Jim French Stepstool

Games like USC & Oregon hurt them in that regard. But they're now 4-2 vs teams in the B10 that have been ranked all/most of the season & I'm all but certain they'll pop back into the top 25 tomorrow.

Winter stayed in Madison. Gard said in postgame that he had a number of separate rehab/treatment sessions today so his plate was full--he mentioned Winter might not even have had time to watch the game save for phone updates. Anyone's guess as to what 'day to day' means. I'd say the original "not as bad as originally feared" line sounds legitimate. If he's heading a bit northward every day then I'm happy, and Gard seemed to suggest that with his comments. It's nice for him to get four more days to work while his teammates get a little re-charge. I thought Cluff, Kaufman-Renn & even Jacobsen had a real edge inside. But when you consider where Rapp was in November & that Bielauskas is a freshman, yeah I agree they both had their moments given the size & experience Purdue possesses. Their defensive growth was critical & it seems to be bearing some fruit. And they both shot it with confidence. Right now, 5 or 6 looks like a pretty good guess.

During a pregame shag, Briggs once threw me a ball. I was in the old LF extension at County Stadium, begging like the annoying little kid that I was. As I recall, when the Brewers traded for George Scott the original plan was for Scott to fill the hole at 3B with Briggs playing 1B, then with late inning leads (believe it or not, they occasionally would have one) Scott would move to first, with Briggs going out to LF and Mike Ferraro, a solid glove man, taking over at 3B. IIRC Briggs was acceptable at first but the Boomer playing third wasn't exactly a revelation. Not a star, but Briggs was just very solid.

If it's closer to the floor the culprit will be cold shooting from beyond the arc, not being connected on the defensive end, or a combination of the two. The rebounding is always a concern, and a ++concern if Winter is less than 90%.

Loads of heroes. With Winter out, you kinda needed to outscore them. And how often does a team lean on its' offense to win in that place? Bieliauskas & Rapp got some deep looks as I thought, and combined for 8 hits. Blackwell was great throughout, and Boyd was magnificent in taking over late. That shot he made from the left side of the lane, with 2-3 defenders right there & having to recover the ball after momentarily losing it----if I ever need to find a magician for a kids' party, I'm hiring his ass. I mentioned how I didn't like Blackwell on Smith, but it turns out the looser D was by design. Blackwell laid off him trying to keep him out of the lane & keep him from picking up 15 assists by dishing to bigs for and-ones. Late in the game he bellied up on him more. I guess you'd have to say it worked---Smith went 2-7 from deep---but still picked up nine assists. He's just a great PG. I won't miss him. Purdue shot over 50%, shot 44% from three, only turned it over seven times & outrebounded UW by twelve. It's just so crazy to look at those numbers & realize Bucky won the game. Another huge factor was only four TOs in the last 33 or so minutes of game time. And other than CJ Cox being mostly invisible offensively, no one for Purdue really played poorly. Just another gutsy, impressive win.

Yes. Doubtful.

With Winter out the 2nd & 3rd looks for PU isn't a surprise. When they combine it with knocking down outside shots it's tough. This sounds pollyanish but Purdue is playing pretty well, we're short-handed & IMO Wisconsin deserves a ton of credit for making this a game.

I love the shot making from UW but it doesn't look like we have anyone who can effectively guard Kaufman-Renn. Not overly nuts about Blackwell being matched up with Smith, either. But they're fun to watch when they get on a roll, and they're doing it vs a team that's playing pretty hard.

I'm on CBS too. I actually think the audio IS a fraction of a sec behind. Nothing like what you're experiencing though.

A Purdue team trying to get back on track after a so-so stretch. Senior Day in West Lafayette. And Braden Smith is one of the seniors. Feels like quite a stacked deck. Even so, I see a possible path to competitiveness. Even if Winter sits out (which I expect), you have a couple of bigs that can knock down threes if they get in a rhythm while Purdues' counterparts aren't the greatest at stepping out & challenging. OTOH, Garlock adds nothing to that strategy but he'll probably get decent minutes if Winter sits as he matches up well with Cluff & Jacobsen. It would be interesting to see if they go small at times if for no other reason than to see who guards Kaufman-Renn (probably Carrington). I have a funny feeling Jack Robison might get his feet wet. Sort of a whole lot to gain, not-much-to-lose type game. Boyd is so damned competitive, it'll be fun to see him go up against a PG like Smith, who's received a lot of (deserved) ink all season. With his vision, you just can't help on him, especially if he gets in the lane. And as if Smith isn't challenge enough, CJ Cox is coming off his career high(27). He & Loyer have each made 12 of their last 25 shots from beyond the arc. Really good team when they're clicking.

