Cool Hand Lucroy

Big congrats to the MU fans. FUN team, grab another 4-5 days for Kolek. Rooting for them to come out of the South. I'll take a Big East tourney in the FF just to stick it to all the football schools.

Essegian is an easy transfer guess. He's got A-10 or MVC all-conference written all over him. There's plenty I struggle with with Gard, but I also don't know how great a job Wisconsin is nationally. Madison's great, and you have good facilities and NIL, but it's still a football school, and there are probably at least 4 or 5 better jobs in league. Honestly, I think Marquette's a more attractive option because it's all basketball, and there's a ton of history. Shaka is the perfect fit there. I just don't see a better fit than Gard in Madison. You could have made the case for DeVries, maybe, but he's off to West Virginia. Danny Sprinkle? Maybe, but is that really going to be a big upgrade? Gard's fine. Program's in a decent place. Make the tournament, win a game or two slightly more often. Talk to me in two years if they can't.

Thumbs up to this. You start on the "maybe Gard isn't the right guy" train, you end up as Minnesota pretty quick. Fired Tubby Smith (a good coach who consistently had that team in the running for tourneys, often landing in the bracket) and then went into the wilderness for more than a decade. Gard has adjusted to new style, transfer portal hoops pretty darn well. We'd all love back-to-back Final Fours, but nobody at Wisconsin's level gets that very often. Unless you can get a young superstar coach like Michigan did yesterday, I don't see a lot to complain about.

Dukes were better. More organized, more poised, more fluid. I really think they're more of a 10-seed talent-wise, and the Badgers are more of a 7. Still a game that should have been much closer. Picked a bad time to get awful outings from Wahl, Storr, and Chuckie. That layup from Klesmit into the 3 for a 5-point swing really killed it. Good year on the whole. About where I thought they'd be. Disappointed to be one-and-done again, but I'll enjoy rooting for JMU the rest of the way. That's an impressive team.

I think JMU is the worst matchup the Badgers could have gotten as a 5. I think they're more balanced than Grand Canyon, and they ran away with the league tournament after a bunch of really good teams got dropped in other conferences. They're very balanced, and they give me Florida Atlantic vibes from last year. A talented team that won a bunch of games, beat a good team on the road, and didn't get tested much in league. I think the Badgers win the game, but they're giving up 5.5, and I think there's a great chance JMU takes this to the last possession or so. They play pretty fast, and I think the Badgers may want to let them. Bucky's better in terms of both offensive and defensive efficiency against a tougher schedule. More possessions are good. My big fear is just that they outshoot us early, and we're chasing 7 or 9 late in the first half. These tourney games you've got to be able to knock down shots, even if the game plan should be to get inside. Other than that, I think this is a good region for Wisconsin. Houston is banged up. Duke can be had and may get all it can handle from Vermont. Tough first round matchup, but as good a chance as you'll usually get to make the Sweet 16 as a 5.

Bummer. Here's some "let's not freak out" arguments (though I am also freaking out): 1) Devin was going to pitch about 55-60 innings this year. Now, he'll get like 25-30. Really, all that means is that you have to replace 30 innings. 2) You don't have to find 30 ninth innings. You can create depth guys or bridge guys and hope your starters or middle relievers pitch two extra good innings a week. 3) Devin tended to struggle a little early in the year IIRC. In a perfect world, you're hopefully eliminating some of his less good innings. 4) This team has a lot of pitching depth and has shown itself to be very creative. Rather than locking guys into roles, this theoretically lets us use the "out-getter" strategy that worked so well in 2018. It's entirely possible Devin would have struggled out of the gate, and then you're in the weird territory of having to think about removing him from the ninth anyway. If his back wasn't right at the end of last year, it wasn't going to be right this year. 5) The Brewers are built differently this year. They're going to rely less on winning one-run, low-scoring games, at least in theory. I think the team's ability to outperform their peripherals over the last several seasons is about more than just Williams/Hader in the ninth. We'll see. I do genuinely think the psychological dimension of this is more challenging from a fan perspective. I have grown accustomed to a locked-up ninth inning, and now we'll be in wide-open territory. It's going to test Murphy as a manager. That said, because it's such a small sample of innings, there's a decent chance it costs the Brewers very little. I'll say this: I'm still excited for the youthquake. Bring on all these new faces, and let's see what we got. Hopefully they put together a good 70 games, and then we see where Devin is.

This makes sense to me too. The more I think about it, the more I think maybe it's not worth trying to change what this team is. They're good! But neither as good as they felt in January or as bad as they've felt for the last month.

