Wisconsin-Fullerton thoughts

Wow, 30 wins for the second straight season. Just think about that for a minute. Thirty wins, two years in a row. Given where this program was 20 years ago, it's simply amazing the levels it has reached in the last 10.

Other than that, the silver lining is that we didn't play very well but won by double digits. We were way too loose with the ball, but hit the glass hard and exploited their lack of size. We let Akognon go off, but no one else did, particularly the fat wannabe thug with the neck tattoo.

-Player of the game had to be Krabby, who did a little bit of everything and hit his career high with 13 points. He made some jumpers early when Fullerton was playing with a lot of confidence and threatening to build a lead. For all the talk about Beasley, Bill Walker was terrific for Kansas State tonight and Krabby will need to bring his game on Saturday.

-J-Bo was star #2 tonight, like Krabby hitting some jumpers early and closing the deal with free throws late. It was nice to see him go 8-for-8 from the line and wipe out the memory of his missed freebies late against Michigan State.

-Stiemsma played really well, too, with a couple blocks rebounds, and jumpers. Butch didn't play very well, his 14 points notwithstanding, and Stiemsma gave solid relief. What a luxury to have two solid bigs.

-Pop is constantly wincing in pain, but gets back up and looks like he's moving around just fine. His little behind-the-back pass setting up Butch's dunk was beautiful. He's arguably the most stylish player we've seen in red in recent years.

-Far be it for me to question the greatest coach in UW basketball history, but ... We had a five-second call in the first half, which reminded me of a gripe we had during the Big Ten Tournament: what are we doing on inbounds plays from underneath the basket? It seems like two guys fan out to the corners, one guy makes a cut to the hoop, and another guy fades back. No picks. Too many times in Indy, nothing was open, and it happened again tonight. In Indy, Jarmusz took a timeout in such a situation, and coming out of the timeout he got an open look for a layup. Why not do something more like that more often?

-Flowers has got to be like a good cornerback or closer and shake off Akognon's 31 points. I still don't like the fact that he bailed on the Bennetts, like a modern day Jeremy Hall, but the kid can fill it up. I thought our defense on him early left something to be desired, but later on he was just making some tough shots. It's amazing to me that Cutley, not Akognon, was that conference's player of the year. Cutley really wasn't any good, maybe he beats up on shorter guys.

Survive and advance, with a terrific second round matchup against a talented young team. Looking forward to it.

Thirty wins ...