Badgercentric

I'm sorry

2010-03-24T20:11:00.000-05:00

Guys, this has been a crazy couple weeks. Of the last 13 days, I've been home for two. Missed all but the last two minutes of the Wofford game, and all of the Cornell game (may have been a ggod thing).

And my laptop died. This is yet anothe painful BlackBerry post.

So that's why there's not much going on here.

I thought life might catch up with me like this at some point, bummer it happened during the tournament. Hopefully I can catch up later.

Dancing

2010-03-14T19:25:00.000-05:00

Greetings from I-94 just north of Chicago. (Don't worry Mom, Dad's driving.)

Still on the BlackBerry, no computer, and tomorrow is super busy at work, so I'll try to squeeze a thought or two in here.

Like the matchup, though admittedly know nothing about Wofford. Like the Temple-Cornell second round potential, would be great challenges. Kentucky in the sweet 16? Awesome. Play Marquette for the Final Four? I might have a heart attack.

Of course, if we play like we did Friday we won't be around long. But I'm optimistic.

FYI: if you ever get a chance to watch an important Indiana high school basketball game, do it. We went to a thrilling game last night, best one we saw all weekend.

In dire need of basketball detox ...

ugh

2010-03-12T15:56:00.000-06:00

I'm a silver lining type of guy, so in the little bit I can type on my BlackBerry I'll acknowledge our frantic, entertaining comeback effort.That was fun to see.

When I get at a laptop, I'll vent over the god-awful first 35 minutes. That was disgusting.

UW-Illinois thoughts

2010-03-07T20:00:00.004-06:00

Today's win was bittersweet. Sweet, for obvious reasons: dominating Illinois in Champaign doesn't happen often. This one was nice payback for our one home loss this year, a truly disappointing performance several weeks ago.

Bitter, because it became all too apparent today that if Jon Leuer hadn't been hurt, Wisconsin would have won at least a share of the Big Ten title. Wait! you say. All four of the top teams in the conference had their best player miss time because of injury. But here's the difference: Leuer missed nine games. Robbie Hummel missed three (asterisk to Lewis Jackson); Evan Turner missed two Big Ten games; Kalin Lucas missed one.

I'm not saying the Badgers are better than Ohio State, Michigan State, and Purdue, although we did beat all three at home, State without Leuer and Purdue with Leuer playing hurt. I am saying that the Badgers are as good as anyone in the league, and are playing as well as anyone in the league heading to Indianapolis, which is more than I expected from the team this year.

-Where was Leuer missed more in the home loss to Illinois: guarding the pick and roll, or contributing scoring from a variety of spots on the floor?

-Wow, what a game for Jordan Taylor. When am I going to stop being surprised when he makes tough shots? He's been doing it all year. And eight rebounds today for the little guy.

-But wait! Trevon Hughes with 11 rebounds! Of those, seven were offensive! So in the last two games, Hughes had 11, J-Bo had nine, and Taylor had eight.

-This afternoon's biggest: free throw shooting. After a year in which I have seldom felt nervous about our charity stripe work, today it felt like we were going to miss every single one.

Here's another: we're up 16 points, cruising, when Pop comes down and takes a quick, bad shot, then gets himself too close to the Illini ballhandler and picks up his fourth foul. Our offense sputters, they make some shots, and gradually cut the lead to five. If they weren't playing so poorly today, that could have been fatal. He's got to be smarter than that.

-Remember a few days ago when I said we should play only five guys barring foul trouble and injury? Today we got both! Let's hope it's the last we see of that for the year. Will remarked that Hughes looked like he was hurt pretty bad, but I was reminded of his sophomore year, when he went down like that several times and only once really missed a game, the landmark win at Texas.

-One other thing to note: J-Bo was very quiet today, only took six shots while playing the entire game. It seemed like Bill Cole was guarding him, a 6-9 guy. If we're playing three guards most of the time, and the other team has a traditional 3 man that's sort of tall, J-Bo might have a tough time getting shots off.

-When they beat us in Madison, Illinois looked like a team that could make a run at the top. McCamey looked like a superstar, Tisdale was a great-shooting big man, Cole a good role player who can make 3-pointers. Today McCamey was absolutely awful, and when he got into it with Weber after his intentional foul it seemed to reveal underlying tension. Mike Davis, who I thought might become a star this year, seems to have regressed. Paul and Richardson are too inconsistent. They should have been hungry -- starving -- for a win today. But they sucked. I think they need to win at least two games in Indy to even get on the bubble.

We're heading to Indy on Thursday, the sixth straight year we've gone to the Big Ten Tournament. Really looking forward to it!

UW-Iowa thoughts

2010-03-03T21:31:00.006-06:00

Always enjoy Senior Night, a chance to honor kids who have devoted themselves to a program for four or five years, remember how far they've come.

I remember Trevon Hughes as a freshman, playing great defense in a surprising win at Marquette, but mostly playing out of control and making you hold your breath. I remember Jason Bohannon as a freshman, going off in a big game at Ohio State, but mostly seeming like a one-dimensional kid tethered to the 3-point line.

They've come so far. Pop is one of the best point guards in the country, and a top pickpocket. J-Bo has mastered the jab step-stepback jumper, and threw a sweet pass to Bruiser tonight -- and did you see he had nine rebounds?!? More than anything, these kids are winners. Just like the kids in every senior class that passes through nowadays. Makes you smile.

-Obviously the story line tonight was Jon Leuer's play, he was outstanding in a variety of ways. His dunks were the highlight, but I was more heartened by his turnaround jump shot, which he had struggled with since returning from the wrist injury. And he's blocking more shots now.

-Speaking of Leuer's dunks, Keaton Nankivil had a sweet one himself. I would argue that Leuer and Nankivil are the most athletic pair of true big men -- 6-8 and taller -- we've had at UW at one time.

-Wayne Larrivee was talking about how Leuer's absence was a blessing in disguise for the Badgers, since it forced other guys to fill the void. That's true to an extent, as guys like Jordan Taylor and Rob Wilson have played a lot more important minutes than they otherwise might have.

But here's the thing: we lost three games without Leuer, and another one in his return where he was rusty and ineffective. If we win just one of those games -- not a stretch -- we're playing for a share of the Big Ten title on Sunday. So yeah, if we win the Big Ten Tournament or go to the Final Four because of the growth our guys showed without Leuer, then it was a good thing. But otherwise, I would have rather his wrist never been broken, he kept playing, and Jordan and Rob waited until next year to grow all the way up. I like winning the Big Ten more than personal growth.

-Here's another thing: when we had Leuer, Nankivil, Hughes, J-Bo and Taylor on the floor, I found myself thinking that barring foul trouble or injuries, Bo shouldn't use his bench much from here on out. I don't mind when Evans, Jarmusz, Wilson or Bruiser play, they all have their moments. But our starting five is by far the best combination we put out there, offensively and defensively. If Taylor can guard a guy like Gatens, using his strength to offset his lack of height, then there aren't many teams that are going to use combinations those guys can't handle.

I heard someone talking about this the other night in regards to Ohio State, which is playing its starters almost the entire game. The guy said that in the postseason, where TV timeouts are longer, fatigue shouldn't be much of a factor. So barring foul trouble, why not severely tighten the rotation?

-Wilson only had four points tonight, but I'm really looking forward to seeing him play major minutes next year. Mainly because he's shown more aptitude for the post-up game than any other guard we've had recently. He had a nice post move today to get himself a layup, and if he does that on a regular basis next year, that'll give us two bona fide post scorers.

-Iowa is awful, and it doesn't look like it's going to be getting better any time soon. Fuller and Gatens are nice players, and Cole looks like a player. But Cully Payne? Brennan Cougill? They should only be playing in televised basketball games in a movie like Teen Wolf. There were times tonight that I thought Gatens was going to hit one of his teammates for their awful play.

-You know who else had a good game tonight? Tim Doyle on the BTN. He annoys me every so often, but he did a really good job tonight. It always helps when your team is on the right side of a blowout, but he made a lot of good points tonight. In particular, he talked about Leuer's tendency to shoot his turnaround post jumper spinning to his right.

Let's finish strong at Illinois, could be seeing them twice in a week.

UW-Indiana thoughts

2010-02-25T21:41:00.003-06:00

You know, I thought Indiana would be a tough out tonight in Bloomington. Boy was I wrong. They were awful, and the Badgers played pretty well.

With the exception of Jon Leuer, who missed a few layups and other assorted bunnies, our shooting was exceptional. J-Bo did it from a variety of spots on the floor. Pop had his deep ball working. Taylor penetrated well. Nanker's jumper was pretty as always, and tonight it fell. All five starters in double figures. It's the way things are supposed to go.

Just a good all around game. It's nice to absolutely destroy a conference opponent on their home court, for your own confidence and for reference in future games.

The thing I didn't really get was Tom Crean's planned ejection. I hope, for his sake, that it was a ploy to fire up his team and not overheated disgust with the officiating. Because really, officiating had nothing to do with the outcome of this game. Indiana was absolutely horrible, missing jumpers, missing free throws, turning the ball over, playing loose defense, committing silly fouls.

And yet, after Tan got tossed and did a flying kick into the locker room door, the crowd went crazy, chanted his name, and mock cheered calls that went Indiana's way -- as if he had stood up in protest of gross miscarriage of justice. IU's kids are trying hard, they just don't have the horses yet. But I thought their fans were more sophisticated than to scapegoat the referees.

(If anything, a number of iffy calls went against the Badgers, not that it mattered at all.)

Then again, Hoosier fans now seem to get fired up by holding up posters of various famous people. Lame. What would Bobby Knight think about that? What would Branch McCracken think about that? What would Gene Hackman's character in Hoosiers think about that? This is Indiana, for Pete's sake, the holy land of college hoops.

(Speaking of Knight, if Tan was going to get tossed, why didn't he get his money's worth and chuck a chair?)

I remember when we never beat Indiana. Ever. Now it's the other way around, and it's nice.

A couple other notes:

-Northwestern set a school record with its 18th regular season win tonight. Eighteenth. Nothing more to say about that, really.

-My thoughts go out to Purdue and its fans in the wake of Robbie Hummel's season ending injury. Purdue is one of those rare Big Ten schools whose sports teams don't rub me the wrong way at all, and if we weren't going to win the Big Ten, I hoped the Boilermakers would. They might still, but their postseason chances are obviously greatly diminished. It's not just a blow for Purdue, but for the Big Ten as a whole. Plus, Hummel just seems like a good kid who didn't deserve this.

J.P. Tokoto, in person

2010-02-23T20:52:00.003-06:00

Where was Bo Ryan on Saturday night? Like me, my dad, my brother-in-law and his dad, we were at the Menomonee Falls gym to watch Falls play Wauwatosa East. Or, more accurately, we were there to watch J.P. Tokoto.

Sorry to say, but I don't have much original analysis to add to what has already been written about J.P. But here's my take if you missed the others.

-Tremendous, tremendous athlete. A legit 6-6, thin, but should be able to add weight and strength without losing his leaping ability. When he strides he gobbles up the court.

It was senior night, so Tokoto, a sophomore, didn't start. He came off the bench a couple minutes in, but didn't really do much until halfway through the second quarter. Then he made his presence felt. A Falls guard made a scrappy steal, missed a shot, and Tokoto followed with a monster putback dunk.

-He had, I think, three more dunks and several more layups. Against a team with decent size, he still showed enough discipline to stay close to the rim, where he was most effective.

-He was also dominant on the glass, and made his presence felt as a shot blocker.

-I liked his demeanor on the court -- not cocky, good hustle, seems humble.

-On the other hand, his shot is not good. Someone sitting nearby said the rotation on his jumper looks like a tornado, which was an apt description. I only remember him taking one jump shot, a stepback elbow jumper, which he missed. The ball ricocheted off the front of the rim at an odd angle, definitely not the way a pure shooter's misses bounce. He also missed a free throw attempt the same way. He didn't take any 3-pointers, which I thought was a good thing, showed discipline.

His ball handling also needs work, but the jumper should be his priority. It's probably not possible, but I'd like to see him spend all summer just doing skills work. Working with a shooting coach, someone who could help him refine his ball handling, do strength and conditioning work.

