Badgers’ Remaining Depth on Display In Exhibition Win

After a preseason marred by injuries to projected starters Mike Bruesewitz and Josh Gasser, there was plenty of concern in the UW basketball program about the team’s ability to build the depth needed to withstand a grueling Big Ten season. And while UW-Oshkosh is no Indiana, the Badgers definitely outplayed expectation in their lone exhibition contest, a 96-44 win Wednesday night at the Kohl Center.

Despite the lopsided final tally, the Badgers did indeed face some early adversity with the Titans jumping out to a quick 7-0 lead. But after pushing that lead to 10-2, UW-O found itself powerless as the Badgers responded by closing out the first half on a 42-8 run, putting the game well out of reach at the halfway mark.

While many were looking to see how freshman Sam Dekker would perform in his first game at the college level, the surprise of the night was the impact of Air Force transfer Zach Bohannon. Having previously been known primarily for his family ties and political stances, Bohannon made his case for attention on the court Wednesday night, finishing with 7 points and 8 rebounds (6 offensive) in just 15 minutes of action.

Although Dekker had an unspectacular but productive 5 point, 5 rebound, and 3 assist effort, the Badgers got plenty of production elsewhere. All five starters crossed into double figures led by senior forward Jared Berggren’s 16 points and 7 rebounds. Filling in for Gasser, redshirt freshman guard George Marshall looked very much a capable replacement, ending the night with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

Senior forward Ryan Evans picked up where he left off during the 2011-2012 campaign, notching another double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Without a player over 6’7”, the Titans were simply outmanned. Wisconsin continued to hammer UW-O in the lane all night, finishing with a commanding 46-18 advantage rebounding, including 18 offensive rebounds that led to 21 2^nd chance points.

UW figures to face a stiffer test in the trenches next week when they face No. 10 Florida in Gainesville next Wednesday. But in the limited preview Wednesday at the Kohl Center, the Badgers certainly looked to be on top of their inside game and confident on the boards and in the lane. That is definitely a positive development for a team that last year seemed at times hesitant to get the ball inside.

While much of the attention now shifts to the marquee matchup with the Gators next week, Wisconsin will first open its regular season with a Sunday matinee against Southeastern Louisiana. The Lions (12-17 in 2011-2012) will also be opening their regular season on Sunday having won their lone exhibition contest 94-42 Wednesday over Millsaps College.

Certainly the temptation to overlook Sunday is there, but one thing that injury cannot take away from this Badger program is the mental discipline that head coach Bo Ryan has instilled throughout his tenure in Madison. So while you may decide to tune out and wait for Wednesday, the Badgers know there is plenty of work to be done in the meantime.

Badger Losses Tough To Handle, Not To Overcome

Last Saturday afternoon may have felt like the end of the world to the Badger faithful. At virtually the same moment (5:26 pm), UW lost its lead on Michigan State and lost its point guard to an ACL tear.

End of the world scenario, right?

Wrong.

First lets address what happened at Camp Randall. Sure, losing to Michigan State on the last play of the game (again) is tough to swallow. Having that loss snap a 21-game home win streak that dated back to 2009 made it that much worse.

But at the end of the day, Wisconsin is still one road win (at Indiana) away from clinching a spot in the Big Ten championship game. No matter what happened today, that was going to be the case.

Once the sanctions against two of UW’s leaders division foes were announced this summer, the Badgers knew that the road to Indianapolis lie simply in victories against Illinois, Purdue, and Indiana. The first two stops having been successfully completed, Wisconsin is still right where they needed to be heading into the month of November.

Should the Badgers have won at least one or two of the three games they’ve lost (by 3 points each) this year? Absolutely. But even if they had, they would still be in the position they are in right now. Nothing was lost in overtime on Saturday.

In fact, it might serve as a focusing mechanism if anything. No longer can Wisconsin even dream of a decent bowl bid without the Big Ten title. In a manner that is clearer than ever before, it is “Rose Bowl or bust”

“Obviously its not good at all,” UW senior running back Montee Ball said. “But we still have everything in front of us.”

