Cool Hand Lucroy

Honestly seems like the Badgers have been coasting since the 26-4 start. Came out nice to start the second half, though. I totally agree with the (understandable) settling. If there's one thing I'd like from this team offensively, it would just be to pick their spots a bit more. Know when to throttle up and then throttle back down. I really thought there were more chances to get to the rim during the stage where Indiana picked up about 10 points. It's threes and FTs for this team. Definitely got a little too in love with the former for a bit there. But other than the kind of stuff you're always going to be able to see on film, it's hard to complain about this performance. Indiana was never really in the game, even in a desperate situation for them. Maybe that says more about Indiana than UW, I don't know. But there's a lot to be said for just bossing a game against a talented team, even if you came in 8-9 point favorites. Can't say enough about Gilmore these last two games. Wow. And again nice to see Max hitting a couple shots. Defense was good too, aside from a breakdown or two. Playing at this pace and holding teams below 70 is impressive.

The NET also seems to really care about road/neutral games. When teams make big jumps, it seems to often follow road wins. Nebraska just jumped up to 5 spots after beating Oregon in Eugene.

Gilmore, what else can be said? Really keyed their whole run. I thought Klesmit looked better too. I know still only 1-4 from deep, but he got to the line a little and looked more assertive. They need him to be a factor down the stretch. Winter hit some big threes. We got a lot better defensively as the game went on. I think Gard figured out the right lineup to stop the dribble drive. As others said, have to take care of the ball better. No excuse to turn it over 8 times in a half against a team where you're more athletic at just about every position. That's a solid road win. You can build a real strong profile by beating good teams at home and decent teams on the road. So far, the Badgers have been doing that.

Yeah, it will work itself out. And there's still a lot of basketball between now and Selection Sunday. I think, from a Badgers perspective, the team's seeding is going to be really vulnerable to fluctuations around Rutgers, USC, Ohio State, and UCF. I don't think those fluctuations should impact how we assess the Badgers one bit, but the committee, staring at so, so much data, will see a team with 6 or 7 Q1 wins, for example, so differently than one with 3 or 4. Like you said, one of the vagueries of the sport and trying to assess some 50 potential at-large teams. Of course, if we just keep doing what we're doing, we should be able to get some big wins down the stretch. Not many "bad" loss opportunities left on the schedule. Really just home Washington and (to a lesser extent) home Indiana.

And Rutgers winning at NW makes that road win Q1, albeit (again) barely. It's weird that the Badgers could have anywhere from 5 (really good) to 2 (meh) Q1 wins depending on some arbitrary borders, but that just shows the kinds of wins they have. A lot of good wins and very few awesome wins. Still, team looks good. Enjoyable to watch and capable of winning in March.

For sure. That's a good basketball team. No wonder the computers love them. The only thing that stings about losing is that it was chance to add a major quality win. It's pretty hard for me to imagine this team missing the tournament at this point. My one concern seeding wise is that there are not a lot of high-end wins. Two of their Q1 victories are OSU and @USC, and both of those are the lowest Q1 ones you can get. We're rooting for those teams the rest of the way. Those two are going to wobble on the Q1/Q2 border I'd bet. Arizona is a great win. The next best is....Pitt on a neutral? The OSU win? It's a weird resume because there is nothing even close to a bad loss and a bunch of good wins. There just aren't many great wins. They'll have chances to fix that with Illinois and Oregon at the Kohl, plus @MSU and @Purdue. I kind of think the Northwestern game is pretty big. That one and @Iowa are likely to be very gettable Q1 games. I'm really hoping for that 4-6 line, which makes a S16 very doable.

Lot of inconsistent whistle all around tonight. Phantom fouls called, actual contact not. My analysis of this one (before it even ends) is that Maryland was super hot from three, the Badgers couldn't match and missed too many at the line. All in all, I thought UW played pretty well. This is why it's so tough to win on the road. If they can salvage the split in Evanston, that's a good week. Obviously, some things to clean up. Turnovers in the first half. Couple of breakdowns that ended up in threes late. Seemed to run out of gas in the final five. Good effort. Probably needed an A+ game tonight, and I think they only managed a B one. Badgers haven't lost a game outside of Quad 1. If you could have one back, you'd want the Michigan win at home. Or maybe @UCLA. Still looking like a team that could actually be a 4-6 seed if they keep playing at the level they're capable of.

I think Maryland is tough and interesting matchup, but it definitely feels like a game of bigs vs. guards. In those spots, I'd usually go with the guards, but that's going to require good games defensively from Crowl and Winter, with the both of them being able to stretch the floor on the offensive side. I'll be interested to see how we rotate. Does Amos get more minutes, do we go small and try to create dribble penetration, kickouts, and fouls, etc.? Should be a really fun game.

