Krabby

Looking at the 2008-09 UW basketball roster, the guy who was the highest-rated recruit coming in is Joe Krabbenhoft. Per Rivals, he was the #23 overall recruit and #5 small forward recruit in the class of 2005.

Which is interesting. My guess is if a basketball fan watched the Badgers for the first time without any knowledge of the players' backgrounds, and they were asked which was the lowest-rated recruit coming out of high school, they'd pick Krabby.

Because while there is no denying his importance to his team, his effectiveness defending and rebounding, those glue guys are usually unheralded coming in. Guys don't get five stars for leading the country in stitches.

I've made mention of this before, but my impression of Krabby coming in was that he was going to be a scorer, a Mike Miller-type who would be a better version of Clayton Hanson. Someone like Kirk Penney. Instead we got a taller version of Mike Kelley.

Which is great, Kelley was a winner and Krabby's a winner. In thinking about next year's team, I find myself thinking that Krabby should score more to make up for the departures of Butch and Flowers. But realistically, that probably won't happen. He's not a shooter; his scoring average might end up creeping toward 10 ppg, but it probably won't happen.

Krabbenhoft will probably do almost exactly what he did last season: guard the other team's best swingman, with the ability to guard the 2 and 4 spots; make an occasional layup; bring the ball up the court in a pinch; lead the team in rebounding.

If Wisconsin wins 20 games, Krabby will have been a part of 100 victories in his career. There's a lot of five-star guys who can't say that.