats up. Many fans probably are hearing about Hodges for the first time today, or maybe last week when the scholarship offer was reported. The exact same thing happened with Ryan Evans late in the Class of 2008. While it is way too early to tell what kind of returns Evans and Ian Markolf will bring, Jon Leuer was another player that Bo's staff went after vigorously before most other major programs. Others that did not sign with Wisconsin include Florida's Chandler Parsons. The staff has a good track record for evaluating talent.

Wisconsin's Class of 2011 still has three scholarships unaccounted for to replace an outgoing class of Jon Leuer, Keaton Nankivil, Tim Jarmusz and J.P. Gavinski. Getting a player of Hodges' size and athleticism in this particular four-player class was a must. Finding a point guard in this class is also key. The state of Illinois is deep at this position in the current crop of high schoolers.

Hodges' verbal gives Howard Moore his second verbal commitment from the Land of Lincoln in the past 10 months (Diamond Taylor '09). Moore has obviously built up nice visibility and a good rapport with the Illinois Wolves AAU club that both Hodges and Taylor have played for. This signing bodes well for UW's chances with a couple of other Wolves to whom Wisconsin recently offered scholarships.