There is no need for him to play on the summer AAU circuit. His status as a top recruit in his class is solidified, and he has scholarship offers from all the nation's top programs, and Marquette. If he's going to be a dominant college player, he'll need to be a better shooter and ball handler.

It's self-serving to write this, obviously, but I think he would thrive in the Swing. He's like a more athletic, not quite as strong version of Alando Tucker. He's probably a long shot to end up in Madison, but he could do worse with his college choice.

On a related note, Falls has another springy 6-6 player, Jonathan Phillips. I'm told Phillips is Tokoto's cousin, and that he has an offer to be a preferred walk-on at Wisconsin.

Oh, and Bo appeared to have brought his wife along to the Falls. Guess that's part of the deal of being a coach's wife, but imagine Bo selling Kelly on that trip: "Hey honey, wanna go watch J.P. Saturday night? Valentine's Day? Couldn't we see that after the game Sunday? I swear, we will. We can eat at Saz's ..."

UW-Northwestern thoughts

2010-02-22T07:35:00.000-06:00

Early in the second half of the Badgers' win over Northwestern Sunday, I was thinking that my prevailing takeaway from a UW win would be something like "Twenty wins, they've already exceeded my expectations. Everything from here on out is gravy."

But then we almost pissed the game away against a marginal team at home. This coming off a poor defensive performance against Illinois, a laugher against a bad Indiana team, and a pathetic showing at Minnesota. So yeah, we won, but right now I'm feeling glass-half-empty about this team.

In particular, I don't think this is a great defensive Badger team. Good? Sure, we'll never be below average with Bo around. But the stellar points-against numbers we yield are more a product of tempo and limited possessions than lockdown defenders. Like today: we only gave up 63 points, but:

-Northwestern shot 22 free throws, and got into the double bonus before we did in the second half. Coming into today we had shot just four more free throws than our opponents, a dramatic departure from the norm. This can be attributed to Jon Leuer's absence, the resulting lack of post touches and tendency to settle for jumpers, and perimeter defense that just isn't quick enough all the time to contain penetration.

-John Shurna had a big game for Northwestern today. No shame in that, he's a good player. But we had no one to slow him down. Tim Jarmusz wasn't exactly doing the job, but as Matt Lepay and Mike Lucas said on the radio, who else were you going to put in at that time? Ryan Evans? Mike Bruesewitz? Evans at least had some success against Kyle Singler earlier this year.

-Leuer had those big blocked shots today, which is an element we've been missing the last two years. Better shot blocking could cover up for some of our perimeter defensive deficiencies.

No Joe Krabbenhoft. No Michael Flowers. No Greg Stiemsma. We just aren't as good defensively as our reputation.

Also not to like today:

-On the topic of reputations not being lived up to, Jordan Taylor had four turnovers today. Is it just me, or has he seemed shaky with the ball lately?

-Leuer, Pop and Jarmusz missed free throws in the waning moments.

On the plus side:

-Jason Bohannon has quietly become exactly the player we hoped he'd be. His step-back jumper is a beautiful move, a nice go-to move that has made him something other than just a 3-point gunner.

-Leuer seemed more comfortable out there.

-Taylor continues to score more than I ever expected him to.

-Give Northwestern credit, they were playing desperate. Of the middle-of-the-pack Big Ten teams, they deserve far more credit this year than Michigan or Minnesota, considering the relative talent levels and what Northwestern lost to injury.

We'd better watch out for Indiana, they're going to be a lot tougher out in Bloomington than they were in Madison.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

2010-02-21T21:07:00.004-06:00

Watching Olympic hockey is great. Not only is the U.S. winning, including tonight's epic win over Canada. (An awesome game that I'm guessing a lot of people didn't see because it was on MSNBC, while NBC showed bobsledding. Is it any surprise the Winter Olympics are by far the less popular of the two in our country?)

Brian Rafalski has been huge, scoring two goals for the second straight game and adding an assist tonight. He's the oldest and probably most decorated player on the U.S. roster, but he's been the best player in the tournament. And he lives in Waupaca in the offseason.

Dany Heatley scored for Canada tonight, second straight game that's happened. And Joe Pavelski and Ryan Suter had assists in the last U.S. game.

What other college hockey program can boast of success like this in these Olympics?

UW-Minnesota thoughts

2010-02-18T21:57:00.005-06:00

Man, that was pathetic. No Badger played well tonight, although at least Pop and J-Bo made some shots.

Our Minnesota kids must have made the home fans think they aren't really missing anything at all. At least Jon Leuer had the rust excuse for his 2-for-12 showing. What was Jordan Taylor's excuse? That's 15% shooting from those two. Keaton Nankivil was non-existent.

Yeah, we got killed on the boards, but if you look at the offensive rebounding numbers, each team had 10. Minnesota had 16 more rebounds because we missed 17 more field goal attempts than they did.

Minnesota's defense was nothing special, we just missed a lot of shots that we make much of the time.

The officiating was absolutely horrible. I really liked Bo taking a technical in the first half, the foul on Ryan Evans that preceded it was just the worst call in a series of progressively worse calls. That said, the Badgers once again did nothing to be aggressive and draw fouls; Minnesota was clearly the more aggressive team, penetrating and touching the post, and deserved the benefit of the doubt on calls. And I'm guessing that opposing teams have had the same view of the officiating after visiting the Kohl Center.

Nice show of team solidarity by the Gophers in supporting Paul Carter's sister as she battles cancer. So what do you make of Blake Hoffarber declining to shave his head all the way? If I'm Paul, I'm looking at him funny. And I was only half-watching at times, but according to Dave O'Brien and Steve Lavin it sounds like this season Hoff has become the second coming of Chris Mullin, and not just a guy who makes shots from his ass. Good for him.

Minnesota isn't nearly as good as I thought they'd be this year; they weren't really that good tonight, we were just horrible and they tried harder. Some of it is probably because of the off-court problems, but that's what you get when you rely on players like that.

Disgusted with our game, I watched the end of the Marquette-Pittsburgh game, which was even uglier. It was just guys running up and down the court throwing up wild shots, turning the ball over, committing offensive fouls, missing free throws. I can see why Vander Blue wants to be a part of that Big East magic. Sheesh.

This one effectively ends our chances of winning the Big Ten, remote as they were. I'd like to just make sure we finish in the top five and once again avoid playing on Thursday in the conference tournament.

Hey pizza boy

2010-02-16T07:29:00.000-06:00

As you've probably heard by now, Brian Butch was named MVP of the NBDL all-star game over the weekend, congratulations to him. What I don't get is why the leading scorer in the league needed another guy's NBA call-up to be named to this game?

And it's not quite Gatorade or Nike, but Brian has scored an endorsement deal, check this out:

UW-Indiana thoughts

2010-02-15T16:13:00.005-06:00

Word is that Jon Leuer is practicing with the team again, status for Minnesota uncertain. Even if he doesn't come back for another week, that means he should have plenty of time to round into shape before the postseason.

I did notice that against Indiana there was more of a concerted effort to touch the post, and for guys to actually make scoring moves once they got the ball in the post. They looked awkward doing it -- moves by Keaton Nankivil and Ryan Evans come to mind -- but good things happened when they did -- Nankivil was fouled and Evans scored.

Having "watched" the second half online and monitored the box score, I assumed Jason Bohannon was the big story of the day, but that 46-point first half only happened because Trevon Hughes found his shot again. Only good things come from that.

Funny thing: against Illinois we got burned by switching to easily on pick and rolls, and we did the same thing to Indiana. Their 1-3-1 wasn't very effective, either. Michigan and Northwestern didn't exactly kill us with that zone variation, either.

Mike Bruesewitz was obviously impressive, but besides his offensive rebounding, did you notice the plays he made off the dribble? Haven't seen that before.

Nankivil had another monster dunk in the halfcourt, which we have seen before. Is he the best dunker the Badgers have had in the Bo Ryan era? Better than Alando Tucker?

Larrivee and Jackson talked a few times about how Indiana was taking its lumps now but were bound to come around and be a force in another year or two. That may just be Big Ten Network announcers being polite, or maybe they really see something. But I see a team that looks like the kind that usually visits the Kohl Center in early December, takes a 30-point loss and a check, and flies back to Louisiana or California or wherever. Some of their guys have talent, and Tan Cream will probably recruit well enough, and they are sure to be much tougher to beat in Bloomington. But that program has a long way to go after the mess created by his predecessors.

Speaking of messes, did you catch Illinois's performance against Ohio State? McCamey, who was all-world against us, couldn't throw a rock in the ocean yesterday. Why couldn't they have uncorked that stinker against us?

UW-Indiana -- didn't watch it

2010-02-13T14:53:00.002-06:00

I'm at my mother-in-law's house, and she doesn't get the Big Ten Network, so I didn't see the game that just ended. Will watch it Monday.

But the best possible result of today's game, following Tuesday's tough loss, would be for the Badgers to blow out a team they should blow out.

It's nice for Jason Bohannon to have such a breakout game. As I was watching the game on the CBS Sports Game Tracker, Will asked me to quiz him on addition and subtraction. I just kept giving him J-Bo's scoring line: "What's 16 plus 3? What's 19 plus 3? What's 22 plus 3? ..." Can't wait to see the smile on his face while he's knocking down all those 3-pointers. In his last four games he's gone for 19, 18, 15 and now 30. Keep it up Jason.

The other guy who sticks out on the box score is Mike Bruesewitz. The other day at hoops someone commented that he should have redshirted, but he's had moments of big contributions. Other time he's been stuck on the bench. According to the CBS box score, Bruiser had six offensive rebounds in 17 minutes. He could be a wild card contributor in the postseason, especially if Jon Leuer is exceedingly rusty coming back.

At Minnesota and home against Northwestern next week, feels like a split but we could sweep.

UW-Illinois thoughts

2010-02-09T20:25:00.003-06:00

You know what I hate? Shoveling snow.

You know what I really hate? Shoveling snow after the Badgers lose a home game.

You know what I really hate? Shoveling snow after the Badger lose a home game to Illinois.

But hey, Illinois deserved to win tonight, nothing cheap about it. They played great. Or, more accurately, Demetri McCamey played brilliantly, Mike Tisdale played very well, and the rest of the team knew enough to get those two guys the ball.

The box score says McCamey missed six shots. That must have happened when I was changing Charlie's diaper. When he shot tonight, did you think there was any way on Earth he was going to miss? Our defense on him wasn't the best I've seen a Badger guard play, but it wasn't terrible, either. He was just making everything.

And he had seven assists too? Good lord. Great player, what are you going to do?

Offensively, these are the types of games that are bound to happen when you have no post presence. At some points those jump shots don't go in every time.

As pretty as Keaton Nankivil's jumper is, wouldn't you like to see him try a post move or two every game? Pop got shots shots inside the arc but they were under duress. Jordan Taylor missed a layup with the Badgers down four late, that was huge. Rob Wilson missed two free throws with the game tied or close to it. J-Bo played well again.

The home court angle aside, this isn't a bad loss at all, Illinois is good and has a chance to win the Big Ten. UW just has to snap out of this and take care of business Saturday against Indiana.

UW-Michigan thoughts

2010-02-06T16:53:00.008-06:00

As you know, I play basketball at the local fitness center every day, a hodge podge collection of players who like to get together and run around. Afterward while cooling down we break down the day's proceedings, trying to decipher why one group was successful and the other wasn't. More often than not it boils down to something along the lines of "They made their shots, we didn't" or vice versa. Really deep analysis.

This is what happened in Ann Arbor today, in a nutshell. In the first half we made our shots and they. In a way it was the exact opposite of what happened during our game in Madison, only in that game Michigan couldn't establish any separation in the first half like we did today.

Ever since Jon Leuer went out, it seems that the Badgers' fortunes ride on how well they shoot jump shots. And really, there's no reason they can't shoot well on a consistent basis. Obviously it would be best if Leuer returns before the regular season ends, but even if he doesn't we can still make a run in the postseason if the shots keep falling.

-Jason Bohannon is playing the best basketball of his college career, right? There's no reason he can't ride this wave all the way to the end -- when you've got a stroke like his, success really comes down to confidence, and he's got it. Two J-Bo moments stood out to me today. One, after a shot clock violation, he barked at Keaton Nankivil to shoot the ball; Keaton had passed up a jumper that would have been contested, putting Jason in a tough spot as the shot clock expired. Two, after he made that first half buzzer beater, he was demonstrative in pumping his fist. Love the emotion.

