Cool Hand Lucroy

Count me worried about this pitching staff against a tough opening stretch.

Good hire for IU. I think that's an impossible job, so I hope DeVries got paid.

Pomeroy posted on Bluesky an interesting idea. Basically, with one exception (Xavier instead of West Virginia), Wins Above Bubble predicted the selected teams. Pomeroy just argued that the committee should just let WAB decide who qualifies for the tournament. It becomes a computerized calculation, and then the committee can focus on seeding and bracketing fairly. I get that that will get a lot of blowback. And I'm on record as thinking UNC's inclusion was pretty bad, which Pomeroy finds generally okay because of its grounding in WAB. I'm not sold yet, but I'm phenomenally curious about it. It works for hockey, right? The teams are selected entirely based on a mathematical formula (that's duplicated in the Pairwise rankings)? Obviously, you'd need to make sure WAB, or whatever metric you use is sophisticated enough. 356 teams is a lot. But it can't be as hard to solve as chess, right? Or Go? My one thought about why it might work: the distinction between the 37th or 38th at-large (in) and the 39th one is almost always really arbitrary and clumsy. If you just make that process transparent and quantitative, you free up the committee to do the harder work of properly seeding and bracketing. That deserves the bulk of the time because it's the hardest process, and it has the most impact on the actual tournament results.

Love these thoughtful posts. Like @Oxy said, how you weight the predictive versus resume-based metrics is a major challenge. You can justify all kinds of ways of doing it, and every committee member probably has their own unique weighting. It's impossible to have consistent logic given the way the committee selects and seeds the tournament. I wish we'd just acknowledge that, rather than having the committee chair go on TV and spout what is essentially a lot of nonsense and bad-faith arguments. It's an imperfect process. You just hope to do it as fairly as possible. I have some issues with seeding in several places, but that always happens. I'll defend the "UNC doesn't belong" position quite hard, though. That feels like an avoidable error. I mean, if 8-0 in Quad 2 is what gets you into the tourney, that's crazy. Indiana was undefeated in Q2 with FOUR TIMES as many Q1 wins. Heck, Iowa went 6-0 in Q2 with more Q1 wins than UNC. To be fair, I would make the same critique of Xavier. I guess they gave the Musketeers a lot of leeway for the Fremantle injury. UNC has no such excuse. It's always hard to determine those last four spots. Usually, it's six of one, half dozen of another. Here, though, I think this is clearly the less defensible options, and it's needlessly complicated by the committee chair being the UNC AD. WVU and Indiana have serious gripes. On a more positive note, both BYU and VCU are good teams. VCU is better than a typical eleven, but we're very similar to BYU, only we play better defense. And we defend at about the level of VCU, only we play better offense. Sure, you'd prefer to have worse teams in there. I think there are worse 6s and 11s. But matchup wise, these are pretty decent draws. And we'll be favored against either team, probably by two possessions. Narrow margins in March, but this is what you want.