Totally. This team is FUN. And fun without abandoning the things that we've come to expect from Badgers basketball. They're up to top-50 in KenPom defensive efficiency, for example, which, while not vintage, is still very good given a top-10 offense. Not sure we've been this good offensively since the Kaminsky days. As Jim French said, the threes are a big part of this team's style. And that anyone can shoot them definitely makes this the most modern Badger team I have seen. Crowl's limited athleticism is much more offset by having Winter on the floor with him instead of Wahl. And Tonje and Blackwell are better complements than Chuckie on the offensive end. Plus, he's making threes at a higher clip, and doing that from his spot just makes this offense so dangerous. Maryland has been playing great lately. Wednesday will be a nice test. I like Gard and am impressed by his ability to adapt after basically just being mentored by Bo, so I hope he gets a couple of tourney wins. I think he deserves it, even if I've also been worried about his x's and o's. He's also clearly kept the program relevant and is better than a lot coaches at similar programs, so I'd hate for another early exit to start clouding the judgment of some. Looking forward to Wednesday!

Game of runs in the first half. I've been a little nervous about the Badgers being kind of a first half team in B1G play (Minnesota game excepted), so hopefully they back up this performance (minus the 6+ minute scoring drought) in half number 2.

Agree on all of this. I will say, they are starting to defend, and if they figure things out on that end of the floor, look out. Anyone in the backcourt can get hot and go for 25, and that's a great place to be. Amos should something in the first half, which was good to see, and Winter, as others have said, looks like he might be something really impressive. I was hoping for a split in CA. Now I'm greedy, of course, and I wouldn't call at UCLA a "house money" game, but the Badgers will definitely be underdogs. I'm still not sure how good this team IS, but I'm getting a little fired up imaging what it CAN be. They're going to be a lot of teams playing like they did in the first half these past two nights. And they closed strong today. The schedule is....not that bad? You look at it and think, "These guys will probably lose at Purdue and MSU, but they should have a good shot in every other game." We'll see. EDIT: rewatching a little bit, and maybe this will make me sound like a total homer, but John Blackwell might legit be one of the most underrated players in the country. That dude can do so many things it's ridiculous.

It's one of those bits of news where you know thousands of people are feeling the exact same way you are upon hearing it. You don't even need to say anything. It's just there. As with many of you, Uecker was a massive part of the reason I fell in love not just with the Brewers but with baseball. There are poet announcers (Scully, Jack Buck, etc.) and there are action announcers (BA is one of these, I think). There are analytical announcers (Benetti). What I loved about Bob is that he was a human announcer. A storytelling machine. A humorist. A novelist. The Mark Twain of baseball. He never let you forget about the people playing the game, their human tics, their rituals, the life that comes with making a living playing this game. Baseball was Uecker's workplace. And he observed it in memorable, life-affirming detail. That's so so rare in this day and age, but, honestly, I think it's just rare in all of history. I don't remember Uecker ever being one of those grumpy anti-stats folks (I'm sure you could pull up some clips that I missed or forgot about), and I thought he was admirably open to the changing game as he got later into his career, maybe because that wasn't the thing he cared about. He cared about the experience of swinging a bat and catching a ball and nobody could make you see both its beauty and its absurdity quite like him. That's what I'll miss about Ueck. The game was there. He could get as into its results as anyone. Ultimately, though, it was the accumulation of details around it, and his way of observing and combining those details, that made you feel alive. I've teared up at least three times since hearing. I'll miss knowing the guy's out there breathing our air, but at least we'll always have his voice.

Uncomfortably close at the end. Two things: 1) That's a borderline Q1 win. In fact, Wisconsin winning moved OSU from 29 to 31 in the NET, which takes it from Q1 to Q2. Very well could come back up at some point. Good win, at the end of the day, against a team that hasn't quite logged the wins in line with its computer numbers. 2) I thought Gard managed the foul up 3 scenario perfectly at the end. Really all you can ask of a head coach is to get the strategic choices right, and I think he did.

Agreed all around. Basketball terms, USC just won at Illinois, which is a shock result. The B1G is weird this year. Seems like there are only a couple of really good teams (I really only trust MSU and Purdue), a big, messy middle (with Illinois at the top), and then a fair number of bad teams.

This was the stretch they needed to roll through. So far, so good. Hoping they keep it going vs. OSU then split the CA trip (though with UCLA in a total mess, maybe it's time to get greedy).

I've been shocked at how bad the BEast looks. Marquette looks excellent. UConn will figure it out. Saint John's is good. After that, I'd expect Creighton to get it together, but the rest of the league has looked pretty disappointing. Villanova looks okay, but didn't do enough noncon. How improved are DePaul and Georgetown? Can't be dropping home games in this league, because most of those are going to be Q2 and Q3 L's. Road games will provide some Q1 chances, but you really need a couple of teams to get that NET into the 50s and 60 instead of the 70s and 80s to solidify that.