-A key moment came early in the second half, when Bo Ryan took a timeout with the Badgers up 12, playing poorly, and Zach Novak about to shoot two free throws. After the timeout Novak missed both free throws and we went back to building the lead. Bo usually doesn't take timeouts unless things are really getting out of hand, which I typically appreciate, but sometimes it's the prudent thing for a coach to do, like it was today.

-Did Jordan Taylor really have 13 points, five rebounds, four assists? They were quiet, which tells you something about his game. Given his assist-to-turnover ratio, he might be having the best pure point guard season any Badger has had under Bo. That's not to say he's better or more valuable than Trevon Hughes, Kam Taylor or Devin Harris, but he's playing like a traditional point guard.

-Pop had 14 points on only six field goal attempts? That has to be one of his most efficient games.

-Nankivil and Rob Wilson were solid again, and since Manny Harris was 4-for-12 from the field you can draw that Wilson, Ryan Evans and Tim Jarmusz did a good job on him. Everyone contributed today.

-Boy, outside Harris and DeShawn Sims, Michigan is garbage. When Sims is hot, like he was in Madison and in the first half today, they are competitive. Same with Harris, although he was bad against us both times this year. But the fact that the Wolverines were a preseason top 20 team is laughable.

-Speaking of garbage, Ed Hightower and Ted Valentine were at their worst in the second half. One blocking call on Taylor guarding Harris was particularly ridiculous. Thankfully the game was close and Michigan missed most of their ill-gotten free throws. How they've stayed employed by a major conference all these years is beyond me.

Earlier today Will and I debated heading to Madison for the outdoor hockey game. It's not that cold, after all. But I've been traveling a lot lately and we'll be on the road the next two weekends ... and it's not that warm, either. Should be fun to watch.

UW-Michigan State thoughts

2010-02-03T20:37:00.007-06:00

I'll remember that.

Great win for the program -- three over top-five teams in the same year, pretty cool. Michigan State is still comfortably in the driver's seat to win the Big Ten (pending the status of Kalin Lucas's ankle, obviously), but this puts us in great position in the battle for second place and really helps our NCAA Tournament seeding.

-So we can win with Jon Leuer ... and now it looks like we can win without Trevon Hughes. That was a real stinker of a game by Pop, but kudos to everyone who picked up the slack around him. he did have seven assists.

-Full disclosure: due to DVR scheduling conflicts (thanks, Lost!), I really only saw the second half. So I didn't see the better halves put in by Jason Bohannon and Jordan Taylor, and the half in which we established control. But even just watching the second half it was apparent that State's defense was not dictating anything Tuesday night, not to the extent that they did in Lasnsing. But we didn't let them dictate, either.

-Taylor is shooting more of a true jump shot lately than he did before. Up until recently, it seemed like he only took jumpers where he had a lot of room and was able to shoot more of a set shot. Now he is releasing at the apex of his leap. One in particular came in the second half near the end of the shot clock and Jordan drained a 3-pointer. Running back downcourt he had a smirk on his face, a cross between cockiness and apology. It was cool.

-During the part of the game I watched, State's biggest defensive deficiency was guarding our high screen and roll. Their guards just seemed to not be mentally sharp, a step slow, or a bad combination of the two. At least twice when Hughes handled the ball in these situations and the guy checking him ran into his teammate after Keaton Nankivil's screen.

-Brief aside: I'm watching Illinois play at Iowa right now, and Illinois fans have populated an entire section of Carver-Hawkeye Arena, behind the basket Iowa is now shooting at. It's almost like a home game for the Illini. That is just embarrasing if you're an Iowa fan. Is there a deeper story behind this, like a wealthy alumnus bought out the section? How could Iowa let that happen?

-With all due respect to Lucas and hopes for a speedy return, god forbid a Big Ten team lose a really important player to injury: Leuer, Evan Turner, Kevin Coble, et al. I hope those guys all got flowers from Brent Musberger and Steve Lavin, as I'm guessing Lucas did this morning. Erin Andrews' report on Leuer's status was not exactly reassuring, quoting Jon as saying, "I just hope I can come back this year." At least he's lifting and shooting.

-Nankivil really picked his spots well in the game, as did Rob Wilson. Wilson has really done a nice job of not forcing things, probably because he knows he's getting more playing time and doesn't feel like he needs to make something happen in his limited minutes.

-In the postgame Bo Ryan got fairly choked up telling Erin what a great job Greg Gard coaching the scout team in practice, preparing our kids for what State was going to run. This came about 30 seconds after Musberger and Lavin took a break from talking about Lucas's ankle to rave about Gard, Gary Close and Howard Moore. Assistant basketball coaches rarely get the credit they deserve, at least in relation to their football counterparts, so that gushing was nice.

Bo owns Izzo. Still.

Jet lag

2010-02-03T08:18:00.002-06:00

Walked in the door at the office just now and the first thing I heard was "Hey Scott, you like the game last night?"

And I said "Didn't see any of it. Fell asleep reading to Will at 8!"

This is what happens when you leave Berlin at 8 a.m. Monday, travel 23 hours to arrive in Scandinavia at midnight, then get up and put in a full day's work.

Wisconsin-Michigan State will have to wait until tonight for me. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it, if for no other reason than to see close-ups of Izzo.

UW-Penn State thoughts

2010-01-24T15:42:00.006-06:00

Wow.

I spent a good portion of this afternoon trying decide if this would be Wisconsin's worst loss of the Bo Ryan era, or simply one of the worst. The verdict: this was the worst. (Charlie, on the other hand, voted for the North Dakota State loss. Agree to disagree.)

Against an inferior opponent with a confidence deficit, we played lazy defense, got killed on the board, and once again missed a ton of open shots. We played inspired ball for about three minutes and Penn State played along, but then relaxed and let Taylor Battle dictate things.

Interestingly enough, Jordan Taylor was the one Badger who drew my ire more than the others. He was shooting terribly, not playing particularly well offensively. Then ...

What happened? Taylor played like an All-American for about four minutes, Penn State played about like you'd expect them to, and we pull out an improbable win.

The Badgers got outshot 51.8% to 43.3%; outrebounded 34-22; jacked up an obscene 33 3-pointers; and yet ...

For all its ugliness, this was a win that makes you smile. Why? Because it's a testament to the program's strength. Coming into the Kohl Center and winning is just really, really hard to do. It's similar to, say, a Miami being up 16 points in the second half at Duke: Miami might be doing everything right, and Duke might be laying an egg, but you know they're not going down without making a run, and Miami's going to have to play perfect for 40 minutes to go home a winner. More often than not they'll have a rough stretch and open the door enough for Duke to win a game they probably shouldn't.

That's what happened today. Penn State was the better team for 36 minutes of regulation, and it wasn't enough.

-Are you worried yet about all the 3-pointers the Badgers are shooting? My brain says yes, because it's not the formula that has worked so well under Bo. We're not touching the post, and we're not getting to the free throw line as much as we should. But ... for the most part the 3-pointers are not bad looks, and shooting 30% on 3-pointers, like we did today, is the equivalent of shooting 45% on 2-pointers.

-Look at Taylor's game. He missed a ton of 3-pointers early in the game, then makes two at the end to get us close enough. But his better shots were the game-tying short one and a nice jumper in overtime. Jon Leuer only became an elite offensive player when he developed an inside-the-arc game. His shorter teammates should remember that.

-I'm really going to miss Trevon Hughes when he's done. Where does he rank on your list of Badgers you want taking a big shot under Bo? Somewhere among Devin Harris, Alando Tucker, and Kam Taylor, maybe even #2 on that list.

-How awesome was Jason Bohannon's block on the weakside help? A pretty weak move on the Penn State guy's part, but still. J-Bo's third on the team in blocks, would you have guessed that? Oh, and he went over 1,000 career points today, good for him.

-Everyone's going to remember Taylor, but Keaton Nankivil had a really efficient game, 7-for-9 from the floor, only one 3-pointer. It was a Leuer-esque performance. Stop me if you've heard this before, but he's a really nice shooter, and also probably our most athletic player -- how about that putback dunk?

-I'm glad Rob Wilson is getting minutes and contributing, but all this four-guard lineup stuff doesn't feel right to me.

OK guys, I'm heading off to Germany for a week. The Badgers are in much better shape than they were a year ago when I traveled over the pond; at that point we'd lost six in a row. We're in much better shape now. But even though we're 3-1 without Leuer, I don't think anyone would say we've played well. It's going to be tough to win at Purdue, unless we shoot about 50% on 3-pointers.

Auf wiedersehen!

UW-Michigan thoughts

2010-01-20T21:24:00.004-06:00

Wow. What just happened there? I hate to say it, but the only way we won that game is because Michigan is a flawed team. They have two really good players, and ... what else? Nothing. And they're short. They're really a lot like Northwestern -- they'll play well and beat some good teams, but they're too shallow and short to finish in the top three in the Big Ten.

Stilll, they just beat UConn convincingly and we'll have a tough time beating them in Ann Arbor. If we play anything like we did tonight we'll get blown out there.

No sense dwelling on that, though, so how about giving out game balls:

-Rob Wilson, well done! With Jordan Taylor and Jason Bohannon looking completely lost out there tonight (1-for-14 from the field combined? Are you kidding me? Those weren't bad looks.), someone had to make perimeter shots. This was one of those deals where usually someone, anyone from our top seven is going to make some shots, but tonight we needed points to come from #8.

We've always expected a clutch performance in a critical situation was something Wilson had in him. Ever since he tried dunking over Hasheem Thabeet in last year's loss to UConn I liked his aggressiveness, but it seems like it's been in hiding ever since. It was back tonight. Trevon Hughes joked after the game that Wilson brought his scout team game tonight. Thank god he did.

-Other game ball goes to Tim Jarmusz. We haven't exactly been complimentary of his play lately, and after his two shots from the corner early on Wednesday -- a bank of the side and an airball that fell about three feet short -- I was working on some snotty comments. But he played Manny Harris very well, moved his feet, stayed in front of him, and didn't give him many good looks. I'm not sure anyone else on the roster could have done that tonight, so nice job Tim.

-My only criticism of Pop tonight was that he didn't exploit his defender early enough. Really, who on Michigan could check him? No one. Their guards match up well with our other guards, but not Trevon.

-Keaton Nankivil didn't shoot well tonight, but I'm glad he shot. He needs to. Of course, had we lost I'd be saying "Set more picks, Keaton!!"

-I thought we scrapped well on the offensive boards tonight, kept possessions alive. It didn't pay off until we made a few shots at the end, but it's a good sign -- even when the shots aren't falling, our kids are still trying.

-DeShawn Sims is awesome, or at least he was tonight. I've always been an admirer of his game, but he's disappeared during our games in the past. He should touch the ball in the post on every one of their possessions.

On the other hand, Harris was a non-factor tonight. Shon Morris praised him for not forcing things, which I guess is praiseworthy. But Michigan lost the game in the first half when they couldn't get real separation. They missed a ton of close shots that, had they fallen, could have pushed their lead to 15 or 17 points, and I'm not sure we can come back from that. Maybe he should have forced things rather than letting Zack Novak jack up bricks.

Happy to get a win, but I'd like us to play better. That home winning streak against unranked opponents is pretty impressive, indicative of a top-notch program that wins games it should. Keeping that streak going tonight, when we didn't have our fastball, was a great sign for the program.

How about shooting better than 34% against Penn State?

Stretching is Essential

2010-01-14T19:55:00.002-06:00

A couple years ago Schwalbach let me know about Mark Titus's blog, Club Trillion. Titus is a benchwarmer for Ohio State, and is out to prove that he's got some game. Schwib forwarded us this clip Wednesday, it's hilarious. For those of you who know me and my friends, this brand of humor is right up our alley.

Read Titus's blog if you get a chance. I don't regularly, but the few times I've checked in I've laughed my butt off.

UW-Northwestern thoughts

2010-01-13T21:27:00.004-06:00

That was a very gratifying win, one that for about 30 minutes I didn't think was going to happen. At one point, didn't you get the sense that the Badgers weren't going to make another jump shot all night?

