Jim French Stepstool

I don't know if he'll pitch effectively, but it sure sounds like I wouldn't mind him for a next-door neighbor.

Looks that way. From the minor league lineups I've seen this spring it looks like they're toggling him between 2B & SS. He's done very little in two years since being promoted to AA & is now 25, so it's definitely 'go time' for him. First-rounders often get a longer leash but yeah, there's a lot of folks ahead of him now.

Yep. As long as you're going to have to do it I think this new timeline is about right.

Reserve forward Jack Robison has announced he'll be entering the transfer portal. The 'official' window for entering the portal is April 7-21. I thought sometime around the beginning of that window I'd start a thread on some of the players that entered, who UW might be interested in, and throw in some recruiting updates. I imagine there'll be a lot of dormancy but some news should pop up from time to time.

Good piece. It's obvious that there's a lot of versatility among that group. As long as we're talking SS let's not forget Ebel.

Yeah, lol. Selling space on your appendages DOES seem pretty "Gottlieb-ish". The key would be if the assistants are decked out similarily🤷‍♂️.

This topic could fill an entire thread.......hell, an entire message board. I'm probably being naive but I'll still hold out hope for some sort of return to sanity. State farm is running the ad featuring the Boozer boys. To me, THIS should be what NIL is all about. The kids were in the ad in street clothes, no reference to their school, no Duke unis or logos. They're obviously more in the limelight than others; that's why they get the State Farm gig, while a Zach Kinziger gets a local spot from Piggly Wiggly or whatever. But the school should have NO input into these opportunities, in any way. If the player wants to work out a deal w/an agent on a % basis, fine. I was clueless enough to think that was the way it was going to work. I saw how wrong I was when State Farm first marched Kaitlin Clark out there in her Iowa jersey. I was really disillusioned & knew this was a bad, bad path. What's unfortunate is that the NCAA has taken a legal beating on most of this. Hopefully that changes.

I've seen that, but it's always worth a replay😄. Gottlieb had a presser after the 1st semester closed, which I found interesting. He had the academic performance numbers for men's basketball at the semester break. In D-1 there are 365 schools (four transitional). That might put you conservatively in the neighborhood of 4400-4500 scholarship athletes. The number of athletes that were academically ineligible was.....zero. Are academics being glossed over? Is it easier to job the system when you have a lot of online classes? Are certain classes being dumbed down, especially since it isn't good business to have your $600,000 power forward sitting out? Nah. I'm sure student-athletes are just much, much smarter nowadays🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.

Iowa was a very connected team defensively; that had a lot to do with their success. McCollum had players following him around from NWMO to Drake to Iowa, which helped that connectivity. They probably wouldn't have liked their chances vs Florida if they knew Stirtz was going to shoot it so poorly, but when you can guard people & keep the pace under control then it gives you a fighting chance (and of course, have others step up. Some of the shots Koch & Folgueiras made reminded me a little of Rapp at Illinois or Bieliauskas at Michigan). The seeding, yeah, it is what it is. All things considered it's an extremely difficult task to seed some of these teams. And like you said, none of this stuff is revealed until after the fact. All you can do as a program is take everyone seriously & realize that your season can end if you don't. Or even if you DO. I really don't think UW took them lightly or wasn't ready to play. High Point, relative to their ceiling, played extremely well Thursday. That gives them a chance vs most teams, and the '12' after their name becomes immaterial. It's just a number the committee is forced to hang on everyone when you play a tournament.

looks like Izzo's boys may have hit their stride. I don't know if they'll score enough to win, but that matchup with UConn should be extremely physical, and fun. I had the Johnnies knocking out Duke from the get-go. We'll see. If they wind up meeting in the Elite Eight, watching Lendeborg fight thru traffic & try to glue himself to Momcilovic will be worth the price of admission.

I think Kentucky blew any chance for an upset by turning the ball over twelve times in the 1st half. ISU was struggling to score. UK had a chance to be up a dozen or so heading into the locker room but went in down two.

Not as nationally acclaimed but I suspect Bruce Weber felt the same way.

They definitely got better as the season wore on. When you look at TCU, BYU, Villanova, Nebraska.........I'll admit it was disturbing when they seemed to 'backslide' a little (second OSU game, Oregon). But we're in a world where the defense has to be an on the fly, season-long process. Hopefully you retain enough of the talent that has it already somewhat ingrained that you get carryover.

THAT'S interesting to think about. The defensive 'rules'. Having to make them sink in while turning much of the roster over yearly? Once NIL/portal became the norm I think it would've been one more massage for the road & then hello, Florida.

