Jim French Stepstool

I couldn't stand him early in his tenure as the head coach at State, but in time came to really appreciate the way he tries to get his teams to play. He's a favorite of mine, too. I based my guess on their game today on the combination of toughness, preparation & their guards playing really well. So far the third leg of that hasn't happened.

Not going so far as to predict an upset, but I have a funny feeling Michigan State will give Purdue all they can handle on Friday.

They are, but Collins has gotten surprising contributions from a couple people you wouldn't expect. I think he probably deserves the same props Hoiberg has gotten, if not more, for the job he's done. It would be nice to pound it inside & strain their frontcourt depth. And get defensive contributions from 3 or 4 sources vs Bouie, make him work extra hard. And stay hot from the arc.😎

I didn't know what to think one way or the other regarding Conner. I DO know he's shown zero characteristics of an unhappy player, always vocal & supportive on the bench & in warmups. After getting his minutes cut, that's quite rare in the current climate. Really makes you want to see him improve, and succeed. Sure reminded everyone today what he's capable of. Nine pts in 3 minutes, or something like that.

Understandably the 3pt shooting is going to be the big story today. But the defense continued to trend upward today & really set a great tone. Felt a little sorry (almost) for MD coach Willard. In his presser he said they were playing Blackwell as a driver, which makes a lot of sense. So he hits three 3 pointers in the 1st half. Sometimes you just throw up your hands. I absolutely loved the way they came out in the first 5 minutes of the 2nd half, too. You sit on your hands, drop your guard a little w/the big lead, before you know it it's down to 14-15 with a ton of time left & now they have momentum. Instead we came out great on both ends. Game over. Also nice to sit starters w/8-10 minutes left with a game tomorrow. Crowl was great, and NW is minus one of their bigs tomorrow. Keep it up young man.

I expect a similar strategy from Wisconsin today--try to put pressure on the MD bigs with Crowl, Wahl and driving the ball. Preferably get kickout passes for jumpers rather than simply moving the ball around the perimeter. And hopefully make their share. The defense had been looking a little better, and Hepburn (and occasionally Blackwell) did a terrific job on Young when MD visited Madison. Now McGee adds another dimension there. Quick turnaround for the Terps & their bench isn't the greatest, hopefully that'll be a factor. Side note---sounds like Connor Essegian has no plans to transfer, as per his recent comments.

It's one of the things that makes this time of year so much fun. The chance for redemption, not wanting to go home or have your career end. Detroit Mercy gave UWM all they could handle in the Horizon tourney, losing by four. It would've been their second win of the year.

My first choice would be for Uribe to handle the ninth, with everyone else pretty much staying in their same role. That assumes Uribe is ready to do that, which at this point is a coin flip. Megill would be an interesting candidate. Sort of a modern-day Knebel. Miso? 😃.

UWM falls short in a very entertaining game. I think they'd be a nice entry for the NIT, but if they go strictly by body of work, computer rankings, etc I would guess the Panthers fall short. Kenpom in the 220s. Best wins were Youngstown St & Chattanooga, both in the 130s. Kinda fun team to watch though.

I get why Domask was overlooked by high majors out of HS. A "tweener" who at 6'5"-ish isn't overly athletic. But yep, it was a miss. Just a picture of consistency. A double-digit scorer in the MVC from day one & never skipped a beat this year.

Save for the Brewers reaching the Series, the best time of the year for me. UWM seems to have a curious pathway to success. In many of their games they fall behind early & look terrible doing it, then come on strong with the pressure, gain momentum & never look back. I think it would be their first bid in 10 years. Freeman is an impressive scorer but a really high-usage guy. I think he's best in a situation like the one he's in: the go-to guy on a low or mid-major where everyone else defers to him & the coaches are willing to wait for him to get hot.

In the first 15 years of this century UW enjoyed a terrific home court advantage, even though the Kohl Center isn't what I'd call an intimidating place. Besides the quality of the teams, the biggest reason for that was Bo Ryan & his ability to work refs. It wasn't so much yelling & carrying on (although he did some of that), but he'd get his team to play the way he wanted them to, understand clearly what is & isn't a foul, and display a terrific ability to convey to the zebras what should & shouldn't be allowed, while his teams--- especially on the defensive end---learned to perform right on the edge of that allowance. He was so good at it, it often worked on the road, too. I remember once seeing Jason Chappell give Greg Oden all he could handle. Jason Chappell, for crying out loud. Of course a lot of the things that were effective then--and legal--probably wouldn't fly now. I think Gard & his staff are vocal, AFA talking to refs during a game & conveying their grievances. Would being more demonstrative help? Yeah, it might. I know it would bother me when a Knight, a Coach K, or an Al McGuire would put on a show, and suddenly the whistles would change direction. He does need to be himself. But like I mentioned, after the non-stoppage with Hepburn I don't care if you're Gahndi, you gotta blow up there. I would hope his message to the players isn't that the refs are always right, but more of a "let me handle it." Of course, he then needs to.

I agree it should've been a foul. But when a guy gets raked across the face like that, I can see where it might be missed, it's not like he was shouldered out of the way or elbowed in the head or something. My issue was Hepburn is lying there on the court, and they let the game go merrily on its' way, after stopping it when the PU player went down. Like you said, the thing to do is let it go until a made shot or dead ball--for both sides. Take the arbitrary nature out of it. The thicker the rule book gets, the tougher the job of officiating is, the more mistakes made, & the more ******** from coaches. Especially in a fast-paced game like basketball. Gard was asked after the game if any explanation was given to him why action wasn't stopped. He said none. To me that's akin to the ref saying "We f***ed up."