But Pop heated up before it was too late, Northwestern played to its talent level and we pulled it off. As I said Monday, losing Jon Leuer for an indefinite period of time pretty much eliminates our outside shot at a conference title. But to get a road win the day after his surgery, when morale could have been in the gutter, is a great testament to this team's leadership.

The best part? Watching Pop celebrate after he made those 3-pointers. He is usually a cool customer, so to see him bust out the corny celebration -- rubbing his hand past his face and miming dice rolling -- really brought a smile to my face. Did you see the little handshake he did with Keaton Nankivil after the game? Who'd expect that from Nanker? They're having fun.

The second-best part? Our offensive rebounding. Granted, Northwestern is not a strong rebounding team, but you had to love the way our kids crashed. Fifteen offensive rebounds on 32 missed shots. I can't believe Bruiser only had four boards, they must have all been offensive. And did Pop really have eight boards?

J-Bo had another strong game, not so much from distance but on pull-up jumpers and a few times on penetration.

We played great free throw defense for the third straight game, let's hope we can keep that up.

I don't know if this is the Northwestern team that's going to break their NCAA Tournament drought. They have no bad losses thus far, but no really good wins. They will probably pull some upsets, but they seem to be about one player short. Like a Kevin Coble type. Too bad for them he's hurt.

But as we know full well, injuries are part of this, and we took a good step forward tonight. I figure we lose at Ohio State on Saturday, but if we can hold serve at home against Michigan and Penn State we're 6-2 in the conference. Not bad.

Ouch

2010-01-11T20:00:00.006-06:00

Fresh off yesterday's Packers loss, word comes this morning that Jon Leuer has a broken wrist and will be out indefinitely. Great. Sources are saying he'll miss 4-6 weeks, or 7-10 games. Could be more, that's a finicky injury.

Let's be honest: this just about kills our Big Ten title chances. They were probably a long shot anyway. It was nice to daydream.

OK, enough of that, glass half-full time.

Health: We haven't had too many bad injuries in the past few years, have we? Brian Butch at the end of the 2007 season and Alando Tucker in 2004 come to mind immediately as two in-season injuries to key players that really hurt. Pop hurt his ankle before that memorable Texas game. Sharif Chambliss hurt his knee in offseason workouts. Krabby had a lower body injury. My point is, we've been fortunate in the injury category, and should be thankful for that.

Keaton Nankivil: You have to shoot more now, big guy. You have to! Now! You are a really good shooter, particularly when you're looking for your shot. You're not going to do the same moves Leuer does, like shooting off the dribble, but you are better taking a pass and shooting off a guard's dribble penetration. You will replace Leuer's perimeter game. (Of course, you will also have a better defensive player checking you now.) You're also very good hitting the offensive boards. Now is the time for you to become the double digit scorer you can be.

Mike Bruesewitz: We've been impressed with your athleticism and active game in limited minutes. You will replace Leuer's rebounding and some minutes. You'll also be called upon to take Nankivil's minutes when he gets in foul trouble. (In the locker room at hoops today someone remarked that Nankivil has become Greg Stiemsma for refs' tendency to call fouls on him the minute a play comes near him. This is also known as Dave Mader Syndrome. It's not fair, but it's true.)

Ryan Evans: We've been impressed with your knack for scoring. You will replace Leuer's low post game, and become the quick trigger guy in the frontcourt. We love your confidence, even if your shot isn't everything it could be and will be.

Jared Berggren: You are now the only guy on the roster over 6-8 who is capable of playing against Big Ten post players. You're going to need to play double digit minutes some nights, if only because Nankivil's going to get tired or in foul trouble.

Like most injuries to star players, there's no way one guy can replace Leuer. But I am really excited in seeing what these four kids can do with their opportunities. Additionally, you would expect the guards to assume even more of the scoring load, like in the Purdue win. They're capable.

We've won games recently with limited minutes and production from Leuer. We ought to be able to tread water without him, and emerge a deeper, more experienced team.

But I don't want the Badgers to tread too long -- get well soon, Jon!

UW-Purdue thoughts

2010-01-09T21:52:00.008-06:00

When I first saw Jordan Taylor last year, my initial thought was that he looked like a physically mature kid who would be a solid defensive player and game manager but never a particularly dynamic offensive player. Certainly not a scorer.

So then he goes for 23 points against a really good defensive team as a sophomore? Granted, he made a bunch of free throws as Purdue had to foul near the end of the game, but he made seven field goal from a variety of spots on the floor. His shot creation really isn't anything like Trevon Hughes' or Kam Taylor's, but he knows how to create space for himself. And as has been well-documented he has a great assist-to-turnover ratio, most likely far better than Pop's or Kam's. The point is in good hands with Jordan.

Great win, by the way. This morning I told my dad that I didn't expect us to win this game, and it wasn't just my usual set-the-bar-low strategy to mitigate disappointment. Purdue's the #4 team in the country, was unbeaten, playing really well. This win may not resonate as much as the Duke win, but in the bigger picture it's more important for this season. The optimist will say it keeps us very much in the Big Ten title race. The pessimist will say we have no shot at winning the Big Ten and this will just help ensure an NCAA bid. Either way, it's all good.

-The officiating in this game was atrocious, both ways. I just got done watching the game (recorded), and my ears hurt from the constant sound of whistles. Way overofficiated, although that may have played into our favor. Let 'em play, guys.

-Let's talk about the technical foul on Rob Wilson. First of all, as Bo explained it in the postgame if blood is drawn, it's automatically a technical, regardless of intent. If that's true, that's a BS rule. So if Rob had bent over to tie his shoes and Hummel had tripped over him and split his lip, that would have been a technical?

Second, if, as the refs told Bo, intent is meaningless and it's only blood that matters, why did the refs check the video? All they had to do was look at Hummel's face. I would be much more upset about this if we had lost. That whole sequence was just ridiculous.

-Wilson had a nice game. I'm happy to see him getting double-digit minutes lately, although I wish it weren't because Pop was in foul trouble. He deserves to play. After seeing the way some guys have entered and left our program after one year because they weren't getting starter's minutes, I feared Rob might do the same, but he's stuck it out and is reaping the benefits. With Pop and J-Bo gone after this year, Rob's in position to start next season. Not all kids grasp the concept of delayed gratification nowadays.

-Jon Leuer had an absolutely atrocious shooting game, but his rebounding and interior defense were very important in the effort. Nice that we can beat an elite team without him scoring.

-Larrivee and Morris were comparing Mike Bruesewitz to Joe Krabbenhoft. Seems like a pretty superficial comparison to me -- white guys with funny names. Both are good rebounders, but Bruiser is a better athlete than Krabby, and Krabby was a better ball handler than Bruiser. Also, Bruiser has a way to go before he's a defender of Krabby's caliber, yet Bruiser seems to be more confident in his jumper than Krabby.

Bruiser had five rebounds in six minutes, played great at the end of the first half.

-I hate to bash Tim Jarmusz, a great program guy, but he really shouldn't be getting many minutes as we go forward. Wilson, Bruiser, or Evans would all be better options to get the bulk of those minutes. That airball he had from 10 feet was pretty bad, and if he's not sticking the good 3-point looks that come his way, we're pretty much playing four on five offensively.

-Ryan Evans shooting mid-range jump shots looks like me shooting mid-range jump shots: he look surprised and goes sort of slowly. But he makes a lot of his, whereas I miss almost all of mine.

-And oh yeah: Jason Bohannon had a really good game, and Pop made every shot he took and grabbed five rebounds with three steals in just 23 minutes. Somehow J-Bo's 20 points seemed quiet, didn't they?

-That's two games in a row in which we benefited from our opponent shooting free throws poorly. Purdue missed 11. Take away Hummel and they were seven of 18. Hummel's free throw style is really strange, but obviously really effective. My dad always said that the key to free throw shooting was to do the same thing exactly the same way every time. Hummel certainly does that.

-It feels like I've said this before, but I love E'Twaun Moore's offensive game. He's got such a repertoire of short- and medium-range shots, and he knows how to create just enough space for himself. Hummel and Johnson are really good too, and as much as I can't stand Kramer, he's a great defensive player. (Have you noticed how Kramer runs with his arms at his side? It's like how the Molly Shannon character on Seinfeld walked. He still manages to move pretty well, but it look funny. Imagine how good he'd be if he waved his arms around like the Raquel Welch character from that episode.)

After watching both Purdue and Michigan State this week, they would still be my choice as the two best teams in the Big Ten, but I can't decide who's better. Comparing personnel, I like Moore, Hummel, Johnson and Kramer more than anyone on State's team, save for maybe Lucas and maybe Green. But it's not that decisive over Summers, Allen, Roe, Morgan, Lucious, et al, and those guys are much better than anyone past Purdue's starting five. Quantity versus quality? Guess it depends on fouls and health when they play.

Why did our students do the "overrated" chant near the end? Aren't UW kids supposed to be smarter than that? It appears we are rated about where we should be, and I would hope we're still a top 20 team on Monday after splitting games against two very good teams. Two tough games on the road next week, too, so we've got to stay sharp.

UW-Michigan State thoughts

2010-01-06T20:57:00.006-06:00

Midway through the second half, after another feckless Badger possession, Jana remarked "They're playing scared." Ding ding ding! It was so obvious even my half-alseep wife saw it.

Wisconsin came out tentative/scared/slow/whatever from the opening tip, that was the really disappointing thing. It's not like they came out and were overwhelmed by State's defense then retreated into their shell after a few minutes -- it was from the start. The ball movement was terrible. Knowing that we weren't going to be able to penetrate off the dribble as much as usual, passing, cutting and screening had to be better, and it definitely wasn't. The result was 34% shooting and more airballs than a fifth grade girls game.

Give Michigan State credit, they played really good defense. But jeez, our offensive effort was pathetic.

-At least Jon Leuer showed up. He scored on a variety of nice moves. I absolutely love his pull-up jumper. It was interesting: State guarded him with Raymar Morgan, who I thought was their best defender for him, but Jon was still able to use the three extra inches he has on Morgan to get shots off.

-Other than that, Jordan Taylor had his moments, but not enough of them. Jason Bohannon did a little bit here and there, but with Trevon Hughes having a bad game he needed to do a lot more.

-Pop looked a step slow tonight. Maybe it was just good defense by Kalin Lucas and the other guards.

-Why did Bo have Nankivil on such a yo-yo tonight? State didn't play that short, and they absolutely killed us on the offensive boards. Couldn't he have helped more? Or was he the problem?

-I thought Ryan Evans would fare better coming off his strong showing at Penn State, but he was a non-factor. Mike Bruesewitz grabbed five rebounds in four minutes, he was active. Why didn't either of those guys get some of Tim Jarmusz's minutes? One rebounds, one assist, one steal, no points in 27 minutes.

-With six or seven minutes left, Gus Johnson and Steve Smith kept saying over and over how Wisconsin needed to run a play for J-Bo and get him shots, that he had only taken three shots. On one hand, I agree; running more set plays would help get us over offensive droughts like we experienced during that losing streak last year. On the other hand, it's like these guys have never seen a Badger game or looked at a Badger box score before. There are a lot of games where Jason only takes five shots -- not desirable if you're us, but it happens regularly. And his jumper isn't quick, meaning that athletic, long guards like State's are going to make it really hard for him to get his 3-point shot off.

-Speaking of Steve Smith, it would help his non-partisan announcing prospects if he didn't yell "Nice!" when Morgan makes a mid-range jumper and "Come on!" when Derrick Nix steps to the free throw line (Did you see he's 4-for-32 on the year? My mom could do better than that blindfolded.)

-Lucas was absolutely horrible offensively tonight. Something looks wrong with his game. Chris Allen really bailed him out, although Durrell Summers didn't have the game I thought he'd have.

-They really miss Goran Suton, for his true post presence, but they seem to have adequately replaced Travis Walton's defense. At the moment they don't seem as good as they were last year, and after this weekend we'll know better how they compare to Purdue.

-I love Draymond Green, that kid's a warrior. He's aggressive, versatile, and best of all he's a leader. I'd take him on my team any day, man boobs and all. Not Nix, though, he needs to lose his man boobs before he's useful.

Green was also part of the worst call I've seen all year, when he was laying on the baseline and the ball clearly hit off his hand before going out of bounds right in front of the ref, who promptly signaled Michigan State ball. Green was laughing about it with Lucas running down the court.

