2023-24 Wisconsin Basketball season thread

[Oxy]

8 hours ago, Oxy said:

I would be happy with a 79-52 victory.  81-49 would be even better.

91-79 was not on my radar.  At the half that is a crazy unlikely score and not great.  When it was 49-42 with 15 mins left or so, I'll obviously take it.  When it was 67-44 with 12 mins left or so that's a CRAZY ugly score.

What a streaky game.  Ws are good.

[homer]

This is nuts:

Klesmit's offensive stats in the last four games – against Ohio State, Northwestern, Penn State and Indiana – look more like video game numbers: 14 of 20 from three-point range (70.0%), 26 of 38 overall (68.4%) and 12 of 13 from the free-throw line (92.3%).

[LouisEly]

13 hours ago, rickh150 said:

Badgers gave up 40 points in the last 10 minutes of the game! Has that ever been done to a Badger team? Ever? AND in a double digit win?

31 points - with 10 minutes left Indiana had 48.

Wisconsin scored 50 in the second half, 22 in the last 10 minutes.

[stoutdude04]

Not sure how that wasnt a goaltender on Klesmits layup.

[yourout]

Disappointing end to the half.

[RedStickBrew]

They never seemed to get in a good offensive rhythm but still up 10 at the half- I’ll take it

[yourout]

Talk about not coming out of the locker room.

Yuck.

[yourout]

Letting the gopher bigs Drape their arms all over on defense.

[yourout]

That block on Storr was all hand or arm and no foul call.

[yourout]

That was not a charge.

[RedStickBrew]

Didn’t play great on the road again but the win is nice

[AKCheesehead]

Never a doubt. Only saw the 2nd half that was an interesting on  

[yourout]

2 minutes ago, RedStickBrew said:

Didn’t play great on the road again but the win is nice

Ugly win but still a W

[OldHeidelberg]

Road wins in the B1G always huge, especially love them in that place. Very happy with the win,  ugly or not.

[Jim French Stepstool]

To me that was a toughness, veteran win. Hepburn with great defense when we were up 1, forcing an air ball. Wahl with the tough boxout, drawing the foul, and hitting both throws. Down one, Storr taking matters into his own hands to draw the foul ala a Finley or Davis, and making both. Not as splashy as his last 3-4 games, but I thought Klesmit was solid again.

While spelling Crowl during a crucial point in the game, Winters comes up with a tough rebound in traffic. Another step forward.

Other than a cold shooting 1st half & being poor from the line, I thought Minnesota played us pretty damn well. My biggest disappointment was the halftime wraparound minutes. We got up by 15 in the 1st half, then the last 3 minutes ran our offense  like we expected to be up 15 the rest of the night. Then the energy jolt from Minny coming out of the locker room, which we responded to poorly.

Missed McGee. He would've been useful spelling Hepburn chasing Hawkins around.

Any road win in the league is big. Got three of 'em now.

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

So, unfortunately it sounds like Kamari McGees' injury is more serious than originally thought. The ankle is immobilized & he's on a scooter to put zero weight on it. Not expected to miss the rest of the season, but "out indefinitely" is the phrase they're using. One of the players was referring to "a few weeks" absence. Obviously right now no one knows for sure.

I think we'll see Isaac Lindsay soak up some minutes in the 1st half of games like he did Tuesday. Klesmit can handle pg duties, but with all on his plate on both ends of the floor I think Gard will try to limit that added responsibility as much as he can. I assume Tyler Wahl will help bring the ball up, especially when Hepburn gets a blow.

Makes a tough task a little tougher tomorrow. Michigan State seems to finally be putting some things together.

 

[Oxy]

This team has the makings of something special.  Best UW offense ever outside of the FF teams (Who [statistically] are among the best offenses in the history of analytical college basketball).

@Nebby and PU at the Kohl this coming week will reveal if they have the chops to win a title or just be content with being good.

[Playing Catch]

1 hour ago, Oxy said:

This team has the makings of something special.  Best UW offense ever outside of the FF teams (Who [statistically] are among the best offenses in the history of analytical college basketball).