Yeah, KenPom has Northwestern at 86 in defensive efficiency. They were like 64 before getting torched by Iowa today, and they're also having some injury troubles, like you said. I'm impressed by them, but a lot of it is just that Buie is a killer. Put him on UW's roster, and this team has 4 more wins. So much of the Badgers' struggles are just not having a guy that scores. They're so much more balanced than, say, those Alando Tucker teams, but man did 'Do win them a bunch of games just by getting buckets. After today, I'm firming up in Essegian needing more minutes, especially in these kind of games. You need the jump-shooting threat, and I'm not sure the defensive downgrade is big enough to offset it. This is a year I'd like to see more tactical switching too. I know the program is historical averse to ever running a zone, but, if you're ever going to throw it in on a couple of possessions, it'd be this year. Nobody'd be prepped for it, and your man-to-man has gotten crushed for the last few weeks. Plus, it does allow you some personnel flexibility. You could even play a little match-up and let Chuckie go for lots of steals.

Northwestern and Wisconsin are weird mirrors of each other. Cats have had an easier schedule and are a little worse defensively, but they play a bit more together and create way more easy shot with movement and screening action. They also have Buie, who is a constant scoring threat. Those two things make a lot of difference.

I know it FEELS this way, but even 3 more losses will leave this team well in the field. Their resume is better than they are, but it's an objectively strong resume. If they fall below the 9 line, I will be a little surprised. Still, it's been disappointing lately. Usually, Wisconsin is so solid, they'll avoid streaks like this. Just can't seem to close games.

So, not to ignite the Kohl Center debates all over again, but it really does seem like the place just isn't that intimidating to high-level opponents. Last few years especially, I've seen so many top-15 teams get beat on the road. Doesn't happen as often at the Kohl. When the Badgers lose, it's always a combo of FTs, 3s, and lack of urgency. I think they have to be among the worst teams in the country at being able to vary tempo when things get down to the last five minutes. They think they're in it down 5 or 7 with 3 minutes to go, and that's good in the sense that they don't rattle. But they're slow to start pressure, They were never going to win giving up 80+.

I'm getting a lot of mixed signals from this Badger team, both in terms of metrics and eye-test stuff. The good: They have 12 Q1 and Q2 wins. That's like fourth in the country. They've played a top-5 schedule, according to KenPom. They're hard to play against and can beat you with a lot of different guys (though maybe not in a lot of different ways). When Klesmit or Storr are playing assertive, confident basketball (Klexmit from the perimeter, Storr getting to the rim), the offense is incredibly efficient. The bad: A 3-8 road record is hurting them. They're usually able to pick off one or two more of those B1G games. Even 5-7, and you're feeling great about this resume (the silver lining is there aren't true road games in the NCAAT). Storr has struggled lately, since Purdue, I'd say. Without that athletic dynamism, the offense can get very stagnant and limited. Only 54 in defensive efficiency at KenPom. Ouch. Some of that is that they've played some incredible offenses (schedule is 4th in offensive rating in the country), some is luck, some is just what Jim French has been plugged into for a while--they just don't seem quite as together in the defensive half court as past iterations. Chuckie's got great hands, but Crowl is a pretty limited defender, and teams are very, very good at putting Klesmit in pick-and-roll situations. Essegian is the best pure shooter on the roster but has no role because he's limited defensively. I'd like to see him get more minutes, but I worry he's a transfer candidate. Overall: I think this is just what this team is. I think it's important they get on a bit of a roll heading into the tournament. Today's game is very important. Namely, they need a confident Klesmit and a confident Storr. Wahl, Chuckie, and Crowl are going to give you a lot of consistency. Those other two need to score. As others have said, it's a good team, but not a great team, with a very good resume. I think they've slightly overachieved relative to talent. But the B1G is a well-scouted league, and they've known how to expose the Badgers, especially in road games. The good news is: we're not going to see any B1G teams in the first weekend. That alone boosts my confidence in a Sweet 16 run.

Forgot about the no-trade thanks. Yeah. I still don't mind committing 17.5 million to a guy who might be very useful in 2025.

Yup. And this seems prudent to me. Who knows what $10 million will mean in 2026. If Woody is worth $15 million in 2025, you only have to commit $5 million and have trade deadline flexibility. If he's not, you defer the back two-thirds to the next year, when it means less. If Woody is really good, but the team is falling out of it, you might also have some trade possibilities.

Re: the chances of Woody being effective again: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899910/ Anterior capsule surgery is usually pretty successful, so I think those numbers might even be low. But 68% return-to-sport at the elite level suggests a good chance Woody is back on a major-league mound. Obviously, that doesn't guarantee he'll be effective once there, but I'd put the chances at significantly higher than 10% we get some value than Woody in 2025. Obviously, that's just my opinion, and it very well could be influenced by how much I'm rooting for Woody.