I have to admit to being wrong. Selection committee chair said on CBSSN that there WAS a contingency bracket based on the B1G title game. No idea where it had the Badgers, and that genuinely shocks me, but there it is. I was wrong. On the game: We got the shots we wanted but didn't make them. Period, end of story. If I had to pick one thing, tied at 53-53 with 1:34 left, Michigan got two free throws after three possessions and gave the ball back to Wisconsin with 46 secs left (might have been 49?). I thought we had chances there, but just couldn't come away with the ball. A few other rebounds off missed free throws helped Michigan too. Not much else to say. Sometimes, that's basketball. On the Badgers NCAA tourney spot: I hate playing Thursday afternoon at altitude when this team looked gassed today. Oof. And BYU goes ten deep and also plays its home games at altitude (albeit maybe 800 ft. lower than Denver). That's pretty brutal. I also think VCU is closer to an 8 than an 11 (top 30 KenPom), so our pod has three LEGIT S16 contenders. Good news is Montana is rated as the worst 14 by far. More than that, they'd be the worst 15 seed per Pomeroy. That's a misseeded team. Clearly benefits Wisconsin. Losing to them would be horrendous. We can lose to anyone shooting 20 percent from the field, but Montana will rightfully be a massive dog. Bigger picture, no one in this region scares me, especially if Duke isn't healthy. Alabama is three-point dependent and has been inconsistent, plus they are a good matchup for us. They'll let us run and get looks. That would come down to who shoots better. Everyone else in the top half is about what you'd expect, and I'm thrilled to avoid a team like Tennessee or even Saint John's. So, some good, some bad. Would I switch with Iowa State given the chance? I don't know. Lipscomb is BY FAR the best 14, so the odds of a first round upset would go up, but I like the placement in Milwaukee and Friday game much better. Plus, I'd rather face Ole Miss or NC than BYU. But I'd want no part of SDSU. Probably a wash in the end. Overall bracket thoughts: The committee really leaned into the advanced metrics this year. That's the only way you can justify UNC in the field. They went 1-12 in Q1 and have a Q3 loss. Come on, man. Meanwhile, you're leaving out a West Virginia team with 6 Q1 wins and a nearly identical Wins Above Bubble rank. No idea how you justify that other than committee logic. Similar story with the Big Ten seedings. Purdue's 4, Michigan's 5, and Illinois' 6 are all roughly in line with their predictive numbers. So is Maryland's 4, though I think that's a miss. Watching Purdue lately, I'm licking my chops if I'm in that pod, but maybe that's a team that benefits getting outside the B1G. I think the committee booted UNC and otherwise made pretty consistent choices. Xavier getting in surprises me, given how little regard the Big East had. I'd have WV and Indiana ahead of both them and NC. But at that point in the bracket, I guess you're just talking about kinds of mediocrity. To close on the Badgers, the NCAAT's generally tighter whistle and more free-flowing style SHOULD help. I also have a lot of faith in our scout, so getting out of the B1G will hopefully pay dividends. Best time of the sports year, man. Let's go. EDIT: to add that the VCU and Gonzaga seeds are terrible. How the committee continues to not understand small conferences is baffling. Why you apply predictives so hard to schools like UNC or Illinois (who really doesn't have a six-seed profile, I don't think) but can't to Gonzaga or VCU is kind of stunning.

Could be wrong, but everything I know about the selection committee suggests that today's result will ZERO bearing on where the Badgers are bracketed. Just not enough time to build a contingency bracket that only changes where one 3-seed is playing. Now, there is probably a contingency bracket pending the UAB-Memphis game. That result will impact where the Badgers are (potentially anyway) more than their own.

Two quick thoughts on end-of-game scenarios: 1) I've never understood why more teams don't try to throw up high, long passes/shots when up 1 or 2 late and under ten seconds left, kind of like a coffin-corner punt. That's going to take up like 3-4 seconds, you could try to tap it back up, and even if the other team grabs it, they'd still have to go length of floor in remaining time. ESPECIALLY with like 5 seconds left, you could take up the whole clock. We've figured out the backtap on the offensive glass; it's the same principle. I get being worried about loose ball fouls, and it seems simple to make free throws, but I still think it's worth some thought. 2) Even more, I don't understand why teams up three late don't pull out their down three late defense. Like, full-court press and trap. I get the risk of a scramble situation, but you're also fine with a foul there. And you can cause a lot of time to run off. Teams SHOULD do this more. I bring these up only because Gard always seems unsure and hesitant up three late. I'm a full-on foul person, so it always makes me nervous when the Badgers find themselves in that situation. I am deeply scarred from the Florida game when they made a free throw to go up 2 and then got beat on a buzzer three. Just miss the free throw! Tap it around! Okay. Now, let's win the Big Ten.