Points for persistence. I'll give him that. Also, I couldn't seem to find a dead horse emoji.

Just ask Cuban what the payroll is at IU, and work down from there.

As to the MD game: The only thing that stuck in my craw was MD picking up all the 2nd & 3rd opportunities. You wouldn't think so given they only scored 45pts, but too many extra looks. Only 3 turnovers. That's Dick Bennett-like. MD shooting poorly helped a lot, but even so the defense was really active. Nine MD TOs, and all but one were on steals. The Terps were 8-25 on 2pt shots. That's unusually bad. From the "If at first you don't succeed.........." department-----UW started 0-9 from 3pt range, then went 13-22. Andrew Rohde had 6 assists, more than anyone on either side. Second was Zack Kinziger with 4----in only 7 minutes. I'm not sure what his ceiling is--I tend to think it's fairly high--but he's a really heady kid, on both ends. He'll be a contributor.

You hope for the best, obviously. He never returned to the bench, but with a big lead he didn't need to so you can't really read into that. But he wasn't putting weight on it; it didn't look promising. No word in postgame as to the extent. Losing him for any extent of time would suck, but if that happens the effect AFA their identity on the offensive end wouldn't be great. Of course, Bieliauskas & Rapp hitting shots would become more important. Garlock won't score much but could hold his own defensively vs traditional bigs, like they'll see Saturday. They have the 'going small' look, which they've done often. And while he's smallish for a 4, Robison can stretch a defense & IMO would be a little more solid than folks might expect. Even though he's their 3rd leading scorer on the season a potential loss of Winter would concern me much more on the defensive end.

Senior Night. In some cases it's still a celebration of a dedicated 4-5 years worth of hard work & sweat invested in a program. In others it's devolved into 'thanks for playing here for a season & taking a few classes in the meantime'. Anyway, it sounds like Boyd is pumped about his last game in front of the KC fans. In all-conference talk he seems to be an afterthought to many, or no thought at all. That makes me happy. He seems like the type of kid who gets fueled by stuff like that. On paper Maryland looks to be little problem. Near the bottom of the league in PPG & opponents' PPG. They've had some people step up with impressive performances but their being last in A/TO ratio & APG makes one think there is a large dose of one-on-one play. The Greg Gard word when talking about defensive play---connectivity---should be effective tonite if executed. Andre Mills looks like their hottest hand right now. Diggie Coit has had a few monster games--over 40 once--but is 2 of his last 20 from three. I assume Boyd draws him. Thankfully, it appears nothing serious or chronic after the ankle roll from Winter.

Twos vs threes. Greg Gard is pretty much married to the analytics of the 3PT shot as opposed to 2PT shots that aren't at the rim. I tend to think it's somewhat situational, but you can't argue with the results today. Washington scored 52 points in the second half & never really made the game close, because after the break it was Diallo being unguardable inside the arc vs a heavy 3PT barrage, without the high TO total we saw in Eugene on Wednesday. Diallo & Steinbach were both effective but all their work was done at 2PT range. The third leg of their attack (Yates) averages over 13 PPG & was held to 1-17 shooting. That was mostly due to Rohde (but yes, his offensive play left something to be desired). I don't know if they keep such records, but I'd think there's a strong possibility Braeden Carrington scored the most points off the bench in program history. I know Rob Wilson once had 30 in a BTT game in 2012. Glad to see Winter return to the heartland in one piece after tweaking the ankle Wednesday & apparently getting hit there again today. Not overly worried, but Blackwell still looks to be a little 'off'. He played the most minutes of anyone--in a game well in hand--so it probably isn't anything physical. Hopefully just a rough patch like he experienced in December.