Back when we nearing the end of 2023, I threw out 2/12 for Woody, with the Crew basically giving him a couple mil to rehab in 2024 and then guaranteeing him 10 or 11 in 2025. That seemed like a VERY low-risk deal for the Crew. We'll see if it turns out to be a bit higher. I just see no reason not to do this. Worst case, you're out the value of 1-2 WAR on the open market. I get that 15 mil is a lot for a small-market team, but the worst-case scenario is also not the most likely one. If I had to guess, I'd say I doubt the money is much more than 2/12, just because I bet Woody tested the open market and didn't find much going for him. I'm not saying this is going to be great, but it's a great risk as I see it. Even if Woody's not very good, you show some goodwill to a guy who's earned it. Maybe that entices others, or maybe it's just an instance of doing the right thing. We'll see what the money is. But no way this makes the Crew worse off in 2024 and 2025. EDIT: by "the right thing," I just mean, worst-case scenario, paying Woody for the value he provided over and above his salary during his pre-arb and arb years, even if the 2025 value doesn't pan out.

https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-wisconsin-madison/student-life/sports/ Can't vouch for the accuracy of that, but it looks like decent ballparking.

While any theoretical gymnastics or softball union could take the position that the players deserve more than scholarships covering cost of attendance, I doubt they would in most cases. Far more likely is that any unions that do form focus on the amount of required practice time, "captain's practices," meal stipends, etc.--basically just "working conditions" stuff rather than "wages." And I can see a situation where, say, swimmers, simply have no appetite for unionization and would be happy to operate under the NIL status quo. The question, of course, is how deep the wages football and basketball players will almost certainly ask for will cut into athletic department budgets. Will universities be less likely to fund swim programs if every rostered MBB player has to be paid a 10K stipend beyond COA? Probably. It won't make swimming extinct, but I'd bet it will shrink the collegiate player pool in a substantial way. Title IX will absolutely be a factor too (though I wonder if you'll see an effort to exempt football from its proportionality requirement, which is something I've seen floating around--in theory, that would marginally protect sports like wrestling and baseball, which have historically been first cut when schools need to create participation statistics in line with regulation). Agree with owbc that the "vanity system" of some non-revenue sports may fade, or just get squeezed out by new budgeting priorities. That might be for the greater good on the whole, but it'll also involve all the heartbreak cutting programs usually involves, and not all of those players or programs will be "vanity" ones. I'm honestly fascinated by how things might go just from an athletic perspective, and that's not even considering all the weird recruiting things that'll pop up depending on how union-friendly various states are. Imagine a world where Ohio State and Alabama start losing players to, I don't know, Illinois or something because those players want the wage bumps unions almost always provide. Given how much football bedrocks just about everything in the US, I doubt the implications of this, should it be upheld and move forward, will remain siloed within athletics.

Yeah, there's SO MUCH unsettled here, and we're looking down the road. I've heard a lot of "end of college sports as we know it" takes, and I think maybe that's true in terms of the "as we know it" part. Of course, conference realignment and basically doing everything in the service of football $$$ has been the driving factor, and this ruling is just part of that. I think football and men's basketball are the two sports where athletes would be most interested in unionizing. MAYBE you could add men's hockey or baseball or women's volleyball or basketball to that mix. Given that, here's an outcome I could reasonably see way down the line: The NCAA splits or disbands and reorganizes. A new organization forms and governs football (maybe with two divisions) and basketball (because I think men's and women's hoops are likely to be bundled). You get something like 100 schools competing for a national championship, probably with a 32-team basketball tournament (perhaps with a series or play-in element to boost inventory for TV $$$). Current D-2 and D-3 schools (and a lot of smaller D-1s) band together to form an NAIA-like organization. A lot of these schools either cut football or field very regional football conferences because there won't be cash available for an year-end championship since the current version of that relies heavily on NCAA money. Essentially, you get a situation where college sports exist, but there aren't as many, and, at the lower-levels, things become very regional. You probably get a lot more club sports. In some ways, that's not a bad thing. Sports take up a lot of oxygen at colleges and universities, and maybe it's too much. Maybe some of that energy is better-directed into club sport models. In other ways, of course, something will definitely be lost if you can't go to a great Saturday WIAC football game. Who knows? But it's a lot of interesting thoughts.

Absolutely. Purdue's guards were very good Sunday. Hit some contested 18-footers that make a huge difference (Nebraska's guys did the same thing late in that game). I'm not sure I TRUST Purdue's guards fully (it's why I'd pick UCONN as the most likely national champ if I had to choose right now), but the Boilers are, for my money, the best team in the country when they get good guard play. If I'm scheming for them, I might just single-cover Edey, which sounds crazy because he's likely to put up like 50. But at least then you can hope you get hot from three or get him to pick up a few fouls. Maybe a little hack-a-Zach too, and I've seen some off nights from him from the line. Badgers have two road games this week (never easy) against opponents who seem to always play well against them. Important to go 2-0, I think. They'll probably only be small favorites, but they'll be the better team in both. If they stick on a top-4 seed line, I'll still feel pretty good about their chances to make a run.

