Jim French Stepstool

A very overlooked aspect of the '82 postseason was Harvey Kuenn lifting Gorman Thomas, who clearly wasn't at 100%, for Edwards late in game 5 of the ALCS. We'll never know if Thomas catches the long drive off the bat of Don Baylor but I wouldn't be too confident. In an era where you could have five or six position players on your bench (and one more than that in the NL), Edwards filled a specific role & filled it pretty well.

DBs that can make plays are at a premium in todays' game, and Lucas has shown flashes of being able to do that. I think he's looking for a payday & I can't imagine someone--Miami or whoever--giving it to him & us beating it. I think he's gone. Hope I'm wrong.

Lucky you. I usually get "Do you have an idea when that will be over?" (She's a hoops fan though, so you take the good with the bad)😁.

English classes are probably going great guns, particularly student-athletes being drilled in the art of starting a sentence with a preposition. "With that being said............."

Actually, it would be nice if coaches had ANY ability to plan a roster ahead of time. It's one thing to have to rely on players' whims year-to-year. Throw in that we're talking about 18-22 year olds..........

I don't think Kekahuna is a 'far better' player than Wohler, but the argument could be made that he's better (it could also be made that Wohler is better, IMO). Ashcraft? I've seen nothing in two years to put him in that lofty a position. And I believe that blocking from the TE spot is going to take on a more important role moving forward. There is little to no evidence Ashcraft can be effective in that role, or if that was even considered when he was first offered. He'll be given ample opportunity w/Nowakowski gone so we'll see. Understand, I probably put a lot more emphasis on how productive someone is for his team when assigning value, than what round he might be projected to go in. Wohler is an example of that. But I hope your feelings toward Ashcraft come to fruition.

As you mentioned about TE-to-DL guys from MAC schools in the state of Michigan working out, hopefully we also have continued success with FCS DL re Perkins. Eligah Hills wound up being a guy that could make plays, wish he had another year. Might O'Neil back up Edwards & actually NOT transfer? Having the same starting QB in successive years (26 & 27), I've forgotten what that's like. I agree it's not a good look for Mettauer, signing a couple QBs after watching him every day since August. Hard to know for sure w/o actually seeing him play but the numbers suggest Traynor is a physical safety. Much needed post-Wohler.

I realized they took pretty good care of the ball, but hadn't seen the stat sheet yet & did not know they only had 3 TO. Even against an opponent that didn't pressure the perimeter much, that's outstanding.

A "yell at the screen" moment for sure. If Bo was still coaching Klesmit would immediately turn & go to the bench w/o bothering to look if there was a sub coming.

Nolan Winter showed a glimpse here & there of his ability last season. Now it really seems to be coming together. The next step is to add strength & good weight, and in doing so not lose what foot speed he has (not a lot, but a decent amount for a 7-footer), or shooting touch. If he can do that successfully he'll be the best post guy since Kaminsky. Not the best post defense in the world by Butler, but good enough that Crowl's performance was certainly noteworthy. Comes at a good time for him too, since Gilmore might be playing his best ball right now. Damn, I'd really love it if Freitag was 'readier' so perhaps he & McGee could share the PG role. Not that Blackwell isn't mostly doing a nice job there, but I'd love to see the opportunities he'd get spending most of his time maneuvering off the ball, slashing on the wing, even posting up from time to time. Other than some late closeouts I thought it was a decent performance.

In all likelihood Jeff Grimes' first recruiting success, in a manner of speaking.

we all knew this was inevitable. I'm glad he's out of the NL. This makes it look at least a little more likely Turang moves to SS, which I'm not nuts about b/c while he can handle the position & I'm sure handle it well, the guy was a GG-caliber 2B. But Durbin has moved around the INF so we'll see. He has an offensive profile I really like, and one that the Brewers seem to put a premium on these days. Does this perhaps increase the odds of Ashby staying in the BP?

With the puns, it's getting so it's dangerous to peek at some of these threads.

IMO he got a little flustered in Milwaukee on Saturday & had a poor game, but I'm nit-picking--we're talking about a walkon here. Great anticipation on D, smart. Like you said, moxie. Any time you can get a guy who had other D-1 offers to walk on to your program, it's like found money.

Yeah, of the last three games not holding serve at home is toughest. Shoot Just over 20% from deep, inept at stopping the 2-man game by their bigs-------and lose by three. Frustrating.

I don't know if he'll ever make it to Milwaukee. But if he does & they don't play 'Clap For the Wolfman' when he comes out of the bullpen, I'm done 🐺.

I see Dunn getting a full season in Nashville, Black getting dealt, Monasterio & Collins fighting it out for one roster spot & someone starting at 2B or 3B on opening day that currently is not in the organization. @Joseph Zarr, did you really use the word cromulent?