The technical on Blackwell in the first half was weird, and there were some small whistles late while bigger stuff got let go, but I thought the officiating ended up being pretty good overall. At the very least, it was even. What a win for the Badgers. Their best of the year, and a great time for it. Like I said, I don't think they can get up to a 2 no matter what (and the committee cares zero about the B1G title game given it ends like 10 minutes before the bracket is released), but hard to see them slipping to a 4 now. More importantly, they get to play for a banner. Always fun. And hopefully a chance to redeem a mediocre performance at this time last year. It'll be Michigan, and they scare me less than Maryland, though only by a little. I think we match up okay with Goldin and Wolf and have better guards. Might have to get some minutes from Ilver, or go small with Amos and throw some athleticism at them. I'll say this: Tonje is a on a heater, and if Michigan sells out on him, Blackwell will hurt them. Whatever the case, team is playing very well after a really disappointing regular season finale. Maybe the PSU game really taught the lesson I thought the Oregon game would. That win today was the toughest we've looked all year.

Makes Gonzaga and Saint Mary's (especially Saint Mary's) all the more impressive. Randy Bennett should be a Hall of Famer. I know he's only got the one Sweet 16, but winning in that place for this long is a crazy accomplishment. Between them and Gonzaga, you have two schools that just decided to be great at men's basketball and made it happen. Major respect for that. Wish more schools would forget about football and follow that model. It's better for the whole college IMO.

Coaching notes: Fran gone so quickly surprises me a little, but guessing pretty much everyone was ready to move on from that situation. It was time. Feel kind of bad for Drake. They go Medved, Devries, McCollum, and lose all three to bigger jobs (in all likelihood). That's gotta sting for the Valley, still a really darn good basketball conference that just can't quite find the breakthrough NCAA tourney wins a la Gonzaga or the A-10 schools. Badger notes: Wow. What a shooting performance. Got a lot of open looks and knocked them down. A dominating Q1 win like that probably gets them to the 3 line, I would think. I doubt a two is possible, and it's hard to see an MSU loss knocking them back to a 4. Maybe they get moved down due to bracketing principles or for geographic purposes, but I'll say 3 and be pretty confident about it. Will be a fun afternoon tomorrow. Badgers got to rest some guys, MSU had to grind, maybe that helps a little at the margins. Today definitely showed what this team can do when they're clicking. They just demolish even good teams.

Good points, all. Bennett is interesting. I'm surprised Hoiberg hasn't worked out that well at Nebraska--that seemed like a slam dunk hire to me at the time. Minnesota has been a "sleeping giant" forever, it seems, to the point that maybe they just aren't a giant at all. I'm sure there are a bunch of factors, but being one of the few, true big-city schools in the league (even after adding the two LA schools) must be a challenge. The depth of care for Gopher men's basketball just doesn't run all that deep (four years in the TC taught me that), and maybe no coach can overcome that. McCollum will be a hot commodity. Maybe Medved too, who has Midwest connections with Drake and is a Minneapolis native. Word I hear from some Iowa friends (and from living relatively nearby) is that Fran's exit is...complicated. Everyone seems to agree it's time for a change, but with Caitlin Clark dating a McCaffery, it's a little awkward. Back to the main attraction, I'm so pumped for tomorrow. Weekday afternoon hoops. A big game. It'll really feel like March. Glad Klesmit and Winter got to ease back in a little.

A nice, pretty easy win at the end of the day. Gives you a shot at a winnable game here tomorrow afternoon. In other news, Minnesota has fired Ben Johnson, which....surprises me. I know the program has been in the desert, but that seems like a systemic issue rather than a coaching one. I'm not sure anyone can make the Gophers truly relevant right now, but we'll see. Iowa may open as well. Depending on hires, might get a little tougher for the Badgers recruiting the TC suburbs.