-Does it getting any worse than watching Tom Izzo coaching against your team? When asked heading into halftime about his team, he accurately moaned about his team missing a lot of free throws, but threw in a little jab about our guys falling down when his players drove the lane. Well, maybe they were falling down because your kids were running over them, then walking to the free throw line. Izzo seems like a decent guy off the court, and I'm sure fans of other teams feel the same way about Bo, but Izzo is just over the top on the sideline sometimes.

-But what's worse than Izzo? Michigan State's end-of-the-bench guys! It was like watching Marquette when Jerry Sichting's kid was riding the bench. Several times during the game I paused the action to point out to Will that these guys are not being good teammates, but doing these things to draw attention to themselves since they will never see the court.

After one shot one of the kids -- best I can tell it's a kid named Mike Kebler, but that's an educated guess -- ran up and down the bench giving high tens to his teammates, coaches, trainers, Sparty, cheerleaders, Plaxico Burress, Kirk Gibson, Tony Mandarich, Steve Smith. Hadn't seen that since watching a girls volleyball game, or maybe a girls softball game. Don't embarrass yourself kids -- your fans are laughing at you, not with you.

They got us convincingly today, but I think we can win the rematch in Madison.

Less Cooks in the kitchen

2010-01-06T17:44:00.002-06:00

Sounds like Kerry Cooks is going to leave Bret Bielema's coaching staff to take a job at Notre Dame. Apparently a former college teammate of Cooks' will be the defensive coordinator for Brian Kelly.

While Cooks was a member of Bielema's original staff, this doesn't seem like a mammoth loss. Our defensive backs haven't been a particularly strong unit for the past three seasons after a stellar 2006. On the other hand, he's coached up guys like Allen Langford and Chris Maragos, and his unit was hit by dismissals and an overreliance on youth.

With most assistant coaches, the bigger issue is their value recruiting. Cooks recruited Texas, Iowa and Maryland for us. Texas hasn't netted us much recently beyond Jay Valai and Devin Smith. Florida is the better southern state for us. We haven't gotten many kids from Maryland, although that's changed with Frank Tamakloe and Robbie Havenstein in this year's class. Top kids from Iowa go to ... Iowa.

So without doing a deep dive through the roster and checking every guy Cooks was responsible for, it doesn't appear we'll take a big step back here.

I see this as an opportunity for an upgrade both in position coaching and recruiting. Also, word is this is Bielema is being strongly urged to get someone else to coach special teams. Hey, great idea. If only 100,000 Badger fans hadn't suggested it a year ago.

Goodbye, Erik Smith

2010-01-05T17:15:00.004-06:00

Looks like Erik Smith is going to transfer from UW. Illinois State will be his new home. Thanks to Schwib for mentioning it in a comment; I looked into it (Smith is a prolific Tweeter), and Smith did indicate that he's done in Madison.

From the bits we saw of Smith this year he looked promising, although if everyone stayed healthy next year it was hard to see him climbing any higher than fourth on the tailback depth chart. With guys like James White coming in, seems like Smith is making a good move for his football future.

Best of luck, Erik!

Nice pick-ups

2010-01-04T18:37:00.005-06:00

What was looking like a ho-hum football recruiting class for Wisconsin got a lot better around the holidays, with commitments from Beau Allen and Sherard Cadogan. Both guys figure to have a shot at playing right away, given our losses at their positions.

Allen is a 6-3, 292-pound nose guard/defensive tackle from Minnetonka, Minn. Not only did we steal him from the Gophers, but Allen had offers from Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Stanford and UCLA. Looking at pictures and video, his size look legit, although he appears to have lots of room to improve the nature of his weight.

Most people, my included, figured defensive tackle would be a weak spot this year, but Jeff Stehle, Dan Moore, Patrick Butrym and Jordan Hein played well enough that our run defense led the Big Ten. Four of our top five DTs are out of eligibility, so Allen will get a shot to play if he's ready.

Cadogan is a teammate of quarterback recruit Joe Brennan, and my favorite thing about them is that they're from New Jersey. We've done so well there historically and went away from the Garden State for awhile, and I'm really happy with the inroads we've made with this class.

Cadogan was named New Jersey's defensive player of the year, but while he has said Wisconsin coaches will let him play both ways, it's likely he'll play tight end, or at least start there. We've got a lot of promising young defensive ends, and an opening to be the #2 pass catching tight end behind Lance Kendricks, so either he or Warren Herring could play as true freshmen. He picked UW over Michigan State, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.

One last thing I like about these kids: their GPAs. Cadogan's is a 3.8, and he wants to major in engineering; Allen has a 3.3 GPA.

James White has a 3.5 GPA and plans to major in accounting, but I'm guessing he won't play much right away. White is a running back from Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas who committed to us yesterday over Michigan State, North Carolina State, and Clemson. If that high school sounds familiar, it's because freshmen Conor O'Neil and Dezmen Southward are also from there.

Also, if you're a high school football geek, you'll recognize Aquinas as the team that won the mythical national championship last year and is annually chocked-full of college prospects. Establishing a pipeline to that high school would be a very good thing. Linebacker Vinnie Mauro and tackle Jermaine Barton are teammates of White also considering UW.

A good few weeks on the recruiting front ...

UW-Penn State thoughts

2010-01-03T20:04:00.006-06:00

You might look at me funny for writing this, but this was my big takeaway from today's easy win over Penn State: If Rob Wilson played for PSU, he'd be their second-best player, but for us he's no higher than the third guy off the bench.

This isn't meant as a knock on Penn State, which lost a lot after having a really good year a season ago. It's more of a reflection of the quality depth on the roster Bo Ryan has assembled. We basically have two great players, four or five good players, and another couple players who aren't going to embarrass themselves if they get minutes. That's why we can win going away when Jon Leuer plays 14 minutes or Trevon Hughes turns the ball over five times.

Leuer was a non-factor in today's game, but Ryan Evans scores 10 points and Keaton Nankivil grabs 11 rebounds in his absence. Pop's playing loose and Jordan Taylor comes in and shows a confident shot.

-In high school when we were watching tape our coach would point out instances where a guy didn't make a crisp flex cut or set a firm screen. He was always right; you run an offense so many times that it becomes second nature, but that can be a good and a bad thing if you go through the motions.

Right after Wilson got in today he made a really crisp flex cut and his defender, Jeff Brooks, doesn't go hard with him. Wilson gets open and Pop finds him for an easy layup. In an otherwise ho-hum game, that execution from Wilson was the play that stood out.

-Good to see J-Bo stroking it from distance today, but my favorite play of his today was a nice crossover dribble that led to a shot clock-beating layup. Efficient game for Jason.

-How big is Keaton Nankivil's wingspan? Today it looked well over 7 feet. There was an offensive board he seemed to snare at the foul line from underneath the basket for an easy put-in, and a blocked shot.

At Michigan State on Wednesday, a game we shouldn't win, but you never know.

UW-Ohio State thoughts

2009-12-31T18:49:00.005-06:00

Over Christmas the guys in my family were talking about Evan Turner's injury and how it obviously significantly weakens Ohio State. Someone asked when we played them, and when I responded New Year's Eve in Madison someone else said it was too bad we didn't get them in Columbus while he was out.

We do play them again January 16 in Columbus, and it's a good bet Turner will still be out then. OSU is going to have a tough time beating any good team without him, they were brutal today. They have a lot of good players even without Turner, but they also have no point guard and no post play, and playing five swingmen with similar skill sets can only get you so far.

This afternoon it got the Buckeyes roughly half as many points against Wisconsin as UW-Green Bay scored.

But this isn't an opponent-bashing post, we played really well, great way to close out the calendar year.

-Crowd was electric today, best since the Duke game. Glad to see the kids make it back for this one.

-Early quote from Steve Lavin about Trevon Hughes: "He is completely at peace with his game." Very well said. He's not forcing shots, the form on his jumper is beautiful, and he's under control (most of the time).

-Listening to the radio pregame a thought crossed my mind: "When was the last time any of our key guys missed extensive time with foul trouble?" Then it happened to Jon Leuer, and we didn't miss a beat. Plus, he came out on fire in the second half, and even ended up with five assists in 18 minutes.

-I love how Rob Wilson and Ryan Evans get in the game and shoot almost as soon as they touch the ball. Seriously, I do. We have enough patient guys who run the offense all the way through, and that's good. But every now and then we need to mix up some quicker shots to guard against becoming too predictable, something Pop usually does but that these young bucks are willing to do, too. (For further reading, see my post last year where I advocated the Badgers taking more bad shots, which I'm sure made a lot of you roll your eyes.)

-If only that trait could be grafted onto Keaton Nankivil, who made two confident jumpers in our first half run that essentially put the game away. Keep shooting big fella, you're good at it!

-Has Jordan Taylor reached the point where we're taking his contributions for granted? He played 26 minutes with 12 points, three assists, three rebounds, two steals, and no turnovers. Pretty sure he was at the point when Pop went off in the first half. Love that kid.

-Late in the first half, we had back-to-back terrible inbounds plays from our own baseline. First, Jarmusz's pass was knocked out of bounds, then his next pass was stolen. Please Bo, please, DRAW UP A PLAY FOR THESE SITUATIONS!

-Ohio State's zone was either lazy or just unaware on countless occasions, not impressive at all.

-Dallas Lauderdale does a lot of things well for Ohio State, but he is one of the worst shooters I've ever seen. How about that early play where he made a nice post move to get around Nankivil, then shot an uncontested 3-footer about 3 feet high and to the left of the rim. Or the free throw that he banked in. Ugh.

-Liked Turner's decision to rock the sweater vest today, but it was way too baggy. Heading into fashion commentary, time to wrap it up.

I sincerely hope we are ranked higher than Ohio State when the new polls come out next week. We proved today that, right now at least, we are a far better team. At Penn State on Sunday, followed by four games against ranked teams, so getting to 2-0 is a necessity.

UW-Miami box score

2009-12-30T14:47:00.009-06:00

I'm still glowing from last night's Badger win, what a way to end the season and get a strong start on 2010. Again, more on that later. Let's look at the box score for some stats that may not have been available immediately after the game.

-Time of possession edge for Bucky: 39:15 to 20:45. Love it. Great balanced play calling by Paul Chryst and above average execution allows that to happen.

-More on that: Miami had 71 tackles, Wisconsin had 41.

-Red zone efficiency: 4-for-4. Stellar all year.

-The temperature was indeed 50 degrees at gametime. It just baffles me that this is heater weather for any team, even one from Florida. Did you see those fat guys from UCLA walking around shirtless in 30-degree Washington, D.C., before their bowl game? Wish I hadn't, but you have to like their attitude. Miami didn't have it.

-Niles Brinkley led us with six tackles. I thought the late hit penalty he got whistled for was iffy, but it was close enough to not be horrible.

-On penalties: I thought the two Kraig Appleton got called for were iffy, but close enough to be horrible. Glad to see him out there a lot, he could conceivably take a big step forward next year, a la Nick Toon this year.

-What a way for O'Brien Schofield to go out: two sacks and a forced fumble. You could argue that Scott Tolzien's performance had more to do with us reversing last year's course with his efficient play, but it's hard to argue that any single player was more important to this year's success than Schofield. He made a ton of tackles behind the line of scrimmage and exhibited terrific leadership. We've got a ton coming back next year, but O'Beezy will be tough to replace.

-Although J.J. Watt seems like a great bet to do it. Two tackles for loss, a fumble recovery and two pass breakups. It would be great to see a full year of J.J. at full strength.

-Chris Borland: two tackles for loss and two QB hurries. No extra points. Jae McFadden and Culmer St. Jean had solid games, but with Borland, Blake Sorensen and Mike Taylor coming back I'm not worried about this unit at all. Especially excited about Taylor's return.

-Another note on Brad Nortman: three punts downed inside the 20, only six punt return yards for Miami.

Watching the rest of these bowl games will be much more enjoyable after last night's win. Hopefully the Big Ten goes on to have a solid showing.

UW-Miami thoughts

2009-12-29T22:20:00.011-06:00

What a win. What a win! Outstanding effort all the way around by the Badgers, great finish to a very satisfying year.