Nice stop-the-bleeding win for the Badgers against a decent opponent in what will officially be a neutral game. Butler never really got in it, despite looking occasionally threatening. I gotta give Gard some credit for smart NC scheduling. Played a lot of Quad 2ish games that allowed us the chance to pick up some wins without really offering the chance for a major losing streak. It worked out well. As others have said, dropping the home game to Michigan was really tough. Hopefully they can hold serve most of the rest of the way at the Kohl and picking off more than a few on the road. Getting to the FT line is obviously huge for this team. Maybe the most telling stat for them overall. Drawing fouls and getting their athletic guards to the rim is key. We did that well today and hopefully can carry it over to the B1G schedule. First four after Detroit are very winnable games. I'm going to be disappointed if they don't go at least 3-1. Good news is, the Pitt win on a neutral looks AWESOME. Bad news is Arizona stinks. That's a Quad 2 win right now. Hopefully the Wildcats get it together in a tough Big XII. My expectation is this team ends up in that 7-10 seed range, but, who knows? Maybe they improve and manage to bump that up.

Definitely seems like a bet on Durbin with Nestor the throw-in. For one year of Devin, the Crew gets an MLB-ready infielder who seems like a good fit. Obviously, there are question marks, but the Devin's value for next year is basically fixed. Our return value is variable, but looks like it should certainly exceed what we gave up, maybe even next year. I think it's definitely better than keeping Devin + draft pick, especially when you consider how well we do at finding, developing, and improving relievers. Gonna trust the FO on this one. I see the thinking, and they've earned it.

Yeah, this is a thoughtful discussion. The politics of pro sports unions are fascinating. Not sure there's another industry where the spread between senior members and entry-level members is so wide. And MLBPA has clearly sided mainly with more veteran players in its negotiations. That makes sense on some level, as those players are more veteran, have more experience, and are probably more willing to speak up in meetings and such.

Totally right about getting them in foil trouble and then really committing to getting to the basket. Good coaching by Gard. This was the most impressive win I have seen since last year @ MSU. Never panicked, played together, outlasted them down the stretch.

Just a really good game from the Badgers. Tonje got to the basket at will. UCF never got into a groove (despite what I thought was a pretty friendly whistle in the first half at least). Defense made them take tough shots, and they couldn't finish. McGee really sparked the Badgers early. That was nice to see after a tough one on Monday. Posting this with the Badgers in front by 23, five minutes to go, so if things get crazy, my fault I guess. Pitt will be a great neutral court test early. Guessing the Badgers will be underdogs, but it's the kind of game you hope for in these MTEs.

I hate those games. They had the same thing at the Bahamas tournament last night. Great Saint John's-Baylor game, but a weird environment, especially lighting-wise.

Agreed, but, weirdly, it might be better positioned in March than it was last year. UCONN, Creighton, Marquette, and St. John's should all compete for a top-5 seed. Xavier looks like they could be pretty good. If Providence can join them, that could mean 6 teams in pretty good shape come tourney time. Villanova being in a down cycle hurts, and Seton Hall looks pretty bad out of the gate. I don't have a lot of faith in Butler. Could Holtmann do something at DePaul? Maybe, but that's a BIG ask. Point is, I think there'll be a clear top 5 or 6, and that's better than the muddle going into the tournament last year. Makes it easier to separate teams close to the cut line.

They'll have to deal with a loaded McNese (Will Wade coached) roster to get out of the Southland, but yeah, I agree. They look like a difficult matchup. Back to the Badgers, the Greenbrier interests me deeply. I think UCF is the kind of team that can give UW fits. They've already got home wins over Fla Atlantic (who should be decent, despite a lot of departures) and Texas A & M. Both at home, but that's a tournament team if they can do anything at all on the road in the B12. Badgers should be favored, but I bet it'll be by just a possession.

Yeah, I took a look at UTRGV's games against Nebraska and Creighton, and it made me feel a bit better about the Badgers clawing out a win. That team has sped up everyone they've played and kept first halves tight against decent competition (down eight at Creighton, who's going to contend in the BEast). They seem legit tough to defend. Creighton beat them by shooting 60% from 2. Nebraska beat them by turning them over 20 times (and UTRVG shot less well from deep). I guess my thought is that a low-end outcome seems like the Badgers could be a poor man's Creighton. Neither team turns people over. Both can be extremely efficient offensively. Creighton is more comfortable playing quickly, and they have Kalkbrenner, who brings rim-protection and improves the defensive efficiency quite a bit. A more optimistic outlook is that the Badgers just get better defensively and end up as comfortable in 65-possession games as 75- or 80-possession ones. I'll be hoping for that. The FT shooting is a HUGE difference maker compared to the last couple years. Having a team that can convert at the line, especially when it seems like games are being officiated tightly, at least early on, is going to help them put games away more easily than in the recent past.