It isn't false. There were people b****ing about Bo regarding that. It was unfounded. Also, they made the tournament 4 of the 5 years before Bo. Far & gone from 'basically never making the tourney'. You're right; Gards' resume is nothing like Ryans'. Neither are the resumes of somewhere from 325 to 350 of the 365 D-1 coaches out there. We're talking about a HOF coach. Maybe it's just me, but I think 'choking' is one of those lazy, overused terms in sports. There are reasons why things happen that IMO transcend that. In 2019 many Badger fans felt pessimistic even though they were the 5 going out west to play a much more athletic Oregon team, and weren't all that surprised at the result. In 2022 the 'choke' moniker might be most appropriate, in the 2nd round vs Iowa State. First off, they weren't very good in the opening round. VS ISU they were guarded well, but a horrible offensive performance while playing in Milwaukee. Of course they weren't helped by Hepburn going out in the 1st half w/an injury & having to turn to folks like Jacobi Neath, Jordan Davis & Isaac Lindsay. It put Johnny Davis in a little different role & he had a poor day. I don't think they were at all well prepared for what was a terrific half court overplay by JMU. I also wonder if everyone's head was where it should've been that day. Hepburn was a month away from bolting to Louisville, something no one expected. I imagine he was already handed the key to their vault, and since he didn't announce immediately was torn. Storr was most likely pondering who his 7th school in as many years would be. If that was the case & it's GG's fault for not mitigating it, OK then. There was no choking Thursday. I think the "HP played well" vs "UW wasn't as good as they should be" breakdown was like 85%--15%. HP performs in the final five minutes last night the way they did Thursday & they're prepping for (probably) Arizona. The criticism for GG will continue from the same corners until he advances more successfully. But most of it is overboard.

I'll share something that I heard; let me say I don't know if it's accurate or not. Wisconsin was willing to play Miami O but insisted on a particular date or window of dates, and they said no.🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ Gottlieb, hah!! Whenever he's mentioned I think back to HS. His dad used to coach UWM & for three years in a row we had a SR he was recruiting. So for that stretch he was as familiar a fixture in our gym as the ball racks & fold-up bleachers. GB seems to be in the same situation w/Junior as UWM was with Pearl, except Pearl had somewhat of a pedigree so it might be a lot tougher for Dougie to step up to a more lucrative job even if he IS successful.

Some folks who are expected to know more than most thought High Point was the worst of the twelves. I personally thought McNeese was more dangerous. Goes to show you, we're all geniuses---and all idiots🤪. One difference tonight was that Arky had bigs that could finish comfortably around the rim; Wisconsin's were more finesse. Other than that, like you said Johnston had a couple big misses while on Thursday we got to watch him be Steph Curry. Had UW won, I could've seen them get past the Hogs but it would've taken something like what we did in the four games vs Illinois & Michigan. You nailed Vandy-Nebraska. Fantastic game.

Happy for Texas. Third game in five days, they matched Gonzaga through crunch time, and had to overcome a couple of bad call/non calls by the zebras but still won.

I used to be a UWM fan. A friend of my nephews' was on the team years ago. That was a nice, solid mid-major conference. Then Butler left, Loyola left, UIC left, Valpo left. Keep that together, maybe attract a Saint Louis when they were looking for a home, & you'd have something. The Bud Haidet years w/Nancy Zimpher as the chancellor, fueled of course by Bruce Pearl, was the time to maximize their potential & perhaps find their way into the Missouri Valley. But it's been a mostly downward spiral since re their decision-makers. There's a somewhat passionate fan/alumni base there, but it's tiny & largely frustrated by an administration that seems to be some sort of combination of cluelessness & apathy. St Thomas finally adds a second D-I program to that state. You'd think it's a no-brainer they'd matchup with U-M eventually. But there again, a new coach at Minnesota, trying to establish the program---the last thing he needs is to lose to the only other D-1 in the state, and a relative D-1 newcomer at that. I think the most the Tommies could hope for is a game at the Target Center, but the barn would be more likely. As a fan, I'd like to see it though.

Apologies to Cal Baptist, who I underrated. Kansas IMO has had a lot of 'dog' in them over the years, but regardless CBU mounted a run & gave a heck of an effort.

You & me both😄. Do you make more from a buy game after the payout, then you would taking a guarantee from a Southern Illinois, Bradley, Western Ky, etc? Good question. My guess is you do make a bit more staying home; just a guess though. Do they make more on the TV deals? For sure. But that's a slice of the pie everyone in the B10 gets evenly. It would be the other stuff that could cause a little separation. GB DID beat a Bo-coached team up dere in Titletown, hey. He never lost to UWM home or road. One of those games was played at the Klotsche Center. Just insane to think of ANY B10 team going into that place (I think Dick Bennett took a Badger team in there, too). Great call on the Charleston Classic, by the way. UWM kinda-sorta did some similar stuff a time or three; but I suspect it wasn't totally their baby but had outside money backing it. Now that I think of it there was some kind of doubleheader years ago & Tony Bennett brought in Wazzou to play UWM at the MECCA. His dad was in the stands & I was lucky enough to have a short conversation. Such an incredibly nice man.