There are larger implications from winning this game, which we'll get to in the days to come, while we focus on tonight's game immediately. But the one thing I couldn't help but think in the immediate aftermath was this: Bret Bielema has a signature win, and the days of www.firebretbielema.com seem like a long, long time ago. This program heads into the offseason on solid footing.

On to tonight's game:

-Other than the first play of the game, we thoroughly dominated this game. For being the team that 90% of experts picked to win this game, Miami came out flat, predictable, and had glaring weaknesses exposed. The weather, "c0ld" at around 50 degrees, seemed to adversely affect Miami (did you see Donna Shalala bundled up like it was February in Madison? She's gotten soft). Our December game at Hawaii helped us maintain a good rhythm heading into this game, and we basically played our game: balanced offense, pass rush leading the defense. Miami was running trick plays from the opening whistle and didn't seem convinced they were the better team. If that was the case, they were right.

-Be honest: when we botched yet another onside kick recovery (how many was that this year?), you thought we were going to steal defeat from the jaws of victory, didn't you? Or was that just me? But give a load of credit to our defense, especially the line, who played great all night. Give the defensive game ball to J.J. Watt, who is setting the stage for two all-conference seasons. O'Brien Schofield was terrific too, we've come to expect that from him. And Chris Borland was around the ball a ton, showing some great speed and pass rush moves (Did you see his spin move that caused the Miami lineman to fall down? Vintage Borland.)

-Give credit to our defensive backs, too. The pass rush was consistent and kept Jacory Harris off balance, but with a couple exceptions our guys had decent coverage. A note on Chris Maragos: when he went off injured after our last kickoff, I noted it to Jana as a huge problem, and Miami marched straight down the field. Harris made a good throw to Hankerson, who made a nice catch in front of Aaron Henry, who should have blown him up instead of waiting for a tipped ball to fall into his hands. We'll miss Maragos.

-We heard a lot about Miami's run defense leading up to this game, and about our failings in the run game against Ohio State and Iowa (maybe they have pretty good defenses). Well guess what? We ran for 170 yards, John Clay went for 121 yards and two touchdowns, and Montee Ball had a solid 61 and didn't look intimidated at all. Let's identify who deserves primary credit for this:

Gabe Carimi, Travis Frederick, John Moffitt, Kevin Zeitler, Josh Oglesby. With a few exceptions, the holes weren't gaping, but they were substantial enough for 3-4 yards at a crack, which we'll take all day. Carimi coming back from his early leg injury was huge, as was Oglesby after his several-game absence. It's hard to properly identify interior blocking at times, but Frederick, Moffitt, and Zeitler were solid.

-Lance Kendricks had a big block on Clay's second touchdown run, but more notably he had 128 yards receiving. Good time to have a career day and set the stage for an all-conference senior season. Throw in Garrett Graham's six catches for 73 yards, and our tight ends went for more than 200 yards receiving tonight. That's one way to negate Miami's advantage at cornerback. Big props to Paul Chryst for designing a game plan that put these two guys in open spaces.

-Somebody had to get them the ball, and Scott Tolzien played a great game. He completed almost 75% of his throws and went for more than 250 yards (we also heard about his strugles against ranked teams too, didn't we?). He had the pick, but that was more the result of a nice play by Miami's lineman. Our pass protection wasn't exactly airtight, but it gave Tolzien enough time to diagnose the coverage and step into throws, and he consistently got the ball out just in time to the right guy. In last year's Champs Sports Bowl, our scattershot quarterback play helped us get blown out. In this year's, it helped us pull an upset.

-Speaking of last year, how do you think last year's team would have done after giving up a game-opening kickoff return for a touchdown*; throwing a pick on the edge of the red zone; fumbling away the game-salting touchdown; racking up 60 yards in penalties, which all seemed to negate crucial plays; fumbling an onside kick? Any one or two of those things would have done in last year's team. This year's team was resilient, we overcame all those negatives. Give credit to the captains: Maragos, Schofield, Graham, Mickey Turner, with help from the likes of Watt, Moffitt, Sherer, McFadden. Great leadership and chemistry this year.

-All year I've been complaining about Brad Nortman's propensity for kicking the ball into the end zone. Today he had at least two great punts that pinned Miami deep in their own territory. Great time for him to figure that out. And how about Philip Welch coming through with two field goals? Who's next to find his accuracy, Mason Crosby?

Did you see how the kids mobbed Bielema after the game? It was the best indication yet to me that this team realized that while Bielema and his staff took a lot of heat after 2008 (rightfully so), the players themselves had to take ownership of the results as well. The fact that they took a program that started with a ton of question marks in August and turned it into 10 wins and a victory over an ascendant Miami program in their home state in a game nobody thought they'd win had to be an incredibly satisfying experience for them to share. It showed in their reaction.

Watching tonight's game was an incredibly satisfying experience for me and Badger fans around the world.

Going to try and sleep now, wish me luck.

UW-Miami halftime thoughts

2009-12-29T20:32:00.006-06:00

For as poorly as this game started, you have to be happy with a 17-7 halftime lead. I mean really, we've dominated this game with the exception of one play. It could be 24-0 or 28-0. Now the key is to make the proper halftime adjustments, or counter their adjustments.

It's funny that Miami has heaters on the sideline, it appears to be around 50 degrees. They're over there shivering (Donna Shalala in a parka!) while our guys are in short sleeves. That can't be good for their mindset.

Surprised that Miami called so many trick plays so early in the game. On one hand, it's a bowl game, you've had a chance to work on some new things like that. On the other hand, you're the prohibitive favorite, you should line up and play straight. Their kickoff return reverse was just beautiful, especially after seeing that aerial view showing that Shields actually lined up on the first line of blockers.

We've run the ball very well with Clay, he's been patient and let his blocking develop. On his long run, Travis Frederick and John Moffitt had picture perfect blocks. On his touchdown run Lance Kendricks blasted the defender backward. And Montee Ball has looked good in his carries of relief.

What a great half by Kendricks ... except for that end around, which we busted out for the first time since the Purdue game. Tolzien has been fairly sharp, the interception was a nice play by their defensive lineman.

J.J. Watt and O'Brien Schofield have played their usual game, and the other guy who's stuck out on defense has been Jay Valai. And other than that opening return, the special teams have been good with Brad Nortman and Philip Welch contributing nice kicks.

Miami looks out of synch right now offensively, and their defense has shown cracks. Jacory Harris looks hobbled, and they just lost their fastest back. It would be nice to get six right off the bat, make them predictable, and play keepaway with our running game.

Already?

2009-12-28T20:59:00.001-06:00

Wow, this bowl game really snuck up on us. If only we were playing in the Alamo Bowl against the team whose coach locks concussed players in closets, we'd have a few more post-Christmas days to mull over our bowl matchup.

But it's here, and we're the marquee game tonight. Should be a good one. Everyone has been asking me what I think, and while I think Miami should be favored, I also think the Badgers are going to win.

Why? A gut feeling as much as anything. As much as we agonize over this year's losses to Ohio State, Iowa and Northwestern, let's not forget about nine good wins.

As much as we fret about Miami's skill players and excellent young quarterback, let's not forget that we have an above-average pass rush (against a line missing its standout left tackle) and a run defense that didn't allow a 100-yard rusher in Big Ten play. It's not inconceivable that O'Brien Schofield, J.J. Watt, or Chris Borland could have a huge day for the front seven. Jacory Harris has thrown the ball to the other team a lot this year, why not again Tuesday night?

As much as we worry about facing a defense that slowed Georgia Tech's rushing attack, let's not forget that we have impeccable offensive balance. It's not inconceivable that John Clay could go for 150 yards, that Scott Tolzien could go for 250 yards, that Nick Toon or Garrett Graham could go for 100 yards and a couple touchdowns.

My point is that we have good players, too. Unlike last year, this year's Badgers have chemistry. The leadership is better this year. The coaching has been better. The quarterback play has been competent most of the year, which has kept the weaker parts of our team from being exposed.

I think this game is going to come down to special teams. We need either David Gilreath or Philip Welch to produce an unexpected plus play, and to not suffer any big negative plays (fumble, long return allowed).

So here it is: Wisconsin 26, Miami 23. Let's go Badgers!

UW-Chicago thoughts

2009-12-27T20:56:00.006-06:00

Watched Sunday's game on a picture-in-picture during the end of the Packer game, then later at home while reading Bill Simmons' new book. Figured I wouldn't miss much, and I was right.

Wasn't it only a few years ago that Illinois-Chicago was pretty tough and a fierce rival of UWM's in the Horizon League? They had some guys who just looked terrible out there, very much out of place on a Division 1 roster.

So not much to report on, but I did take away these positives:

-Ryan Evans played a great game. He's confident, aggressive, not afraid to make something happen. A very solid second guy off the bench.

-Rob Wilson didn't score, but grabbed eight rebounds and played solid defense. Good move by Bo to get him 16 minutes in our last non-conference game.

-Also good to get Mike Bruesewitz double-digit minutes, although he hasn't looked like the difference-maker he was in Hawaii. He's got a lot of time left in Madison, though.

-Jordan Taylor looks ready to play 20-plus minutes a night in the Big Ten and let Pop focus on scoring for stretches.

-Has a very good game from Jon Leuer become a given? He looked like an eighth grader playing with fifth graders yesterday, particularly on the offensive boards.

(Favorite moment from the broadcast: J-Bo throws Leuer an alley-oop that looks like a shot, really well-designed and executed play. Tim Doyle talks about how Leuer identified the airball early and adjusted, even after Craig Coshun twice correctly identified it as a pass. I mean, the pass/"shot" was three feet right and three feet short of the rim. J-Bo's struggled at times this year, but he always hits the rim! Great call as usual, Timmy.)

-And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Keaton Nankivil's dunk. The lineup we're trotting out there this year looks much more athletic than last year's.

Which is important because the Big Ten is going to be rough this year. Doyle is predicting an undefeated home run for us in conference play, which I appreciate but don't agree with. Still, I don't see how you could feel much better about the Badgers' chances right now, they've played very well and shown some unexpected strengths.

Nobody loves Tolzien

2009-12-26T09:39:00.001-06:00

Saw this mentioned on Madison.com the other day, I remember this during the Ohio State game, it was pretty funny.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T09:11:00.000-06:00

In continuing with the Badgercentric tradition of posting feel-good videos on Christmas, we present the UW-Purdue game from 2004:

Royce White quits Gophers on YouTube

2009-12-24T21:01:00.003-06:00

I may be a few days late on this, but, as the kids might say, OMG.

If memory serves, it was only a few short months ago that our poor Gopher fan friend Chris Toren was just raving about Royce, that this was the type of elite athlete Tubby Smith was bringing in now. My comment was something like, "Yeah, we'll see if he lasts one year." For once it turns out I was prescient.

UW-Milwaukee thoughts

2009-12-23T21:29:00.007-06:00

You know who had the best game tonight? Shon Morris of the Big Ten Network. He was funny, witty, insightful. Kudos, Shon Morris. You're much better than Tim Doyle.

As for the game, what sticks out to me is that we didn't play great defense. Milwaukee didn't put up a ton of points, but that was because their shots started going awry, not because we were forcing them into anything uncomfortable. They were able to successfully get the ball into James Eayrs and Anthony Hill on a number of occasions because we didn't have weakside help positioned properly. And we seemed to give up post-guard switches way too early on ball screens. Better offensive players will make us pay for that. Our defense needs to be better.

-Jon Leuer was superb tonight. Morris made the excellent point that right now there's no hesitation in his game, spot on. Jon's making post moves, pulling up for jumpers off the dribble, getting putbacks. Only thing he didn't do tonight was make a 3-pointer, but as you know I'm just fine with that. If you're playing against us, who do you put on Leuer? I'd put a 6-6 guy on him and front him aggressively.

-On that hesitation point, tonight Keaton Nankivil hesitated, and as such only took a few shots. The other night against Cal Poly, he didn't and he shot extremely well. Same last year in the Purdue game at home. Morris said Keaton doesn't know how good he can be, which is exactly right. I would love to see him look for his shot more, he could be the third scorer that would make us very dangerous.

-Jordan Taylor didn't shoot a high percentage tonight but he played well. Point guard is in good hands for the next couple years.

-Mike Bruesewitz got minutes ahead of Jared Berggren tonight, which goes back to my point a few days ago about having too many 6-11+ guys. Would have liked to see Rob Wilson get a few minutes tonight.