More concerning is the injury Wisconsin freshman quarterback Joel Stave suffered on the opening play of the 2^nd half. Sacked on a second rush, Stave immediately knelt down clutching his left arm and was seen after the game with that arm immobilized in a sling. Given the continued ineffectiveness of former starter and current backup quarterback Danny O’Brien, the Badgers are surely concerned about the impact Stave’s injury will have going forward.

While Bielema didn’t go into much detail, he did admit that the loss of Stave put Obrien in a tough situation Saturday.

“It really didn’t matter what quarterback was in there,” Bielema said after the game. “But the change of the quarterback changes the game itself.”

Thankfully for Obrien, Stave, and the Badgers, a bye week looms ahead. With the pivotal game against Indiana on the horizon, that off week will be crucial for UW to get healthy and get ready to continue their quest to get back to Pasadena for a third straight year.

“I think the options we had before today are still there…” Bielema noted. “We can’t lose anybody that doesn’t want to believe in finishing this thing out the right way.”

The same mantra holds true for the Gasser injury.

Sure, the Badgers lose arguably their most consistent presence on the floor, the only player on the roster to have started for an extended stretch in each of the last two seasons. But at the same time, redshirt freshman George Marshall is more than capable of plugging that gap.

Marshall is a completely different player than Gasser and is sure to have his fair share of growing pains as he adjusts to life in the Big Ten. But he is also capable of giving the Badgers a level of explosiveness at the point guard position that is simply not in Gasser’s game.

Where the injury will hurt this season is in the depth department. Setting aside the Bruesewitz injury (which he should be back from around Thanksgiving), UW will now be left with at least two new starters and just one player (sophomore Frank Kaminsky) with meaningful game experience available off the bench.

In the backcourt even that experience is non-existent as Traevon Jackson will likely be thrust into the backup role having had just 92 minutes of playing time at the college level.

But while depth could be an issue, the easy remedy to that lies in a surprise player, perhaps the emergence of freshman Zac Showalter or a significant contribution from junior Duje Dukan. Thanks in large part to the versatility of freshman Sam Dekker, the Badgers can fill the void left by Gasser’s injury as much with the “bigs” as with the guards, perhaps moving Dekker into the two guard spot to give UW a small, athletic starting five.

Beyond this season, the Gasser injury could (assuming a full recovery) become a small blessing in disguise. With another guard set to join the team next year (Bronson Koenig), UW can now build a bit of the depth in the backcourt that has been sorely lacking in recent years. One look at Jordan Taylor’s minutes last season and its obvious that Wisconsin hasn’t had a viable option off the bench in quite some time.

Gasser going down obviously sends Wisconsin outside the ranks of the top 25 at this point. With Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State all bringing back rosters more than deserving of their top-15 rankings, it figures to be a monumental task for head coach Bo Ryan to get his Badgers into the top-4 in the Big Ten for the 12^th straight season under his command.

But if there is a coach out there capable of turning this UW team into a contender when March rolls around, it is Bo Ryan. Having never finished outside the top-4 in the Big Ten while at Wisconsin, Ryan is a master at getting the most out of his limited resources.

Now faced with losing his starting point guard on the eve of the season, Ryan faces his toughest task yet as the Badger head coach. Is it a tough task? Sure. But by no means is it a task the school’s all-time winningest coach is unable to handle.

Badgers Release 2012-2013 Schedule

Although much of the college sports world will be focused on opening night in college football, Big Ten men’s basketball made headlines Thursday with the release of its 2012-2013 schedule. With conference matchups now set, the complete season schedule for Wisconsin is known.

Following a much improved non-conference slate highlighted by matchups with Florida, California, Creighton, Virginia, and Marquette, UW will begin the Big Ten slate at home on January 3rd, 2013 against Penn State, a team the Badgers swept in their 2012 season series.

“Its nice to have that first game at home,” UW junior guard Josh Gasser said. “But looking at the Big Ten schedule, there are no easy wins.”

The Badgers’ conference schedule is clearly highlighted by a January 15^th road date at Assembly Hall against national No. 1 Indiana. After winning both matchups last season (regular season in Madison and Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis), Wisconsin has now taken 10 straight from the Hoosiers dating back to 2007.

