Cool Hand Lucroy

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.

I'm starting to hear the national folks giving lots more love to the Badgers (Field of 68 even directly said they hadn't talked enough about how good they are), so I think a lot of people are starting to realize how good this team is. In December/January, I wasn't sure how good the team WAS, but I could see how good they might be. They've really come into their own over the last few weeks. It's hard to explain how good these guards are. Blackwell, Tonje, and Klesmit are not national names, but that is a true, three-headed, backcourt monster. And then you can bring in McGee off the bench, who is just the perfect role-player, someone who can score if you need him to, but is fully capable of putting in dirty work. Up front, Crowl has shot it this year, and that is just a killer from an eFG% perspective. Dude is creeping up on 40% from three. Makes it a true pick your poison kind of offense. And if you get Crowl in foul trouble, Winter can do a lot of those same things. And then throw in Gilmore, who is a classic dirty work guy that's gotten more confident offensively, plus the athleticism and shooting you can get from Amos and Janicki. That's 9 guys who all fit together really, really well. I don't think there's a star in the bunch (I could see Tonje or Blackwell making NBA rosters, though), but the cohesion and ability to get points in myriad ways make them a nightmare to defend. You can't isolate Johnny Davis or Storr (like JMU did last year in the tourney). It's wild. Of course, three-point shooting is always fickle, but at least there are a lot of options, and it's not like the team can't get to the line or the rim (or backcut you to death) if the shots aren't falling. They're a matchup nightmare for most teams.

Ho-hum. Another blowout win against a good team. I was a little worried about this one because Illinois is weird. But, man, did UW run away with things late. Illini couldn't keep up.

Agreed. Shouldn't have left them off. The SEC is terrifying, and there about four other teams there you could really see going on a run. I mean, I have seen Miss St look incredible at times, and bracket matrix has them as a 7.

Yes, I think there's an extra reward to being a top-3 seed too, in that it looks to me like the bottom of the bracket is going to be bad, but the 11-13 lines might be loaded. Bubble looks stronger to me when a team like UCONN or Creighton might be in line for, like 10 seeds, and SEC schools like Vandy might end up on the 12 line. My big-picture bracketing thought is that this year's field feels simultaneously wide-open and very chalky. Would I be surprised if a bunch of 10, 11, 12 seeds won in the first round? Not a bit. But I also think Auburn, Alabama, and Florida (plus maybe Houston just because of their toughness and Duke because of Flagg) are really, really going to be hard to beat.

I've been really impressed with the Four Nations. Kind of a model for All-Start breaks right now. Big chunk of time off, meaningful competition. Hockey has some things that set it up well for that kind of thing (it's probably not repeatable in baseball, but removing the ASB and creating an in-season, cup-style competition is doable), but I feel like other sports could learn something.