Yup, single-elimination basketball is a beast. This program knows what it's doing. It is incredibly consistent and always giving itself a chance in March. It's flexible and adaptable and has survived the NIL era MUCH better than the football side of the program. There is a pattern of teams not playing as well as they could in March, that post-COVID year excepted. A lot of that is just bad luck and bad timing. Still, the last two years have seen some hard fades down the stretch. JMU beats a lot of people, and that was an awful matchup, but I expected a better effort from a trendy upset pick. The Badgers were never really in the game. Would it be wrong to say that Gard's teams lack the toughness of Bo's? I don't mean that as a harsh critique, and I prefer the Gard teams aesthetically and acknowledge they're better built for the modern game. Toughness is also subjective. I am just wondering aloud. I hope it proves a ridiculous question in time.

I wasn't able to watch on Saturday (and I suppose I'm glad for that), so I can't really comment on the game itself. Sounds like a combination of a bad matchup, some bad decisions, and the Klesmit injury catching up to them. Big picture: I've always thought making the Sweet 16 would be the goal. That should pretty much always be the goal for the Badgers given the broader landscape. Regardless of the results this coming week, the Badgers should be a 3 or 4 seed, which will put them in home jerseys all weekend. Hard to complain too much about that. I know others have expected more, and I know the borderline top-10 ranking suggested a title contender. I've never really bought in on this team to that level. The offense is great, the defense has been better, but it's a streaky crew that struggles against really tough defensive teams and sometimes struggles on D and on the glass. Turnovers are also an issue, as we've seen. They should be sizeable favorites in round 1 (and another loss there would be a huge disappointment), but, as with most teams, everything else is matchup dependent. Of course, for me, I want to be clear that this team overachieved this year. As they often do. They surpassed expectations, and that should be worth something, even if they can't reach the second weekend. I'd say: if there's an L in game one of the NCAA tourney, that sours and probably overshadows an otherwise good year and maybe lends some credence to the "can they do it in March" conversation. If they win one and then lose in the round of 32, it's pretty much a satisfying year, as long as they don't lose to a Cinderella team or blow a game they should win, a la Notre Dame in Gard's first year. Anything past that is a big success. Just my rubric.

Yeah, Klesmit is really important to this team. I know three-point shooting is prone to random fluctuations, but 5/22 again tonight shows you what Kelsmit brings, even if it's just opening up a little space for others to get open looks. Good news, of course, is the team adjusted and ended up winning without TOO much stress in the final couple of minutes. This game felt like anything from a Minnesota +5 or +6 or Wisconsin +10 or +12 finish, so glad it came in on the good end of that. We were favorites. We should've won. A loss would've been disappointing. But it's a much better win than throttling Washington at home last week.

Good point about Crowl. I don't mind him in the pick-and-roll, but I don't trust him as a true 5-out guy. Just not strong enough against ball pressure. Having watched Minnesota a fair bit, they play hard. I know that seems like a backhanded compliment, but I don't mean it that way. For a mediocre team, they play with a lot of belief and energy, and that's a testament to Johnson. He's struggled with roster construction a little (I don't know what MN's NIL situation is, but I'd assume bad, so probably not his fault), but as far as being a motivator and in-game decision-maker, he seems pretty darn good. Three seed seems most likely for the Badgers. Hard to see them moving up or down too much. Just take care of the next two and that should lock it in.

Seeing a little more pessimism than I thought here. Honestly, my ultimate takeaway was: this team is really going to be tough to beat in March. Are there things to work on? Yes. They struggle a little against ball pressure and can make lazy passes from the wing to the top of the key. Turnovers are an issue. They have gotten a lot better defensively but are not the toughest UW team I've seen in my time, not by a fairly wide margin. In this game and the MD game (kind of carbon copies of each other), all that resulted in them playing okay but breaking down in the last minutes in a way that caused the score to get out of hand. Still... 1) They weren't going to win @MD or @MSU. Not generally, but especially not considering how those games played out. 2) They shot awful from 3, got outrebounded by quite a bit, took six fewer shots, and were on the road against a really good team, probably the team playing the best in the league right now. It's March, and Izzo is looking for a B1G title. And yet they were in this game. They had TWO chances to take the lead late after cutting it to one. Right in this game despite doing a lot of things wrong and getting some bad breaks and playing against a team with more toughness and defensive chops. We played in the 130s against a top-5 dEF team. And were dead there playing their preferred style. Obviously, it's an L. Boo L's. But I really can't expect much more. Weirdly, I think this week shows us something. Minnesota has been playing well. Penn State not so much, but they're not bad either. Let's continue to work on things, play well, and head into the B1G tourney looking like a real contender

