Saturday, December 29, 2007

Wisconsin-Texas thoughts - great win!

Here's how I know today's win at Texas was a huge one - my dad called about 30 seconds after it was over. He usually saves that for bowl games and March Madness. Ken remarked about how emotional Bo was in the postgame interview - another sure indicator of the win's magnitude, you don't see him get choked up that often.

There's no way to downplay how important this one is. On the road against a top 10 team; here's hoping Texas rebounds and wins the Big 12. Without Trevon Hughes - how much confidence to J-Bo and Flowers gain from this one? In front of Jay Bilas, who will remember this effort and talk about it in March come tournament time. This one is big enough for four mug shots in the recap.

Listening to LePay's call of the final play right now, getting goosebumps. Will have to find it online later.

Couldn't be prouder of the Badgers today, so let's go down the line:

-What a clutch shot by Flowers off a beautiful play call from the coaching staff. If they ran hard after Flowers, Butch would have been open, which is perhaps how Texas should have played it. Of course the heads-up play after the shot was huge as well, but what about Flowers' rebound on the previous possession that set up Landry's turnaround? Like Bilas said, those are plays championship teams make, and while I don't see titles in this team's future, more big wins like this look likely.

-J-Bo played very well, too, never getting flustered on offense and never letting Augustin take over. Fouls probably had something to do with it, but J-Bo and Flowers didn't play together nearly as much as I thought we'd need to have a chance in this one. Fourteen assists against 10 turnovers is a pretty good line for a game like this.

-Butch was huge today, and was the kind of inside presence he needed to be against an undersized team. He's having a nice senior season thus far, hope he can keep it up. One quibble - he should stop shooting 3s, they're just not going down for him this year.

-Another solid game for Landry, who did a great job finding the gaps in Texas's zone for short jumpers.

-Krabbenhoft didn't have a stellar game on paper, and didn't shut Abrams down, but he did force him to take 17 shots to get his 17 points. Bilas said the 3 Krabby made was his first of the season, which was surprising.

-I think that Texas's decision to zone us was its ultimate undoing. It was fairly effective at limiting our inside touches, but a. we showed patience and passed very well, especially Stiemsma, and b. slowing down the pace played into our hands. True, they're not deep, but a game in the 60s favors us much more than them.

-As much as we have a size advantage against most teams, outrebounding smaller teams is not a foregone conclusion. Look at today's game. In the beginning we didn't hit the offensive boards as hard as we could because we were focused on slowing down their transition game. On defense, their penetration left us helping and in bad box-out position, allowing guys like James to get offensive boards.

-How good was Damion James today? We struggle against guys named D. James.

-Why didn't Barnes take a timeout after Flowers' basket? They had two left.

-Anyone else notice the player on Texas's bench who looked like he was about 45 years old?

-We won today, but I really don't want to go too many more games without Trevon. The early Big Ten schedule looks favorable, but I don't think we can take anything for granted with this team.

This one will put a little more bounce in my step sledding with Will this afternoon ...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Logged on just to see your comments, Tappa, because I can't get over this game. What a win. We've had bigger wins but this one ranks up there. Flowers' shot takes its spot with Kam Taylor's heave vs. Michigan State and Alando's prayer in the BT tournament a few years ago. We had no business winning this game. WOW.

And you're right -- Bilas (and others, I'd hope) will be mentioning this game often come March, if there's any questions about our candidacy. Just a great, fun win.

Toohey said...

Wow. I went nuts after this game. Great win. Even if we had lost, I would have been satisfied with our play today.

I haven't seen Texas this year, but man did they look tough today. James, Augustin and Abrams. It sounds like they're getting more help inside in their first conference game, too.

-Huge heads up play by Flowers with the steal and the toss in the air to run out the clock.

-Butch played huge today, but I agree Taps; no more threes.

-Are you talking about the read headed guy on Texas' bench? I laughed every time I saw him.

I'm glad I taped the game, otherwise I would have missed it. Today's going to be a good day. :D

Anonymous said...

Not since the Scott Starks scoop-and-score against Purdue did I scream this much during a game while watching it on TV.

Great team effort. Was that older guy the trainer? Just a guess.

Thought the team played so-disciplined...very patient attacking the zone and taking good shots. Good quality win. After the Duke and Marquette losses, I was concerned that this team wasn't going to get a signature non-conference win but that worry is now gone.

Coach Scott Tappa said...

I've been trying to rank this win in terms of our true road wins under Bo, and think of ones like at Michigan State when they had the banner all ready, last year's win at Marquette, the win that snapped MSU's home winning streak, but in all of those I at least thought we had a chance going in.

As Frank said, we had no business winning this one, which makes it that much sweeter.

Coach Scott Tappa said...

Some perspective: just read that this was UW's first road win over a top 10 team since 1980, and we've had some nice teams since then.

Anonymous said...

Tom Crean in JS article:

"I don't find myself rooting for Wisconsin too often," the Golden Eagles coach said. "That's big. Good for the state and good for our RPI."

On the flipside, I'm guessing games against IPFW and Savannah State hurt their RPI.

Anonymous said...

What a great win! Nice way to leap frog us into the conference season. I don't think anyone has brought up the Freddie Owens bomb v. Tulsa...in ranks up there with this and the others mentioned. Sort of a 'remember where you were' moment.

One of the many bright spots out of this game was JBo's ability to move his feet on both offense and defense. He did miss a couple wide open jumpers but he showed his abitlity to use the dribble and create space to get his shot off. He played with a little swagger as he knew we was the 'the guy' to take these shots in Pop's absence. I have a feeling JBo will be in the starting line up for the next week or two. TH looked pretty gimped up..not just a boot but crutches????

Anonymous said...

Is Lepay's call of Flowers' shot online anywhere?

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping