Cool Hand Lucroy

Can't fault the effort today. Shooting crazy hot from 3 obviously helps. Holding their own defensively, Michigan getting a good whistle. Bring it home. My biggest worry defensively is the inability to create turnovers. Guys shoot SO well these days. That big run they had in the first had a lot to do with grabbing a few steals. No TOs in the 2nd half for Michigan.

Badgers are 19.5 point underdogs in Ann Arbor tomorrow. That is...crazy, but you can't say Michigan hasn't earned it. Obviously, not a game you expect to win, but looking at the schedule, there aren't too many marquee opportunities left for the Badgers. @Indiana? Iowa at home? For sure @ Purdue and Illinois and MSU at home. @Minnesota is a higher quality game than the computers think right now, I guess. I like this Gopher team. They look like they are rounding into form. We'll see if they can beat USC (late in OT as I post). Not getting Nebraska, Illinois, or Indiana at home hurts. Those would all be winnable Q1 opportunities. Point is, it's a quirky B1G schedule situation, so this team is going to have to either a) get on a real roll in all their non-marquee games or b) win some games as at least moderate underdogs.

Good thoughts. Noted that sequence too. Wasn't going to matter for the result, but hopefully more teaching material. About halfway through the year, and it's weird to not have more of a sense of what this team can be. The good news is, more than any other sport, you just have to be playing your best in the last two weeks to make a lot of noise. That's still my hope for this crew. Get one big win that kind of pulls it all together, and there are advantages to that coming mid-January as opposed to mid-November.

Game slowed down a bunch in the second half, which is how UCLA wants to play. Badgers just built too big a lead for it to matter. That's a nice win. Probably the best of the year to date. I don't think they can beat Michigan, but I'd like to see them keep it competitive. Wolverines have been untouchable at home, though they really had to hang on in State College tonight.

It's really hard to know what to think of this team. They have beaten everyone they should've beaten and lost to everyone better than them (maybe TCU excepted). Still a lot of game left here, but Purdue seems better by a lot, as was previously mentioned. Teams like Wisconsin have lots of opportunities to get big wins. They still have a lot of chances, but you have to start taking them. My worry is this team isn't capable of beating the top 4 or 5 B1G teams, even at home. You just HAVE to get one or two of those to have any shot at dancing. Right now, my assessment is what it was after the Nova game: this Badger squad CURRENTLY looks like less than the sum of its parts.

I severely dialed back my NFL consumption after that loss to the Seahawks in the NFC title game. I'd like to think it was because that was the year the Frontline doc on CTE came out. It probably has just as much to do with the nature of the loss. I caught the end of the game last night, and, while there was some residual feeling, the biggest thing I focus on is just the nature of the contact. Every play. You have to wonder how sustainable that is, but the cultural reservoir runs deep. It did for boxing way back when too, so who knows. The real leverage point may come in 2028, with flag coming to the Olympics in LA. Does that sport get on a growth curve that starts to, bit by bit, diminish the NFL? Seems unlikely, but football at all levels feels more and more like a bubble to me. It might take 20 years to pop, but I'd short it long-term if I could.

I am reminded a little of the 2015-16 team a that started 9-8 and then Bo abruptly retired. Lost to Western Illinois out of the gate. Took some time to gel. Ended up one possession away from the Elite 8. I don't think this team can be THAT good, but it's a hopeful comp.

Yeah, great thoughts in both posts. I think you're especially right about the defense looking improved, and that's a positive takeaway. We might look back on this one in February and think it said more about Nova than Wisconsin. Let's hope so. Looking at the noncon, we didn't take any bad losses. That's good, since, provided we take care of CMU and Milwaukee, there are not many bad losses left on the schedule. Maybe a Q3 here or there if we really play poorly at home against a bottom of the B1G opponent. But that's not a bad place to be in. Of course, this team is going to have to win some games against much better competition than Villanova to have a real shot to do anything in March. I think it's fair to call Nov/Dec a clear disappointment. Luckily, what matters in NCAA is how you play in the new year. This team still has potential. It's just gotta find the right combo and get some of the bench guys to take a step up, as you said really well.