I didn't think of games with good mid-majors being that much of a discrepancy, home to neutral to road. But even given that, don't forget the money aspect. You have a payroll now. I would think there almost HAS to be some kind of guarantee to offset the home game "house" and I don't know how that would work, or if it even COULD work if you went into Oxford, Ohio or Peoria or wherever. I think the only thing they learned from the Campbell opener, is that if they played a good mid-major they would've started out 0-1. That was IIRC a 3 point game with about 6-7 minutes left. That's always going to carry a lot of weight; admittedly maybe more than it should given how the quad rating breaks things down, but still. I'm not some huge insider but I've had enough conversations with coaches that I think home-and-homes with some of these teams is never going to happen to any great extent if at all because in their world it just doesn't need to. It's a big part of the reason (along with salary obviously) why mid-major coaches make the jump when given the chance, and why assistants who get those gigs look at it as a steppingstone. That's how it worked with a former schoolmate of mine who recently hung up his whistle. It's interesting though to wonder how/if this would effect Bo if he were coaching in the current landscape. He went TO UWM four times. To UWGB three times. Played Ohio U twice in the state of Ohio. Went to Penn, Xavier, Temple, Pepperdine, UNLV. But like I said, now you have to pay players. You get a damn guarantee for an exhibition (Oklahoma), for crying out loud. The promoters send you to Salt Lake City and bring you back (probably) to Milwaukee for a rematch, neither team having to play a true 'road' game. Villanova comes into Milwaukee. Maybe next season they play 'Nova in New Jersey somewhere? And it's always a nice thing for recruiting to send the kids somewhere warm for 3-4 days. Not much sked remaining for high majors looking to do what some of us might see as the 'right thing'. I think if this were discussed among all high majors sitting at a table, Iowa would look at Minnesota who would look at Nebraska who would look at Wisconsin who would look at Indiana & they'd all be saying the same thing: "You first".

I'm skeptical about HP playing at the same level on Saturday, too. But Martin matching skills with Acuff might be worth the price of admission. Sometimes Illinois seems to forget they have a size advantage. If they do VCU might hang around. I agree Nebraska-Vandy is an intriguing matchup (I'd go Vandy). Also agree TCU has it in 'em to knock off Duke. If they do I think it'll have to be a 59-57 type deal. The loss of Cason might catch up to Michigan eventually. But not Saturday.

The recruiting strategy has changed at UW, along with the new landscape. The way GG would like to defend, the way Bo liked to defend, is largely dependent on guys being immersed in it for at least a year or two to where it's second nature. That's not as likely to happen now, so he's finding scorers that he thinks (hopes) are smart enough to pick up enough of the rudiments semi-quickly & allow you to maybe not hold people to 64 pts, but 70-75 while you score 85. In that regard I think Gard has succeeded, they improve defensively as the year goes along. But the consistency isn't what it used to be. Kamari McGee made himself into a real nice defender, Carter Gilmore was good at it & vastly under-rated. Nolan Winter has gotten to the point where he can even step out & defend on the wing a little. And Jack Janicki is an effective defender. All those folks spent 3 years at UW minimum. I guess I'm saying that unless you recruit someone with a natural knack for defending (or get guys to buy in & stick around), it is what it is.

I don't blame the HP coach for getting up on the soap box when he had the chance. And if I was him maybe I'd say the same things. But the simple fact is that high majors play in leagues that do more than enough for their SOS which makes games with good mid-majors a "no win" proposition. Four or eight-team tourneys in Hawaii or the Bahamas w/other high majors, sure. That's where the losses that don't hurt you too much w/the computers come from. Nowadays getting into the tourney is so important that no coach relishes hampering that by losing to someone who might be on the same 'bubble' as you on selection Sunday. He mentions how his team & Miami(O) are now 2-0 in quad one games. Yep. Well done. But does he really think that's going to inspire high major coaches to pick up the phone this summer asking him for a game? More likely the opposite. He also mentioned the NCAA "doing something" about it. What, exactly? We're talking about an organization that now has guys playing at four different schools in four years. For all intents and purposes being paid directly by schools. Guys are coming from pro leagues in Europe, in one or two cases the G-League. Those are the battles the NCAA should be fighting. Perhaps these promoters who set up some of the non-con games could factor in. Money talks. But even then, are they more likely to pump money into a Duke-St John's matchup, or Duke-High Point? LSU-UCLA, or LSU-McNeese? I agree with you regarding the Bracket Buster. Never should've gone away. I think the mid majors' best bet is to bring that back, create inter-conference matchups (Mid-American-A10 Challenge, Summit-MVC, Horizon-Patriot League, etc) And just keep making calls. Someday, the High Point coach may have the head job at Wake Forest, or Maryland. I suspect he'll view it a bit differently then.