2023-24 Wisconsin Basketball season thread

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 minutes ago, Samurai Bucky said:

What a huge tumble.  From 6th down to "also receiving votes".  Wow.  

They're still pretty solid in the measurables that matter a lot more, but yeah. I don't know if I remember a team dropping as far at this point in the season. I think their true value is somewhere between the two extremes. 

Saturday was yet another game where a few well-placed minutes of defensive energy from Kamari Mcgee might've changed the outcome. Hope he's getting close.

[Playing Catch]

17 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

They're still pretty solid in the measurables that matter a lot more, but yeah. I don't know if I remember a team dropping as far at this point in the season. I think their true value is somewhere between the two extremes. 

Saturday was yet another game where a few well-placed minutes of defensive energy from Kamari Mcgee might've changed the outcome. Hope he's getting close.

I think not having Blackwell available to inspire Storr to play better defense has also been an issue. I think they'd be a better team with those two trading their minutes totals.

[Oxy]

On 2/17/2024 at 4:10 PM, Jim French Stepstool said:

I heard someone bring up something recently about some sort of analytical thing. It's called Luck Quotient, I think. I don't know what goes into it but supposedly it rates UW as one of the more unlucky teams. After Purdue & todays' game with all the midrange shots going in I tend to believe it.

AFA officiating is concerned, it was really lovely to take back the goaltend call & take two points from Crowl several minutes after the fact. It certainly wasn't a goaltend, but not blowing your whistle in the first place gives Crowl the rebound under the hoop. Now that's taken away too. For the sake of mental health I'll just believe that crap evens out, even though Bill Schroeder says it doesn't.

Luck Quotient is basically how many close games you win or lose.  The 2 OT losses basically make us unlucky.

[yourout]

If I was going to guess they're going to go two and three over the last five before the tournament.

Not sure if that puts them on the bubble or if it still leaves them fairly solidly in the field.

[LouisEly]

Keep in mind, four of the last six have been on the road and one of the two home games was against the #2 ranked team in the country.

Every ranked team is losing on the road.  Once you get beyond UCONN, Houston, and Purdue, every team has at least five losses on the season.  There are top-15 teams with seven losses.

[Jim French Stepstool]

10 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

I think not having Blackwell available to inspire Storr to play better defense has also been an issue. I think they'd be a better team with those two trading their minutes totals.

 Interesting thought. When you look deeper into the numbers it makes some sense, but I'm not sure how Blackwell would hold up w/the increased workload in his freshman year if he was getting 11 more mpg. But he's certainly the more well-rounded player. Of course Storr has the albatross of having spent his first developmental year as a collegian with Rick Pitino.

[Jimbo]

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/college/uw/2024/02/19/former-wisconsin-basketball-player-larry-petty-died-in-late-january/72656012007/

 

OK, not related to this season, but I saw Larry Petty's obit in Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal.

I believe he would have been one of Bo Ryan's first recruits to UW(?)

#00 Larry Petty, along with Wes Matthews, Clyde Gains, Gregory Bros were fun to watch as a kid.  Maybe could have done better under a different coach?

ESPN's first college game was Wisconsin v DePaul and Petty would have been a part of that.

 

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 hours ago, Jimbo said:

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/college/uw/2024/02/19/former-wisconsin-basketball-player-larry-petty-died-in-late-january/72656012007/

 

OK, not related to this season, but I saw Larry Petty's obit in Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal.

I believe he would have been one of Bo Ryan's first recruits to UW(?)

#00 Larry Petty, along with Wes Matthews, Clyde Gains, Gregory Bros were fun to watch as a kid.  Maybe could have done better under a different coach?

ESPN's first college game was Wisconsin v DePaul and Petty would have been a part of that.

 

 

RIP Larry. He had a lot of issues early in his career--deaths in the family, conditioning, weight--that hindered him. By his last one or two seasons he was a solid college post player.

Petty was in Bill Cofields' second recruiting class along with Matthews, Claude Gregory & a couple others. Cofield amassed a mess of talent his 1st two years here, but I remember a quote from somewhere that he could bring in great raw talent, and within a couple years you'd have...........great raw talent. He just never seemed able to develop & refine that talent into a consistent group. But you're right Jimbo, it was a fun group to watch. We owe Cofield one big debt of gratitude. He brought Bo  to the state, first at the College of Racine (now defunct) & later to UW as an ass't.

I remember listening to a radio broadcast of that UW-DePaul game. My dad hadn't yet bought in to the newfangled cable thing; it may not have even been available in Milwaukee at the time.