My takeaways from this one: To start, college basketball seasons are funny things. You play thousands of possessions. Flip a dozen, and it's the difference between elation and devastation. This was one of those games tonight. It's a big dividing line in the season (the end of competitive nonconference play), and the result is the difference between feeling pretty good and being clearly disappointing. We ended up on the wrong side of that tonight. It doesn't mean the season is over. It just means that, RIGHT NOW, we're on the outer edges of the bubble as opposed to the inner ones. Carrington being hurt really impacted us. This was his kind of game, and him being unavailable meant we were without a confident, athletic guy when we really could have used one. Rapp, Bieliauskas, and Janicki all looked tentative and didn't bring anything to the table offensively. They looked clueless at times. Willard went zone at some key points, and we really struggled with it. I thought that flipped the game after we cut it to 5. He goes zone, Nova gets a couple stops and goes on a 7-0 run of their own. Some bad luck/tough whistle situations too. The possession where we had a stop but Nova threw up prayer and got tangled up with Blackwell hurt. I also thought we failed to clear the defensive glass at several points early in the 2nd, which made it harder to get back in it. When we pushed pace, we had more success. A couple of sloppy dribbles from Boyd, but I'll live with that in a game where you really want to speed the other team up. One issue I have with Gard is that he has never really been quick to allow full-court pressure. He's not a great switcher of defenses, and it hurts us in games like tonight. When you play fast and you have really good guards, you need to ask them to exert pressure in the backcourt more often. Not doing that allowed Villanova to limit possessions more effectively, and it made getting to overtime feel like a massive victory. Villanova reminded my of some of the old Badger teams. They were ANNOYING. Scrappy, slowed us down. Was totally fine grinding the game out. Made it feel like a 6-point deficit was 14. In some ways, their style hurt them in the last 5 minutes. Letting Lindsay cook in regulation might have saved them from OT. But he hit the shots when it mattered. We didn't. Give credit to this team for finding a way into the extra session. They need to play with 2nd half urgency all game. Consistency is the biggest thing I see during this competitive portion of the schedule. You get it from Boyd and Blackwell. Maybe Rohde, who knows his role well. Winter was great tonight. If he plays like that, we'll probably get things corrected. Boyd will be kicking himself for missing a couple FTs. Nova missed a key front end too. Like I said, thin margins. Go get 'em in the B1G, after some get-right buy games.

Still time in this one, but Nova really slowed the pace and defended well in the half court in the first half. Not a lot of energy in the building, and the Badgers not providing much of a reason to get excited. Combine that with Villanova shooting really well, and you get a 13-point deficit at the break. Really need to push pace and play with a bit more confidence in the second half. Villanova will grind us up if we let them.

Kind of a prove-it game for both sides tonight. Each has a top-40 KenPom rating (surprised to see Nova slightly ahead at 34 v. 39) and some good performances, but no real marquee wins to speak of. Badgers are maybe a surprise favorite, giving 4.5. The computers seem to like Nova better. Easy analysis is that this will be decided by pace. Villanova is one of the slowest teams in the country, while the Badgers are running a top-60 tempo. We'll see if Wisconsin can speed up the Wildcats. I expect they will, but I'd probably take Villanova to cover. Hope I'm wrong. Willard's experience in the Big East and this being a huge game for that league, in a building with which Nova has a lot of familiarity, all that makes me a bit nervous. As of today, this is a Q1 opportunity for Wisconsin. It's a major chance to get a Q1 win against a good but not great team, close to home. A loss would be disappointing. A win probably makes the noncon a success overall. A loss, and I think we're all a bit on edge heading into buy games and league play. It never comes down to one game, but this is bigger that I think it would seem given that it's December 19th and neither team has a number beside their name.

Kind of seemed like this one turned in set 4, after the Badgers clawed back to 24-24. They gave it a run in the fifth, but were in desperation mode basically the whole time. Great tournament for the Badgers. My only disappointment is an all-SEC final, but the Texas A&M-Nebraska match was an ELITE sporting event and the best possible argument for on-campus regional finals. Great atmosphere, incredible match. If I had a few extra million lying around, I'd be trying to buy a women's pro volleyball team right now. Hard to imagine going broke on this sport's growth curve, and it deserves all the attention. Highly competitive, good atmosphere, incredible athleticism that translates to television.

He's a 2nd round pick (Baddoo) vs. a 9th round pick (Collins). That's the pedigree I'm talking about. Alls I'm saying is, I think arguing over whether you'd rather have Collins or Baddoo is a little po-tato po-tah-to. One guy had his good year four years ago. One guy is coming off of his good year. One guy is a little more toolsy and profiled better upon being drafted, the other guy came out of nowhere. Again, totally fine if you'd much rather have Collins. I just don't see anything special there. In a lot of ways, I'll feel great for Collins if he proves that take wrong. He's a good story! I'm also with @sveumrules and a little higher on Black than some and definitely think Lara could be a big part of this club's future. All of that is why I think this is a good gamble for the Crew (which recognizes that gambles involve risk).