Not WHO you play, but HOW. I've used that mantra many times in Brewers threads, and it looks more & more like it appears to be appropriate to this years' Badger BB team. My biggest concern today Is Hannes Steinbach of Washington. the guy is really strong & refined for a freshman post player. Great nose for the ball. Going back a couple decades, he reminds me a lot of Mike Wilkinson.

Blacks' glove has pretty much relegated him to a 1B-maybe LF role, which hurts his chances with a team that values versatility. Perhaps a minor injury to Bauers or Vaughn, something that isn't normally IL-worthy but gives Black an early stint if he keeps hitting? Otherwise, I feel a more likely scenario would be the organization finding a taker for a late-March deal.

Maybe; I'm not sure. I think it comes down to who else makes the tourney & what those resumes look like. You're still talking about wins at Illinois & at Michigan & the win vs MSU. This is a bad loss. The next worst one I guess is SC. I suppose if the season ended today I'd guess they're either a 7 or an 8, but I really don't look at that stuff until the resume is complete. People will definitely have them under the microscope to see how they respond in Seattle.

I'll forego the lame "I stayed up for THIS?" joke because I'm a night owl anyway. I guess you'd call what Oregon was doing on defense a matchup zone. But I don't think I've ever seen one where a team collapses so aggressively---and effectively---when the ball is driven. UW had next to nothing near the rim that wasn't really well-contested. At the same time, they would double-team out on the perimeter early in the clock & we never really adjusted or got comfortable. Putting someone in the high post, like a traditional zone-defense attack, might've worked but it's hard to do something that clogs up the driving lanes. The key would've been hitting threes & forcing them out of what they were doing. And while 14-45 isn't a great percentage it also isn't horrible. But 45 shots from three is a ton; that's 31 misses. Too many. Credit them for making us uncomfortable, I guess, because none of the UW perimeter guys played well. Blackwell scored points & everyone played hard enough, but everyone was poor AFA poise & decision making is concerned. UW mostly guarded pretty well, which sounds weird since they gave up 85. But 33 of those were in the last 9:11, due to some runouts after we sold out attacking the off. boards, FTs when we started to get desperate & fouled, and frankly some late-clock threes you'd normally be happy to see them take. I guess my bottom line would be that no one made us so uncomfortable for 40 minutes w/their defense since the TCU game, and we responded poorly. Early in the 2nd half UW was up 47-42, had two chances to extend, but turned it over and gave up a runout for an and-one. Still up by 2, but at that point I really felt UW was losing this game, and I seldom feel that way that early in a contest. The drought after going up 21-12 kinda set the tone, too. Bieliauskas only turned it over once in 23 minutes, with 9 boards & three assists. Competing w/Bittle & Evans; that's pretty good for a freshman. But that's about the only positive I got.

I think putting Adamczewski through his paces in LF is a master stroke decision.

For the nite owls out there.......... Oregon is performing much better since Nate Bittle returned from his health issues. A key should be if UW can hit the boards and get the transition game going. Statistically this is a top-heavy Duck team with The 7-foot Bittle & 6'10" Kwame Evans doing most of the damage on the boards as well as scoring. On paper UW has a real advantage in the backcourt. It would be nice if John Blackwell is effective early. seems like it's been a while since that's happened.

Blackwell can impact a game & how a team defends UW just by being out there, even if he isn't 100%. Having said that, I wonder if he's somewhat under the weather but still well enough to play. There were a couple times in the 2nd half where his man got to the rack & he offered little resistance. There's illness going around throughout many rosters. Just a thought.

It's getting kinda funny, in a way. Rohde does much more good than bad but you're right, it's like he has a list to check off every game: Play hard & impact a game defensively---check. Score 4 to 6 points---check. Stay within yourself & make mostly smart decisions on offense, but be sure to make one pass every game that you'd chastise a seventh grader for----check. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️.

He sure is. But I agree we definitely did a nice job of keeping others from getting overly involved. Folgueiras hurt us some & I thought Sage played pretty well, but guys not named Stirtz went 4-18 from 3pt range & had only one long hit in the 2nd half--none in the last 15:30. Gard usually finds ways to tweak things successfully if the early defense is leaky. That happened again today.