@Nebby and PU at the Kohl this coming week will reveal if they have the chops to win a title or just be content with being good.

Their defensive efficiency numbers are screwy this season. They have games like the last couple of games when they look very good (like top 25 defense in the country-good). But then you look at the PSU game and your eyes bleed. It's hard to not just throw out the Arizona game as an outlier. Then you have games like Indiana and Jax State, where they just took their foots off the gas in blowouts. If their "true" defensive value is top 25, then they are definitely F4 contenders, and if they can avoid a gauntlet like the 2015 team faced, they could win a title.

The leaders need to start talking about it, too. Stating their ambitions out loud.

[Oxy]

2 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

If their "true" defensive value is top 25, then they are definitely F4 contenders, and if they can avoid a gauntlet like the 2015 team faced, they could win a title.

The leaders need to start talking about it, too. Stating their ambitions out loud.

That's a good way to state it.  The '15 team could and would beat anybody- as many times in a row as it took- because they were that good. This team seems like it needs the right matchups to win 4 in a row.  And then of course 2 more after that--but it is within the realm of possibility.  There isn't a team in the country this year as good as a '15 UW, UK or Duke.

[Jim French Stepstool]

It seems to me that college BB is reverting back to home court being a huge factor, even more than recent seasons (no #s to back that up, just an observation from watching games this season). UW didn't shine vs Arizona, but those guys played awfully well in front of the home crowd that day. Providence & Penn State were real clunkers defensively. They have individuals that can guard, and guard pretty well. I think they're still trying to develop it within the team concept (switching properly, going under or over screens, etc) and just fighting for the consistency on that end. Gave up 66 last night & it could've easily been 6-8 points less as MSU made some fairly tough 2s in the 1st half & got a couple friendly rolls. I think the D is on the right track.

[Jim French Stepstool]

What I specifically loved about yesterday:

Gard likes to shotgun some breathers so starters can be fresh/not in foul trouble come crunch time. So yesterday, eighteen first-half points from the bench. Terrific.

Hepburn made Tyson Walker work REALLY hard for his (I think) 11 points. If there's an award for MVP in a league while averaging single-digits in scoring he'd be one of the front runners.

I think the relentlessness Wahl shows around the cup is starting to rub off on Crowl a little. He still gets outfought sometimes but it's getting rarer by the game.

From his quotes it sounds like Gard is going to live with some of the questionable shots from Storr, because of his ability to make enough of them to get on a roll. Some of his takes make me cringe, but fortunately a lot of them are of the "NO-NO-NO-YES! variety.

Gotta talk to the ticket holders in our row. About half a dozen MSU fans wound up with the seats. Oh well, as long as they're kept quiet..........

[Jim French Stepstool]

23 minutes ago, Oxy said:

 This team seems like it needs the right matchups to win 4 in a row.  

A team with an athletic 6-5 to 6-7 guy who can score in different ways--in other words, a Storr--would be a tough matchup. It would cause some shifting around since Storr probably wouldn't be up to the task defensively.

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

 Then you have games like Indiana and Jax State, where they just took their foots off the gas in blowouts. 

Yeah. Hopefully that's in the rear-view mirror. MSU tried for a late push yesterday & couldn't get closer than twelve, which I guess is a good sign.

[Samurai Bucky]

I was a little concerned when the Badgers had 71 points from 8:41 until 3:24.  They were jacking up threes, not touching the post, and seemed to be almost lazy on offense.  I understand that they were up by 18 when that started, but it was a little frustrating.

[Jim French Stepstool]

44 minutes ago, Samurai Bucky said:

I was a little concerned when the Badgers had 71 points from 8:41 until 3:24.  They were jacking up threes, not touching the post, and seemed to be almost lazy on offense.  I understand that they were up by 18 when that started, but it was a little frustrating.

I think what they were doing at that point was trying to shrink the game; still get good shots, but take 20-25 seconds. Which I think is a sound strategy. But you're right. You can do that & still get the ball inside, and they went away from that. It's a fine line to take a little more time & still execute and they didn't do a great job of it. Still, the lead never got below twelve,

IIRC Hepburn was out for a portion of that time, which may have had something to do with it.