I genuinely think I just like Perkins, Baddoo, Chourio, Frelick, and Lockridge (plus whatever you get from Yelich) as much as I like Perkins, Collins, Chuorio, Frelick, and Lockridge (plus whatever you get from Yelich). We've got 6 guys and Bauers who can play outfield fine. I'd like BETTER players, but losing Collins doesn't make the position any weaker IMO. There are legit arguments that we're not THAT deep at OF, but I think you have to say that Collins is a lot better than Lockridge/Baddoo to make the case that this trade hurts. Call me a sucker for buying more into Baddoo's pedigree more than Collins' 2025, I suppose. It's a fair point, and we'll see how it plays out. Like I said, Brewers taking on risk here. But that's a good thing. We're all probably willing to sacrifice some regular season magic for playoff upside at this point. This move screams that to me. Give me the team-cobtrolled lefty with high-end BP potential over the ROY outfielder regression candidate, even though he might not regress. EDIT: Mitchell is the best OF of all these guys, but obviously he has to show he can get 400 ABs.

I'm just really not a big fan of either Collins or Mears, TBH. Sounds like a lot of MLB people think the same. Remember that Akil Baddoo was sort of Isaac Collins before Isaac Collins. That career trajectory is a very, very plausible outcome for half of this trade. The other half is a 30-year-old reliever with a 97 ERA+. Zerpa has more upside than both those guys, and we have A LOT of OF depth. Does this return seem a little light? Maybe? But were Collins and Mears really going to return better upside? Like, this roster seems pretty clearer better today than two days ago. A lot better? No. But better, and marginal improvements have always been the Crew's MO. I don't believe Isaac Collins is much more than a replacement level player over the long-term. That being a wildly incorrect guess seems to be the only real way this trade goes bad. It feels like we got younger, higher upside Nick Mears for Nick Mears and organizational depth. The Royals get a solid relief option and a guy they hope is three-quarters of the player he was for a couple of months in the summer. Seems like a deal both sides should feel comfortable with, but, given where we are and where we've been, I prefer taking the gamble on a potential leverage lefty. EDIT: to add that I like Lockridge more than Collins, for his defense and for his ability to see pitches. That's a more valuable skill than people think in today's game. That's a big part of my sense that Collins isn't worth that much FOR US, even IF he's better than I think he is longer term.

Brad Stevens' Butler teams embodied "connectiveness" better than anybody I've seen this century in college hoops. They had a pro (Hayward) and a PG (Mack) who was very close to NBA-level, but that team just knew every spot on the floor. It was like having five Shane Battiers (for my money, a top-5 all-time NBA defender). Fully believe they'd have been NCAA champs if it weren't for a very similarly built and more talented Duke team. Anybody else in the country, I think they win. Closest team to that this year for me is Iowa State. Otzelberger (a Wisconsin guy through and through--Saint Thomas More grad, I think?) might be one of the best coaches in the game right now. They had to fight tooth and nail to hold on against Iowa tonight, but they got it done. At 12-1, they're my early title pick.

I didn't see the presser, so that's good to hear. I like the idea of going a little smaller as matchups dictate, though, like you said, that's trouble against Michigan and even Purdue. I like the compete of all three guys you mention, and it's not like I'm seeing a bad attitude or lack of toughness yet. Honestly, it looks to me like a team that hasn't figured out how to communicate yet, especially in the halfcourt. They got backscreened to death last night. Still genuinely optimistic about this roster. This is exactly the kind of team that can succeed in a one-and-done format. They're deep, they shoot a lot of threes, their guards are really, really good, and they're really hard to prepare for given the ways they can generate shots. Someone mentioned Fran's Iowa teams as a comp, and that's not bad. I'd like to think this one is going to be much better defensively than those crews were. If they are, lookout. I just don't see the bottom falling out. Maybe they're a bubble team, but I also see a high ceiling. In retrospect, last night was really a lot of these guys' first taste of life on the road in the B1G. Let's see if they adjust. It's a tough early schedule. If they get two out of Villanova (neutral), Purdue, UCLA, @Michigan, that'll keep me largely in optimistic mode. They get three, I'll be really excited. 1-3 or 0-4, and I might re-evaluate, but no real judgments from me until Jan 11.

We've got some time off and a few buy games after Villanova. Only three games left in NC, and, I have to say, this is a very bubbly resume right now. No bad losses, but 1-3 in the top 2 quadrants. Again, too early to care much about that, and some of it is because the Big East looks worse than expected. The TCU loss is the one you want back. There are going to be tons of chances in B1G play, but, right now, we'd be maybe 9th or 10th in line for a bid in the league. They don't give bids to conferences, but you know what I mean. There's work to do, especially on the defensive side.