[RedStickBrew]

Good first half again tonight. UW shooting it well and getting to the free throw line. Blackwell logged some great minutes defensively against Young. Too many turnovers again though

[RedStickBrew]

Pulled out the win despite another poor second half shooting performance 

[Samurai Bucky]

They certainly watched the Nebraska video -- double down on Crowl.  The Badgers need to get a better option when they double down.

Very very physical game.  I thought they could have called an offensive foul on Klesmit on the last inbound play for the Badgers.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Late to the party. 8:00 games suck when you're in the studio audience.

More proof that at the collegiate level it's still a guards' game. Klesmit & Hepburn were both really solid late, handled what was some pretty good full court pressure in the 2nd half, made good decisions. I thought Hepburn did a good job making Young work for his points. They closed out the game really well. Could've easily been an 8-9 point spread at the end, except a team that made two 3pt shots the entire game pulled three of them out of their shorts in the last minute. Yeah, we should've done a better job running them off the 3pt line, but still.....

I thought Ilver gave us pretty much what Gilmore does, except HIS misses were from outside rather than 2 feet. But he does force people to pay attention to him so if he's outplaying Gilmore in practice, and guarding people, I'm all for giving him Gilmores' minutes.

It was interesting--and correct---that Blackwell was in the game for Storr late (until he fouled out). Much more reliable in helping to deal with the press. And when he had his chances guarding Young I thought he did a terrific job. Damn, that kid is valuable.

Nice to be able to work around poor games from both Crowl & Winter. They were both defended well, but 5 turnovers from Crowl....ugh. Good thing Wahl was such a strong presence again.

Moment of silence for Larry Petty before the game. Very nice.

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

 

Very very physical game.  I thought they could have called an offensive foul on Klesmit on the last inbound play for the Badgers.

I think what happened there, was the refs were anticipating a flop because that was pretty much Marylands' last hope, to get that call. So unless Klesmit pulled a gun on the defender he probably wasn't getting whistled. From where I was sitting, I just saw the defender go down, didn't see enough to have an opinion. I know the refs were wearing pretty thin with both teams. Never could figure out what the 1st half "T" on Willard was all about.

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

They certainly watched the Nebraska video -- double down on Crowl.  The Badgers need to get a better option when they double down.

 

A dive into the lane is usually available, IF someone actually dives and IF you throw it right away. Crowl usually does an adequate to good job passing out of doubles IMO. Last night he definitely did not.

[yourout]

12 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

I think what happened there, was the refs were anticipating a flop because that was pretty much Marylands' last hope, to get that call. So unless Klesmit pulled a gun on the defender he probably wasn't getting whistled. From where I was sitting, I just saw the defender go down, didn't see enough to have an opinion. I know the refs were wearing pretty thin with both teams. Never could figure out what the 1st half "T" on Willard was all about.

They were brutally bad.

[Samurai Bucky]

4 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

 Never could figure out what the 1st half "T" on Willard was all about.

I wonder if he said the Magic Word (whatever that is/was)...

[yourout]

17 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

I wonder if he said the Magic Word (whatever that is/was)...

Probably something in French. Refs hate that. 😁

[Jim French Stepstool]

So, Indiana tonight. The short form is that this is a team that hasn't played consistently all season & has looked downright lousy at times, and it should be a UW win. I think it will be if Klesmit & Hepburn get into their guards defensively, making post feeds difficult. Reneau scored almost at will in the game in Madison & Ware, who sat out that game, can disappear at times but is very, very talented. Bigs gotta stay out of foul trouble.

Would like to see Hepburn stay on his roll. He's been scoring more while staying smart & not forcing many bad shots. After watching Illinois at PSU & Purdue at Ohio State in recent days, I'll take anything that results in us having more points at 0:00.

[RedStickBrew]

Blackwell is impressive again. He simply needs to stay on the floor as much as possible 

[RedStickBrew]

It would be nice if Ilver could find the range from 3. He gets plenty of open looks

[yourout]

Another crappy start.

[RedStickBrew]

3 minutes ago, yourout said:

Another crappy start.

Absolutely brutal 

[yourout]

6 minutes ago, RedStickBrew said:

Absolutely brutal 

They are not well coached but Indiana has some athletes.

Their bigs are light years better than ours.

[RedStickBrew]

2 minutes ago, yourout said:

They are not well coached but Indiana has some athletes.

Their bigs are light years better than ours.

It really seems magnified in this game

[RedStickBrew]

Heck of a job to claw back and get this one closer at half