“We didn’t play {at Assembly Hall} last year but its definitely one of the toughest environments to play in,” Gasser said. “Its going to be even tougher this year because they are one of the top teams in the country.”

Some of the marquee home dates include a January 22^nd game against Michigan State (the first game after students return from the winter break) and a President’s Day weekend matchup with Ohio State. Last season, UW faced the Spartans on January 3^rd, with most students still home for the holidays and most of Badger nation still in a daze from the previous night’s Rose Bowl loss.

“Our students are pretty good at coming to games but it’s a lot tougher over break,” Gasser added. “It’s a good thing to have those big games when the students are around.”

With the conference now composed of 12 members, UW will face four schools just once during the 2013 season: Indiana, Northwestern, Michigan, and Purdue. The matchups with Michigan and Purdue will be in Madison, with a February 20^th date in Evanston complementing the aforementioned trip to Bloomington earlier in the year.

The Badgers will close out the regular season just as they started conference play, visiting the Bryce-Jordan Center for a date with Penn State on March 10^th.

The Big Ten Tournament, moving this year to Chicago’s United Center, will begin Thursday, March 14^th and run through Selection Sunday, March 17th.

Although national expectations are once again down for this UW program, the Badgers have yet to finish outside the top 4 in the conference standings during Bo Ryan’s 11-year tenure in Madison. With the schedule pitting the Badgers against the highly touted teams from Indiana and Michigan just once, it seems unlikely that streak will come to an end, especially with Wisconsin returning four starters from a 2011-2012 team that wound up reaching the Sweet 16 for a 2^nd consecutive season.

“Its exciting because every game means something,” UW junior guard Ben Brust said. “We’ve got to bring it every night.”

Uthoff and The NCAA: Part 1

Uthoff Situation About The Wrongs of NCAA, Not Just UW

Since it became public knowledge that former UW men’s basketball player Jarrod Uthoff would be barred from transferring to some 25 D-1 schools as a condition of his scholarship release, there has been no shortage of outrage against the Badger program and specifically against head coach Bo Ryan. But if you take a step back and avoid allowing your emotions to guide your response, you quickly realize that this isn’t about Uthoff, Ryan, or even Wisconsin at all. It’s about a broken NCAA in dire need of reform.

Yes, per usual, it’s the rules that are at fault, not the actors subject to them.

Think about it this way: You come to Madison as a freshman and before you step foot on campus, you have already found a job working at Union South. You get there and start working, are on time and on task, but find after a few months that the job isn’t working out for you.

You could quit the job. You do have that option.

But lets say you have to work or you wont be able to afford school.

And there isn’t another job available.

So you keep working but in the mean time you spend some of your free time looking at other options. In the process, you come across a work study program at Indiana that would not only provide you with the funds necessary to stay in school, but also provide a job that is perfect and would work perfectly with your major.

You go and speak to your boss at Union South and tell them you are going to take the opportunity at Indiana next year. You offer to work the rest of the year and thank them for the opportunity but just as you are leaving your boss tells you….

We have restricted your release so you can’t go to Indiana. You are welcome to see if Purdue has a spot.

Wait, what?

This is absurd.

But this is exactly what the NCAA has set up for its precious “student athletes”. Pick a school while you are a senior in high school and sign away four years of your life to that school, whether you like it or not.

And it isn’t even a two way street. As Kentucky head coach John Calipari has demonstrated on more than one occasion, the schools themselves are not beholden to the restrictions placed on student athletes. If a player just doesn’t fit into the program anymore, they are thrown out into the cold. Scholarships are a one-year deal, renewable at the school’s option and the school’s only.

I dislike the growing “free agency” in college sports as much as anyone. In fact, my distain for it had blurred my ability to rationally think about the whole situation until now. In a perfect world, there would be no transfers.

But as a transfer student myself, I also realize that we do not live in a perfect world. I chose to attend UCLA while a bright-eyed high school senior, enticed by the allure of Southern California and the prestige that comes along with “being a Bruin”.