Rough night for Bucky in Lincoln. Nebraska looked even better than I thought. A lot of that might be how many minutes those guys have logged together. Team looks poised to take the leap. From our side of it, this one turned in the last 5 minutes of the first half. Big run for Nebraska, and a close game is out to 16 at the break. Nebraska shot it well, but they also really spread us out, and we never made the adjustment. So much space to operate. Pair that with some tough shot choices on the other end, and you get a 30-point blowout. We really haven't played too many close games this year, have we? I'm not sure what that means, but I'm kind of just waiting for these guys to find their level.

I agree wholeheartedly. My one concern in this era has always been development, on both a team and individual level. Blackwell has really developed even after a great year last year. I am hoping the team looks BETTER in Feb/March than in December, something that hasn't always been the case on the last few years. Feeling optimistic despite the lack of big wins. Think this team is better than their resume to this point.

Hoiberg really pioneered the transfer thing at Iowa State. Once everyone started doing that, the advantage slipped noticeably. He hasn't found the next market inefficiency. He does have some talent on the roster, though, including an international kid who can really play. He's been....fine at Nebraska. I thought he'd be better. At the time, I thought it was the right call to take a shot with him over Tim Miles (not a no-brainer, far from it, but the right call in terms of upside nonetheless), but in hindsight? Not so sure things have worked out as they thought in Lincoln. I mean the game has changed so much in the last five years, it's hard to judge any coaching hire too harshly. Say that for Gard. He has adapted and kept the Badgers relevant. Obviously folks want more tourney success, but look around. When a Jay Wright or Tony Bennett retires suddenly, things get ugly quick. Bo was in that top tier of coaches, and Gard has been about as good of a follow-up as anyone could reasonably expect. High marks from me, anyway.

My main takeaway from today is that Marquette just lacks the ability to score, and they don't have enough athleticism to grind teams down defensively, especially in a sport that really is starting to look more and more NBA by the week. I agree with @Jim French Stepstool that MU will probably win their share and get better, but that's a really underwhelming squad right now, other than Ben Gold, who looks like their best player. Badgers winning games they should win by the margins they should win them by. Wednesday at Nebraska is a big one. Road wins are gold in this league. That's a gettable one, even though I like the Huskers NCAA shot this year.

Yeah, not much else to add here. Combination of game being over and still trying to gel for a consistent 40 minutes probably explain the 2nd half. The first half was a straight-up knockout blow, but they'll need all 40 @Nebraska for sure, and probably in a rivalry game against desperate Marquette on Saturday, not to mention Villanova the next week. We'll see how the Badgers handle what seems to me to be a VERY deep lineup. Deeper than most years, anyway. They probably go 9 or 10 down the roster. That doesn't matter as much in the NCAAT itself (the year we beat undefeated Kentucky, Devin Booker played 19 (!) minutes, and that hurt Kentucky more than anything helped them), but you'd figure it'll help over a grinding, 20-game league schedule. Probably the best win of the year for the Badgers all things considered. Not EXACTLY where you want to be at the early B1G window, but not far off, either. Right now, flip the TCU game, and this team looks really good. Right now, it's more like I have lots of reasons for optimism, but need them to bank a serious road/neutral W to start to feel like they can be a top-6 seed. Hopefully that's coming.

You were right about Iowa. Listless performance. No urgency. Stirtz looked overwhelmed. I still like that team, so we'll see, but long way to go. Florida made a run, but Boozer is the real deal. Looking forward to the Badgers tonight!

This is all good stuff. One positive takeaway I had from the TCU game was that the intensity was there. That team really put in the effort to come back and looked like they cared. I know that seems like a low bar, but in these holiday tournaments it often isn't. Boyd's compete is off the charts. Rohde took a horrible tech, but I liked the intensity, anyway. Honestly, that wasn't a vibe I got from previous year's Badger teams. Not questioning their toughness in any way, but something in the intangibles felt missing a little bit, and I think it cost them in the BYU game where it really took them a while to believe they could lose. Looking forward to tomorrow night for sure. And will definitely be watching Iowa at MSU, which would headline any normal December night, but is maybe only the fourth best game on the schedule given three ranked v. ranked matchups. Plus, Purdue gets its first real road exposure in NJ. They're a 14.5 pt favorite, which is definitely not something you see every day in that building. Fun night of hoops ahead!