Think I am guilty of underestimating MSU's toughness. Not sure how because that and the secondary break are basically their whole identity. But man a big win for them. Looking forward to Sunday.

Just agreeing with all the reactions to the Washington game. That was exactly what you hope for in that scenario. Good to get the bad taste out of your mouth too. MSU has a tough week. @Maryland tonight and then us Sunday. A bit of a hot take, but I think the "Crab 5" (great nickname, despite my dislike of MD) is the best team in the B1G, or at least the one with the best title odds. Hopefully it's a real tough one for both teams. I'll expect a fiery, competitive game in East Lansing. Feels like the Badgers have played wee there in recent times. Here's hoping!

Maybe I just don't understand analytics or aging curves well enough, but Canha had a league-average OPS+ last year. Professional hitter. I get he's 36 and can only play corners, but a lot of teams can do a lot worse than giving this guy 200 ABs. Seemed like a good fit in Milwaukee in 2023, so here's hoping for more league average production in a limited role.

I had the same thoughts at first re: Klesmit. I think you want Tonje there for sure. On the other hand, you know max is going to get a true one-on-one opportunity in that spot. No one's helping off Tonje or Blackwell. Maybe too cute to plan for that kind of shot, but Max did get a pretty decent look. Just left it short. It's just not fun to lose home games. And we lost this one ourselves. As you said, big credit to Oregon for their defensive plan in the second half, but way too many errors by the Badgers late.

Bummed to see this. I always liked Margot. Fits the Brewers quite well. Hope he plays well, Perkins gets back, and then we have another good problem on our hands with a crowded OF.

Yeah, they definitely looked cruise control during that stretch. Went up 66-57 and did not score the rest of regulation. Stopped being assertive offensively. Drained clock. Were very, very sloppy with the basketball late, and then proceeded to do the same in OT. Wake-up call kind of game, you hope. I never really thought this team was going to win the conference title (figuring on a loss in East Lansing, and that puts them too far back, realistically). Today really stings, but big picture, it's going to end up being a Q1 loss in all likelihood. Learn from it and move on, because your main goals are still all in front of you. Hopefully a get-right home game against Washington before the big test next Sunday @MSU. They'll bounce back.

Yes! Flowers is another underrated guy. Great hands. Incredible defender.

I totally agree with you all on Bennett-ball. There was a completely ruthless beauty to that system. Watching Mike Kelley just completely shut down opposing guards was incredible. And that system was perfectly designed for where the sport was in that era--Wisconsin was never going to get the top athletes or the most big-time recruits, so you won on toughness and improvement. Gard took some lumps transitioning out of that, but still managed to make the tournament in four of the six years post-Bo players (counting from after Koenig's departure, and it would have been 5 tourneys in 7 years had they held one in 2020). One thing I think gets overlooked is that, yeah, the Badgers play faster, but they're still only 187 in KenPom tempo. That's closer to the bottom of the country than the top. It does FEEL like that's changed some in more recent games, but I love that they can slow it down a bit if they need to. Tonje in particular has gotten so so good and not forcing things that aren't there. Sure, he'll put up a less-than-ideal contested step-back when he's on a heater (which is a bad shot for a lot of guys, but not nearly as much for him), but the vast majority of the time he's completely in control. He is not a volume scorer at all and seems locked in and bought in. I don't know if they'll be able to hang any banners, and the tournament can be terrifyingly random, but the program has largely managed to stay relevant during a time of massive change in the sport. More than can be said for many others.