I like the added defensive options they now have. Hepburn and/or McGee can get some run vs Buie, and you can even throw Blackwell in there too. They did that vs Jahmir Young of Maryland--Hepburn worked his tail off guarding him, then they went to Blackwell for a few minutes. It worked really well. But NW runs some good stuff & you need to be disciplined. Yeah, getting to Saturday isn't a pipe dream. But the 2nd halves they turned in in the last two games has to be more of the norm for 40 minutes.

So, Rutgers plays Maryland on Wednesday with UW playing the winner on Thursday. If they get past that one, Northwestern.

I came up with 63-212 since the 2nd half in Lincoln. Should've taken the other shoe off.😁

.297. They went for almost 43% vs Illinois & Rutgers, so maybe this'll just be a blip in the screen. No more true roadies can't hurt.

Just under 37% for the season, 43% in the last three games. I was incorrect in that apparently there are 362 D-1 schools, not 351. The 340th ranking is accurate.

Started the game out exactly the way you don't want to when on the road, with the misses from beyond the arc & letting their guards get much too comfortable. Credit to the team for putting together a real nice 2nd half. But it obviously felt like an uphill run the entire way. It's like Purdue had 5 or 6 "three point cards" they could play whenever they wanted and pulled one out whenever it would hurt most. I thought the epitome was when we were trying to get the ball back w/a chance to make it a one- possession game & Caleb Furst, who was 2-10 from deep on the season & hadn't made one since November 13th hits nothing but net. Typical. Kinda hard to criticize Crowl too much due to the physical mismatch, but obviously you can't afford to have him disappear offensively like he did, Edey notwithstanding. Storr had a lot of offensive freedom but didn't really put up an inordinate # of bad shots IMO. He was the only guy in the first 12 minutes that played like the moment wasn't too big for him & was capable of hunting shots. I wouldn't lobby for this too hard because what they're doing right now is working for him, but if you choose to start your best five it certainly includes Blackwell. If I'm Gard, I'd have a hard time not getting thrown out after Hepburn was lying on the floor & the game wasn't stopped. Not just a tech. Thrown out. The officiating probably didn't cost them the game, but it would've sent a hell of a message coming from someone as mild-mannered as him, and might've even created a shoulder chip heading into the post season. Here's hoping for a nice UW contingent with the B10 tourney right next door.

And it was mentioned early in the game that UWs' 3pt defense is ranked 340th. That's out of 351 D-1 schools. They have given up some open looks this season, as everyone does. But that screams reversion to the mean to me. Hopefully the basketball gods owe them some misses.

I mentioned awhile back that maybe Storr needs to be given a little more freedom, that we should just learn to live with the questionable looks as long as attacking the hoop is still foremost in his mind. I wonder if he was talked to towards that end because he was very effective vs Rutgers, especially in the 2nd half. Don't know what the true answer to the defensive woes are regarding people like Klesmit, Crowl & Wahl. I thought those three were adequate to good defensively in the past but have been very hit-and-miss this season. I know when Hepburn, McGee & Blackwell were in the game together Thursday, they were disruptive & RU had no chance of getting anything established. Their guards were pretty poor at decision making anyway, but still a major improvement. Hepburn passed up a couple great looks Thursday (one ended up in a made three) but he's been looking to score more recently. I trust his decision-making. Until the loonytunes performance late from Lindsay & Essegian, I think UW turned the ball over something like twice in the 2nd half. Cleaning that up after halftime is par for the course, but I agree the early ones are pretty inexcusable. Agree, Wahl needs to be better. As for Tucker, all I'll say is the blue font you used didn't need to be blue.

I mean, how can you mention 2 or 3 names on that roster w/o mentioning 8 or 10 others? It's THAT deep. Some of the people who are maybe a little under the radar (only because of the sheer depth of talent) who I'm excited to see perform are Knoth, Pratt, Adams, Guilarte & Y Rodriguez. And it seems like people are maybe forgetting about Eric Brown a little bit.

Does anyone know what caused the huge backup on eastbound I-94 last evening (March 7) in Jefferson County? It was a parking lot for 30-45 minutes before we finally climbed on the shoulder, backtracked to HWY 73 & went south to HWY 18. Several people bailed out in a similar way. I've never experienced anything so bad; of course I don't live in the northeast.

There's a ton of talent in the next three recruiting classes in Wisconsin HS basketball, especially '25 & '27. They're working really hard on the '25 class & have Zack Kinziger from DePere committed. I'd describe him as a Ben Brust type with a little PG skill sprinkled in although he's a 2G. Word is they probably have Will Garlock (6'10") from Middleton if they want him, but I suspect they're waiting on Kai Rogers from Tosa West to decide first. He's being recruited nationally. And there are a few other talented wings led by Davion Hannah of Nicolet & Xzavion Mitchell from Oshkosh North. Nice thing about Freitag is he can play either guard spot before taking over at PG. Gard is IMO targeting the right guys. This is still a program that's largely about development & projection (Wahl, Crowl, Blackwell). But with some of the talent the state is churning out, yeah, you certainly want to snag your share.

Many of those folks were crying for his head back when they won the B10 a couple years ago. They don't let common sense get in the way of whatever their agenda is. I didn't hear it from where I was sitting, but apparently there were people complaining when Gard pulled McGee from the game in the 2nd half. I guess they don't understand the concept of pulling someone when they pick up their 4th foul with about 9-10 minutes left to play. I mean, talk about watching the game from the back seat of the short bus....... I give Pikiell a bit of a pass this season. He's no John Wooden, but it really cut the head off their offense when their PG left for Washington. He had no one to fill that role--a brainy, pass first, toughness type, sort of like Davison w/o the scoring. Like you said, It really left them relying on a lot of ugly possessions.