-I've seen pictures of Eayrs before and knew he was a wide body, but this was the first time I'd seen him play. He's a good player, knows his way around the basket. It does puzzle me, though, how a basketball player -- someone who runs for more than two hours a day for almost six months a year and theoretically works out almost that much the rest of the year -- could be that overweight. Had the same thoughts abou Oliver Miller when he was active, and other heavy dudes. Would Eayrs' effectiveness actually be diminished with less weight? Hard to say.

-I like Ricky Franklin, he's a nice guard. A few years back when he was coming out of high school word was that he was considering walking on at UW, and lots of us were excited. Didn't work out, but he's done well for himself in Milwaukee.

-Milwaukee's not bad, they'll win some games this year. They're the type of team that might beat a Butler but lose to a lesser team in their league the next time out. During their halftime chat, Brent Stover asked Bo Ryan and Rob Jeter if they'd ever be on the same bench again. My thought was I hope not, because it would mean that Robby got canned at Milwaukee. It would be great if he could get that program back to the level it reached under Bruce Pearl, so he would become the logical successor to Bo in Madison.

Up next is what looks like a really bad Illinois-Chicago team, which should be a good opportunity to play the regulars 25 minutes for an Ohio State tuneup, then get Wilson, Berggren, Bruiser, et al some floor time.

Bigger Ten

2009-12-22T05:14:00.001-06:00

Since news started trickling out about Big Ten expansion, lots of people at work have been asking what I think of it. In a nutshell, I think it's a great idea, naming challenges aside.

(In high school, we played in the Wisconsin Little Ten, which had eight teams in it, so I've seen it go both ways.)

Expansion is the logical thing to do, and not just so the conference has a game after Thanksgiving and takes in revenue from a football championship game. More important is adding another top academic institution, broadening the base of exposure to help recruiting, and adding television markets. Here are my preferred Big Ten additions, in order of preference and likelihood:

-Missouri: Good academics, can deliver St. Louis and Kansas City, good athletic traditions but not insurmountable, makes sense geographically. We've recruited really well in St. Louis at times over the years. But has strong ties to former Big Eight schools, rivalry with Kansas.

-Louisville: Great basketball tradition and coach, has reached high levels of football success recently, adjacent to Indiana and Ohio. We've never really recruited there, would be tough to go in and beat Cards, Kentucky, Ohio State and Indiana. Not sure about academics, but it doesn't seem to make anyone's top lists. No history with Big East, although that could be said for much of that monstrosity of a conference.

-Rutgers: Good academics, big state school in rich recruiting state that has been good to us. Not much athletic tradition, recent football success aside, and they aren't really relevant in the New York media market.

-Syracuse: Would love to add them, but it's a long shot.

-Pittsburgh: Same with Pitt.

-Iowa State: Seems like a good school, has had some athletic success at times, but it's hard to see two schools from a states as small as Iowa being in one BCS conference.

I'm not even going to put Notre Dame on this list. They should stay independent, and will, and it makes sense for them. No need to exert our brains thinking about this one.

A friend at work was throwing out names like Boise State and TCU, not sure where he heard that, but it doesn't make much sense. You start doing that and you become a ridiculous amalgamation of teams like the Big East, which makes no sense. Better to stick at 11 than to add a 12th team that doesn't fit right.

What's interesting is to think about how two Big Ten divisions would break down. East-West seems logical, and if the 12th school was Missouri, it would probably go something like:

West: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, Missouri
East: Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State

The East looks stronger, at least for football, but maybe by not as large of a margin as it might seem. If it was someone like Louisville or Rutgers, it could look something like this:

West: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue
East: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Louisville/Rutgers

You'd almost have to do it this way to preserve the best conference rivalries, the 10 bucket-related games Minnesota plays every year notwithstanding.

(Then again, to reference my high school again, our town had West Bend East and West Bend West in a city that runs primarily north and south, and kids from the same street went to different schools. So reason doesn't always prevail.)

Adding Penn State almost 20 years ago has worked out well. PSU has been a nice addition to the conference without becoming dominant, and has stretched the league's horizons sufficiently eastward. We'll see what happens this time around, should be interesting.

The majors

2009-12-21T06:28:00.001-06:00

On the topic of academics, I found this in a post on BadgerNation.com the other night while reading endless speculation about the Jeronne Maymon deal at Marquette and what it means (which, for the record, Badgercentric will refrain from entering).

From "idoublebogie" comparing majors for players at MU and UW:

Vander (Blue)'s Mom should look at this :

Acker - Comm. Studies
Butler - Undecided (he's a JUNIOR)
Buycks - Comm. Studies
Cadougan - Undecided
Cubillan - Undecided (he's a SENIOR)
Fulce - Undecided (JUNIOR)
Hayward - Social Welfare
Johnson-Odom - Undecided
Maymon - Undecided
Mbao - Undecided
Otule - Undecided
Williams - Undecided

Berggren - Undecided
Bohannon - Business Marketing
Bruiser - Undecided
Evans - Business
Gavinski - Human Ecology
Hughes - Life Sciences Communications
Jarmusz - Business
Leuer - Business
Markolf - Finance
Nankivil - Engineering
Taylor - Marketing
Wilson - Human Ecology

Now, there's an old saying about people who live in glass houses, and UW athletics is certainly not above reproach academically. Just look at that recent report indicating that Miami is actually ahead of Wisconsin in terms of its football program's academic performance.

But that's an impressive roster of majors for our guys. The two Undecideds are freshmen, and you see plenty of challenging majors like engineering, business, finance.

Conversely if you're Buzz Williams and you look at your guys' collective record of academic "focus," you ought to be embarrassed.

Mizzou-rah

2009-12-20T08:25:00.003-06:00

Been thinking a lot about this Big Ten expansion talk lately, will write a longer post on it in a day or two. But first a brief quote from Missouri governor Jay Nixon I read in the paper yesterday morning:

"When you compare Oklahoma State to Northwestern, when you compare Texas Tech to Wisconsin, I mean, you begin looking at educational possibilities that are worth looking at," he said.

I have friends who went to both Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, smart people. If I'm them and see that quote, I'm pretty cheesed at Nixon and think "You know what? Have fun in the Big Ten."

Alando Tucker: Minister of Hygiene

2009-12-17T20:02:00.001-06:00

Can't say I'm as diligent as Alando about flu prevention ...

UW-Cal Poly thoughts

2009-12-16T21:50:00.003-06:00

That was a lot less stressful than the last time the Badgers played Cal Poly.

First off ...

Was that a J.P. Gavinski dunk? My lord, that was exciting. And off a sweet feed from Brett Valentyn. That's why games like these are valuable, so guys like these two get some playing time.

Other than predictably good games from Trevon Hughes and Jon Leuer, there were some things to like:

-Keaton Nankivil came out lookin aggressively for his shot, and made them. He's a good shooter, and when he hits from the perimeter, we're much tougher to guard.

-Jason Bohannon looked comfortable shooting from the perimeter tonight. If he gains confidence from that and it spills over into our important game, tonight is valuable.

-Guys like Jared Berggren and Rob Wilson got more minutes than usual, and Mike Bruesewitz saw time after not seeing the floor much lately. I think our rotation might be too tight for them to see anything more than spot action, but they're all capable of contributing.

-We shot 61% from the floor, 54% on 3-pointers.

Best of the decade: How I voted

2009-12-15T21:26:00.000-06:00

Here's how I voted:

Best play of the decade
Football (Oct. 15, 2005) Jonathan Casillas blocks a punt that Ben Strickland recovers for a touchdown with 30 seconds left to complete a 10-point comeback in the final three minutes and give UW a 38-34 win at Minnesota.

Maybe the most excited I've ever been at a Badger sporting event. Those of us who were in that dump of a dome will never forget it.

Close #2: Men’s Hockey (March 26, 2006) Jack Skille scores the game-winning goal in the third overtime against Cornell to advance to the Frozen Four. My brother and I were there, what a tremendous game. The aftermath of this one was a little different than the Casillas-Strickland game, since they'd been playing for about six hours, we were dead tired, and had a long drive home ahead of us. Andy and I waited in line at a concession stand behind Darrell Bevell during one overtiem intermission, he had just been named the Vikings' offensive coordinator, good guy.

But it's hard to argue with Michael Flowers' shot to beat Texas (watched it in my bedroom) or the Scott Starks Purdue play (watched it somewhere in Central Washington at in-laws' house).

Best Student-Athlete of the Decade
I chose Devin Harris. Chris Solinsky, Joe Thomas, Dany Heatley and Alando Tucker are my runners-up. Jimmy Leonhard, too.

Best Team of the Decade
2005-06 men's hockey. Why them and not any of the women's national champions, who were more dominant? Because there are a lot more teams playing Division 1 men's hockey, tougher to reach the top of the mountain.

Who did you vote for?

Bucky's best of the decade

2009-12-14T21:22:00.000-06:00

A few days ago I got an interesting email from the athletic department, notifying recipients of online voting at uwbadgers.com for the best Wisconsin play, athletes, and teams of the past decade.

There are only three pages of voting, but tons of great choices. What a trip down memory lane! I urge you to take a minute at the link above and take the survey, it will remind you of how great it is to be a Badger fan.

Stop back tomorrow and I'll tell you how I voted.

Big problem?

2009-12-14T06:27:00.005-06:00

Nothing in the Badgers' win over Marquette bothered me much, but after a day of reflection I came up with something.

Nearly a quarter of our roster right now is basically ineffective, and that fraction is in danger of increasing to a third next season.

Based on the guys Marquette put on the floor yesterday, we didn't play anyone taller than 6-10 Jon Leuer or 6-8 Keaton Nankivil. Now, MU is one of the smaller teams we'll play this year, and there will be games when Jared Berggren gets minutes against opposing bigs.

But for the most part, we can match up with opposing frontcourts by playing Leuer, Nankivil, Ryan Evans and maybe Mike Bruesewitz. And we'll match up well. Even at 6-6, Evans and Bruesewitz have the size and athleticism to man up on opposing 4 men.

When will Berggren play? Right now, it looks like both Nankivil and Leuer will need to be in foul trouble before he gets extended minutes. I would like to see Bo Ryan get the freshman more playing time in the pre-conference season, because this scenario will probably present itself at some point in Big Ten play.

Yet it's tough to see Berggren getting more than five minutes of floor time in any game, and J.P. Gavinski and Ian Markolf will only play in lopsided games. So that's three of our four guys 6-10 or taller who don't figure to provide many useful minutes this season.

All three of those guys are back next year, and we'll add 6-11 Evan Anderson. Anderson, like Berggren a highly-rated high school center, figures to either redshirt or play limited minutes in his first year on campus.

What I'm getting at here is not that Anderson and Berggren will never contribute, I think they will be key parts of the team at some point. But Markolf and Gavinski probably won't ever be contributors. They seem like good program guys, well liked by their teammates, hopefully good students.

Going forward, though, given the roster composition of most of our opponents, we probably don't need quite so many guys over 6-8, as long as those 6-8 guys are strong post defenders, like Nankivil. True 7-foot centers aren't necessary to win in today's college game, and not many teams have those guys.

If Anderson turns out to be the second coming of Greg Oden, then hey, gotta love the center. But if we're talking about mid-level recruits, I'd rather take a 6-6 guy or a guard than another guy 6-10 or taller.

UW-Marquette thoughts

2009-12-13T08:21:00.005-06:00

Full disclosure: I didn't watch Saturday's game live. Watching the UW-Marquette game live sends my blood pressure into outer space, so I chose instead to take Will to see UW-Stevens Point play Elmhurst College. Of course, I followed the score on my BlackBerry, which sent my blood pressure at least into the ozone, so not much was gained.

But I just watched it recorded, and have to be pleased with the outcome, especially after Wednesday's result in Green Bay. We were the better team, but Marquette is athletic and scrappy and gave us a good run.

The game was a good indication of where the Badgers are right now, and what needs to happen for this season to be a success.

We have two very good players, one inside and one outside. Jon Leuer was a beast, and unless he takes a major step back he can carry us for long stretches of time. Trevon Hughes didn't have a great game, but he's excused, he's been playing very well. While both these guys probably won't end up on the all-conference team, they're playing at that level now.