Figured this was the place to post the recent Dartmouth ruling on player unionization: NLRB orders union election for Dartmouth men's basketball team - POLITICO That article has a link to the full opinion. Likely won't impact the B1G at the moment (at least not immediately) and there will be lots of appeals, but it's pretty clear the NCAA model is getting less and less sustainable. I think that's a good thing overall, but there will certainly be unintended consequences, and I think it's fairly likely college athletics as a whole shrinks as we move down the line (easy to imagine a situation where football and basketball players form unions, the school negotiates with them, and lots of non-revenue sports are left competing over small scraps of the pie). For now, I have little complaint about the idea that student-athletes are "employees," that they should be able to bargain about working conditions, and that schools, despite their protestations to the contrary, expect athletes to be athletes (often more than students), even at the lower levels of the NCAA. That's really all this ruling implies. We're about to enter a wide-open space of negotiation and renegotiation in terms of college sports, and there'll hopefully be a lot of good conversation and discussion about how to envision athletics within educational institutions, how to balance revenue-generation with "the common good," how to continue to provide educational opportunities for non-revenue athletes and in women's sports, etc. while fairly (whatever that means) compensating football and basketball players. I suppose I doubt we'll get good conversation given the way this stuff always turns into a lot of yelling and nonsense, but this board's usually better than that. Anyway, worth posting given the potential implications for CBB and college sports writ large.

I think this is a good basketball team with a top-10 resume. The much more difficult question is: is this a top 10 team? It's complicated. The Badgers are hard to play against because everyone they send out on the floor can score (maybe Carter Gilmore excepted). Storr is their best player, but you can stop him and still lose (and I thought Storr played poorly today). Klesmit can hurt you on the dribble or from deep. Wahl and Crowl are pretty good around the rim, and Chuckie will knock down jumpers late-clock. Blackwell has a ton of athleticism and Essegian can come in and stretch a defense. The problem is that none of those guys are pure scorers. UNC is going to RJ Davis, and Baycott's there for a dish. Purdue's going to Edey. Houston's guards are incredibly. Even Kentucky (whose defense is PUTRID right now) can find points when they really need them. The Badgers really have to make jump shots to win. It's been that way under Gard for a while. I don't think that's bad. I like Gard, and I think this is one of his best teams. This just feels like one of those Badger teams that's going to go as far as matchups and 3-pointers take them. Now, that's probably true of most teams. And I'm not complaining about it. I'll take it every year! It's just why I'm not too worked up about the two L's this week. I think it's a little bit reversion to the mean. The one area where improvement is needed is defense. When you play slow (and the Badgers still do, even though they're very efficient), you have to be able to get stops. They really struggled to do that down the stretch against Nebraska and Purdue.

Scrolling through, reading reactions, I think this was the RIGHT move. Doesn't mean it's a great move. Return seems about fair. I wouldn't call Ortiz and Hall "lottery tickets," but they both have a ton of upside for big-league ready players. If one of them works out, it's a win long-term. For those not sure they see the plan given the Hoskins signing, I get it. This move probably reduces our division odds slightly, but how much, really? In a division that's still pretty wide open? We are now pretty loaded on young position players, with an exciting roster, and a proven bat at 1B. Bullpen has a great track record. Rotation is a question mark. That's a good enough roster to win the Central next year if lots of things go right (which always has to happen in baseball). Plus, you get a bunch of control years. Bottom line, for me, the Brewers are doing a reset. It's a soft reset. This is basically how the Rays have run for decades, and we are the NL's version of the Rays. Let's see what comes, but I, for one, am ready for a new style of Brewers baseball. Whether it results in as many wins next year or not, it's going to be nice to have some young, fast, talented position players and maybe an offense that can produce a bit more consistently.

Totally echo the free throw sentiments. Makes a ton of difference when you're hoping to mostly win games in the 60s or low 70s.

Storr and Blackwell are total game-changers for this team. Just that little bit of agility makes so much difference on a team that's always going to be sound in the halfcourt. The Tennessee game showcased a lot of what I thought was wrong with the Badgers in previous years. They just were really limited offensively. With some guys starting to grow into themselves a little, they're looking much, much better. When you don't have to count on Wahl and Essegian to score a bunch and can let Chuckie take what comes, you're going to be good. If Crowl shoots like a little over 30 percent from 3, lookout. He's going to get a million open looks when the defense has to rotate so hard on the high ball screen.