It took me a long freshman year to realize that wasn’t a good basis upon which to make a decision as important as where to go to college.

19-year-olds make mistakes and it is simply wrong for the NCAA to add fuel to the fire with transfer restrictions.

The other wrinkle in my own story is that I was technically an athletic transfer, subject to those same restrictions. Thankfully I had and continue to have a good report with the UCLA golf coaching staff, but had I done something to upset them prior to leaving the school (like I had done with the basketball program, another story)

Ultimately, as the NCAA loves to remind us, nearly all college basketball and football players will be “going pro in something other than sports”. If we are to take the NCAA at its word, then competitive considerations shouldn’t get in the way of a student-athlete’s future.

  

Badgers Made The Most of the Season Despite Loss

As soon as Josh Gasser’s desperation heave missed the mark Thursday night, ending Wisconsin’s season, I knew the Bo Ryan critics would be back out in full force. Yes, despite the fact that the Badgers have just made the Sweet 16 two years in a row for the first time in program history, there is a vocal minority out there calling for the UW head coach to be replaced.

The head coach who became the winningest coach in Wisconsin history with the Badgers’ Big Ten tournament win over Indiana.

The head coach who has never finished outside the top four in the Big Ten in eleven years at the helm in Madison.

It would be one thing if these numbers had taken a hit, but these critics aren’t coming out after a disappointing season. Though many Badger fans are unable to get beyond the four home losses and the “early” NCAA Tournament exit, the 2011-2012 season was one of the more remarkable campaigns in the 100-plus years that basketball has been played at UW.

In fact, I would argue that Bo Ryan had his best season as a coach, taking a team that lost two of its top three scorers and still managing to win 26 games, the third most the program has ever recorded in a single season.

The reason that the critics are out there is clear: Bo Ryan has never reached a Final Four. While a national title is the ultimate goal for every team every season, very few coaches are able to turn the dream into a reality.

Hall of Fame coaches like Gene Keady (Purdue) and John Cheney (Temple) never reached the promise land.

In 37 years at Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has only been to the Final Four three times, winning just one national title. And having a roster filled with future NBA stars certainly helps that cause.

Even John Wooden, considered the greatest coach in college basketball history, spent two years at Indiana State and another 13 at UCLA before making his first run to the Final Four.

Even fewer are able to do so at a school like Wisconsin.

Madison is a great place to go to school: we all know that. But when it comes to recruiting the big names in high school basketball, the tranquility of the Terrace on that infrequent sunny day cant compete with the glitz and glamor of Westwood, the hoops hysteria of Duke and UNC, or the tradition of Phog Allen Fieldhouse and Kansas.

After suddenly becoming one of the preeminent programs in the college basketball world, the Badgers certainly are worthy of the high expectations that fans have begun to levy upon them. But while it would be nice to think that Wisconsin could simply get top talent and start playing a style of basketball conducive to regular Final Four trips, that simply isn’t reflective of the reality in which Bo Ryan and his staff have built a top-notch program that gets just about everything it can out of the circumstances.

As someone who used to be a student at a “powerhouse” basketball school, I can tell you that the grass certainly isn’t greener.

At Wisconsin we have a basketball team that works hard, plays hard, and does things the right way. Oh, and they haven’t done too poorly on the court either.

On the other hand, the big name schools also have big name issues. Top talent comes with big time egos, egos that someone result in a bending of the rules and almost always result in a tenuous battle between national title contention and sudden mediocrity.

Personally, having seen both sides of the proverbial coin, I would choose Wisconsin every time. I would much rather have a team that I can count on being in the NCAA Tournament year in and year out, not to mention doing so within the rules (as far as I can tell).

Since Bo Ryan took over as head coach, no program has had as many years with an NCAA Tournament win (10) as Wisconsin. No one.

Yes, it would be nice to finally get over the hump and make a run to the Final Four. And yes, it hurts to see the Badgers come oh so close and fall short once again.

But don’t lose perspective. What coach Ryan has built at UW is something truly special, something that all of us should be proud to be even the slightest part of. Now is certainly not the time to throw all of that away.