Yep, very cynical😁. And you're correct about the 'no NIL' thing for Euros. But we're talking Illinois here........ He might be a tad smaller & not quite as sturdy, but the Jakucionus comp to Knecht is a good one. It sucks, but we've run into three games in a row now where the opponent played pretty well, and we were unable to match it. Fortunately, over the years I've developed an ability to dismiss most of what comes out of announcers' mouths. The constant railing last night about the missed FTs for UW--yeah, they only made two-thirds of their FTs, which isn't the 90% or whatever they usually shoot. But of the top five reasons why they lost, four of them are poor rebounding & the multiple 2nd & 3rd looks for the home team. People complain about Crowl & I don't blame them. He scored 9pt last night, which I believe is his 2nd-highest point total of the season. But IMO he played much better on Saturday, when he scored 2pt. Vs Illinois.......seven feet tall, 19 minutes of game action, and zero rebounds. I don't know how that's even possible. I wonder if this is going to be one of those deals where Tonje averages 12 FT attempts at home & three on the road. Reffing has become so hit-and-miss I wouldn't even mind it much. But then he'd better damn well get the dozen in the home games. I thought the entire bench performed well. Janicki looks like he may develop into a backcourt version of Gilmore, except with a shooting touch. And that would be great. And maybe last night was a coming out party for Winter.

You gotta love modern-day college hoops. Tonights' opponent (Illinois) has two players on their active roster that were on the team last year, both reserves, one of whom has played 11 minutes all season. Even with the new landscape, for an established program that's kinda sad regardless of success. And they've had success, so far. Brad Underwood must've been busy providing exchange rates from dollars to euros. Two of their best are Kasparas Jakucionus (Lithuania) & 7'1" Tomislav Ivisic (Croatia). Ivisic is a 'sophomore' even though he'll be 22 on his next birthday. If they continue to shine, I'd imagine you'll see them at Kentucky, Kansas or Duke next year. After Andrija Vukovic wound up not going to UW, supposedly due to an admissions issue, I'd have to wonder about the two euros at Illinois. They may very well be bright young men. But thinking back to Lou Henson, Bill Self & now Underwood in Champaign, the cynical part of me can't help but imagine their admissions office, at least for athletes, consisting of a table with different shapes cut into it & round, square & star-shaped wooden blocks.

He was on the team during the transition from also-rans to contenders, which is sorta cool. Won thirteen games in George Bambergers' 1st year here, a highwater mark. There must've been something in the water in Kewaunee at that time. The high school had Augustine, Jack Novak who spent three years in the NFL, and Dale Koehler who averaged a double-double his last two years playing basketball at UW. They were all within a couple years of each other.

I thought there were two significant sequences in the game. Klesmit, for the 2nd game in a row, committed a really dumb foul late in the half on a missed 3pt. Chance to get the ball back up five w/an opportunity to go up 7/8 at halftime. What made it worse was UW was in a zone, which if you have that in your arsenal (I had no idea they did), it wasn't a bad time to break it out. The other, more critical, was a few minutes into the 2nd half, MU was sorta threatening to make a push, and Tonje & McGee were on the bench w/3 fouls. You really needed Blackwell there to make good decisions & stabilize, and he turned in probably his worst 5-minute stretch of the game. Both he & Tonje needed to be better obviously, but in the case of Tonje a lot of it was being defended very, very well & having pressure put on him on the other end. Blackwell, a lot of unforced stuff. Two points for Crowl. He'll get more criticism. And if you look at his season as a whole, it's deserved. But today, if he has a 'typical Steven Crowl game' looking at his career, they still lose. He got up 4 shots, and that's about as many as he had a chance to put up. He led both teams in rebounds. And near the end of the game when he had the open 3pt shot, it really should've been Winter in the game at that point. Other than the board work he was nothing special, I just don't think he hurt them all that much compared to the above points. In recent years, I felt MU was the type of team that you can defend w/o much trouble in the half court, just keep them out of transition & semi-transition. And if you can take care of the ball, you'll find breakdowns in their HC defense. Neither appears to be true now. The drive-and-finish game was really impressive, and just enough 3pt to balance it. Defensively they put nice pressure on the ball while still being able to recover & rotate when needed. We did an OK job of getting to the line early, but that dried up. I will say it's a tiny bit more palatable losing to Smart, who seems like a pretty good guy, compared to some of the jackasses roaming their bench over the years.

Good call on both. Gilmore played pretty well, and that's what we were waiting for from Klesmit.

That would be my preference as well. But It IS nice to have versatility w/both Turang & Ortiz that if an unexpected chance crops up to grab an attractive MINF piece, they can do it. Finding a 3B is the most likely scenario, I suspect.

Great research, Joseph. I think what they missed most among the portal losses was in the DL. Maybe none of those guys were all-conference types, but it's huge to be able to shuttle 5-7 guys there & we were never able to do that. Throw in Thompson being out all year & it hurt greatly. Their best playmaker (Elijah Hills) really ran out of gas at the end of the year. And although they had some depth at LB Jordan Turner was greatly missed. The talent at WR that left was substantial, but I'm not sure how much difference their presence would've made. Like @homersaid, only one football. I particularly liked Dike, but I don't know that the Air Raid offense liked him. As I alluded to earlier, they had very little depth in the OL & were fortunate that they stayed healthy there. Otherwise Rucci, Wedig & Barrett would've been greatly missed. The one area where Evers could've made a difference is he had at least some talent/willingness to run with the ball ala Mordecai & Van Dyke. Not a 'better' option than what they had but the option of an added dimension.

James Thompson Jr has decided to enter the portal. He didn't play last year due to the torn pec muscle, but is still their best returning DL had he stayed, so not good news.