Off the bench, Jordan Taylor has earned Bo Ryan's trust, and by extension mine. Ryan Evans too, he brings energy, athleticism, hustle. Both have bright futures as their roles expand.

How far we go this season will boil down to Jason Bohannon and Keaton Nankivil. If they pick their games up a notch, we can regularly beat the best teams in the Big Ten. If not, we look like a .500 conference team that can beat Marquette but lose to Green Bay, like we saw this week.

J-Bo is really struggling from the floor; then again, if memory serves he was at this time last year. But last year it was more a matter of him not getting shots off, this year it's him missing open looks. Keaton is tougher to figure -- he played 22 minutes yesterday, but I can't remember him at all. Maybe that was a function of the matchups Marquette provided, but I thought he would match up well with Butler or Hayward.

We'll see.

As for Marquette, they have some nice pieces, and in a Big East that has as many horrible teams as it usually does they'll win some games. But long term, where are they headed? Right now they're heavily dependent upon junior college players and a holdover from the Tom Crean era.

Like under Crean, they don't seem to have much of a "system," but instead rely heavily on individual play and effort. To their credit, they outrebounded a bigger team. That leads to uneven performances, both during a season and during games. Yesterday when Hayward and Johnson-Odom were hitting (by the way, our defense on the latter was atrocious, very lazy, and he made us pay by knocking down some 3-pointers) Marquette was tough. But then they'd go cold for stretches and we'd build our lead back to a comfortable margin. They didn't have anything to get them through the dry spells. Then again, I suppose you could have made the same critique about the Swing during our losing streak last year, but that was at the opposite end of the patience spectrum.

I suppose if I'm Vander Blue I can see the appeal in playing like that, but how do you develop like a player that way? It's glorified pickup ball. Good luck with that.

Good win, looking forward to closing the non-conference schedule with no more surprises or drama.

Sports Illustrated jinx for Clay?

2009-12-11T21:19:00.002-06:00

Probably not. This is a cool shot, isn't it? It figures: I'd subscribed to SI for about 10 years and let it lapse earlier this year, and now they put a Badger football player on the cover.

The only other Badgers I can think of on SI's cover were Brian Butch and Alando Tucker on the 2006-07 men's basketball preview issue. Anyone else come to mind?

UW-Hawaii thoughts

2009-12-10T20:17:00.008-06:00

Finally got to watch the entire Wisconsin-Hawaii game Wednesday night after watching bits and pieces of it Saturday night during a family Christmas get-together. It was a nice, relaxing time, knowing what happened already. Some thoughts:

-O'Brien Schofield was just a beast, again, with two sacks and constant pressure. J.J. Watt finished the regular season strong, too, with two sacks and a tackle for loss. Those two ended up being the top TFL duo in the country -- did not expect that at the beginning of the season.

-Chris Borland and Louis Nzegwu also had sacks. There is solid hope to have a good pass rush again next season.

-And Borland kicked two extra points! Thought I dreamt that, but the box score and replay confirmed.

-Time of possession edge: 37:57 - 22:03.

-Workmanlike games for John Clay and Montee Ball, although Ball had more negative yardage runs than I would have liked -- 17 yards lost. He did look comfortable as a receiver out of the backfield.

-Scott Tolzien completed 80% of his passes. His accuracy and the pass rush from Schofield and Watt are the two biggest reasons we won nine games this year.

-David Gilreath had a really nice game, scoring on the end-around, making a great comeback on a long pass from Tolzien, and averaging almost 50 yards on two kickoff returns. Did you notice how, on that long pass play, Gilreath caught the ball and the Hawaii defender was standing there with his arms out, and a second later looked surprised he didn't have the ball? Funny.

-Lance Kendricks had a couple nice catches, but what I really liked was his block on Gilreath's touchdown run. Conversely, Garrett Graham was called for yet another hold. It's like he had a target on his jersey this year.

-It was really nice to see Dustin Sherer score that last touchdown, and his teammates' reaction (especially Zach Brown). Many stories have been written about the class Sherer showed in handling his demotion, and it shouldn't be understated. One reason this team achieved so much more than last year's was chemistry and leadership, and a vocally disappointed Sherer could have disrupted that. He didn't, and you can tell his teammates loved him for it.

Coming in I was a tiny bit worried that Hawaii would give us a good game. They were, after all, playing well and playing for bowl eligibility. That we dominated so thoroughly is a testament to the job Bret Bielema and his staff did getting the team prepared and focused.

Since their return, many of the Badgers on Twitter have frequently detailed their longing for paradise, but I think it's finally wearing off as their focus turns to Miami. This will be a good three weeks to get ready for the 'Canes and get the youngsters some additional practice time.

UW-Green Bay thoughts

2009-12-09T21:17:00.004-06:00

I turned 34 today, and as far as birthday presents go, tonight's game was on par with a gift certificate for a discounted colonoscopy. Which I'll probably receive several birthdays from now.

Let me lead with something I wrote in the aftermath of the win over Duke:

So many of the national stories in the wake of last night's games had a theme along the lines of "Never doubt Bo Ryan ... the Badgers will definitely make the NCAA Tournament ... they're a Big Ten title contender." I appreciate the sentiment but think that we might be getting ahead of ourselves. There are a lot of games left to play.

The bold is newly added, and I'm sorely disappointed that I had to bring up that passage just two games after that seminal win a week ago. But tonight showed that Wisconsin is far from a finished product.

Green Bay may turn out to be a tournament-caliber team, but thus far this season they have losses to UAB and Long Beach State under their belts, with no wins of note before tonight. They're a veteran team that has some decent guards, but there's no real polite way of saying this: this is a bad loss for the Badgers.

It started early, when Green Bay seemingly made every shot they took, especially Bryquis Perine. They ended up shooting less than 50% somehow, but still scored 88 points, and grabbed a ton of offensive rebounds on the rare occasions they did miss. It felt like all five of GB's starters had career games tonight.

We turned the ball over almost 20 times, when Duke could only force us to cough it up five times.

Wait a minute -- UW-Green Bay scored 88 points on the Badgers? Good lord.

Offensively, where was Jason Bohannon? He took four shots tonight. Troy Cotton managed to hoist up 13 for GB, Rahmon Fletcher 16, Perine 20. Our best shooter took four.

Trevon Hughes kept us close by getting fouled 154 times and wearing out a path to the free throw line, and Jon Leuer played well, too. But when the Badgers score 84 points -- 75 in regulation -- there's no way in hell they should lose to a Horizon League team. That was some god-awful defense from the fellas in red tonight.

You know, if we're going to lose a game we weren't expecting to, I'd rather it be to a local program like Green Bay and not, say, Oakland. My earlier snarkiness aside, I've always hoped the Phoenix would return to the glory they experienced during the Dick Bennett days, those were exciting. It would be great if they ran the Horizon and made this loss look not quite so bad.

But right now, it feels pretty bad. Not exactly a momentum-builder heading into the Marquette game.

Champs

2009-12-06T20:09:00.003-06:00

So it's the Champs Sports Bowl vs. Miami, eh? Here's my thought process:

-First of all, what in the world are Outback Bowl organizers thinking? A 7-5 Auburn team? A Northwestern team that's going to bring less fans than any other Big Ten team? Good luck with that. If the kids cooperate, I can sleep in on New Year's Day, this will be a forgettable game.

-Second, I don't begrudge the Outback for taking Northwestern over us. They did, after all, beat us. (Although, Northwestern beat two bowl teams and lost to Syracuse; we beat four bowl teams).

-Third, I didn't want to go to the Outback Bowl in the first place, given how many years in a row we've bowled in Florida, including that bowl two years ago, and we've played a lot of SEC teams in the postseason lately. The one I really wanted was the Alamo Bowl. We recruit in Texas, and haven't played a Big 12 team in awhile. Plus, Jana and I had hoped to visit a friend in Texas over the holidays. Michigan State-Texas Tech is another bad matchup, the Red Raiders should win easily.

-Fourth, the Champs Sports Bowl sounds like a bowl Minnesota should be playing in, like Insight Bowl. (There's another terrible game involving a Big Ten team -- Minnesota/Iowa State.) The name just sounds cheesy.

-Fifth, I actually like the draw. It's tough to see a boatload of Badger fans making the trip to Florida for this one, especially on the tails of the Hawaii trip. But Miami, like Florida State last year, is a great opponent. Great history, great name, great players, great coach. Yet very beatable. We can get more into that later, but it's a good, fair test. Plus, we recruit Florida heavily, and showing up there every winter can only help our efforts there.

So while I think the Badgers deserved a January bowl game after a better-than-expected year, this one's okay. It's funny: the last time we played Miami was roughly 20 years ago, when they were at the peak of their power. If you would have told me then that a bowl matchup with the Hurricanes would every qualify as even a slight letdown for UW someday, I would have laughed.

Duke: The afterglow

2009-12-03T19:57:00.009-06:00

One of the best parts of last night's big win? Having every other person at work stop me in the hall or pop their head in my office to talk about it. The Badgers have created a buzz. Here are some other thoughts:

-J.P. Tokoto was in attendance, and apparently came away very impressed. I saw a cool picture of him talking with Brian Butch. Let's face it: it's still a long shot that J.P. will end up in Madison. But last night showed him that Wisconsin can beat the nation's premier teams, that the Kohl Center is an electric place, that being a part of the Madison student body is an incredible experience. Can't hurt.

-What do you reckon Trevon Hughes' scoring average will be this season? My money is on something like 15.5 ppg. He's playing at a higher level than any point guard we've had since Devin Harris. (Who, by the way, is getting criticized on Twitter for giving the Badgers props in the wake of last night's game.)

-As well as Pop played, we won this game in the frontcourt. Brian Zoubek, Lance Thomas, Miles and Mason Plumlee -- all of their dudes were highly-recruited post players. Yet Jon Leuer and Keaton Nankivil totally outplayed them, 25 points and 11 rebounds to six points and 14 rebounds. Our guys were more athletic.

-Seventeen assists, six turnovers for us last night (thanks for the catch nuclearbadger!). That'll win you some games.

-So many of the national stories in the wake of last night's games had a theme along the lines of "Never doubt Bo Ryan ... the Badgers will definitely make the NCAA Tournament ... they're a Big Ten title contender." I appreciate the sentiment but think that we might be getting ahead of ourselves. There are a lot of games left to play.

-No disrespect to any of our remaining non-conference opponents, but we should enter non-conference play no worse than 10-2, with Marquette being the team that can beat us. That would put us on solid footing for an NCAA berth, at 9-9 with wins over Arizona, Maryland and Duke out of conference.

Our early Big Ten schedule is brutal, though, with Ohio State, Michigan State and Purdue in the first four. The latter half of our conference schedule is the easier half, so hopefully we can hang in there and not suffer a conference of confidence in January.

But all that is still a month off. Let's keep enjoying last night.

UW-Duke thoughts

2009-12-02T22:20:00.006-06:00

Awesome win, just thrilled with tonight's effort. This isn't Duke's best team ever, but it's still Duke. They're #6 in the country, loaded with McDonald's All-Americans, had never lost in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge. We ended that, and the conference likely won the Challenge, with our win being the difference. What an awesome feeling. Huge win for the program, and for the conference.

-The strong early start was so important, we played with the lead the whole game. Jon Leuer and Keaton Nankivil were assertive early, confidently looking for their shots.

-Trevon Hughes carried the load for most of the rest of the game, he played a terrific game. He's a big game player, really seems to play his best against our best opponents. Played great defense.

-My #2 player of the game is Ryan Evans. The defensive job he did on Kyle Singler, after Singler was unconscious early, was critical. That last play where Singler had the ball, and Evans stayed in front of him and forced a bad shot, was big time defense. Plus, he was aggressive on the boards, and I loved when he tried to throw down that alley-oop, even if he missed it.

-Speaking of dunks, Leuer, Nankivil, and Jared Berggren got into the act, another welcome sign of aggressive play in the paint. I was surprised that Duke yielded those looks, they were pretty blatant defensive breakdowns.

-We won despite not keeping up our torried shooting start, ended up shooting 44% for the game. That speaks to good defense and rebounding.

-Nit picking time. How did this Andre Dawkins get so wide open, especially after he made a couple 3-pointers? Jason Bohannon really struggled from behind the arc, 0-for-6, he makes two of those and the game is over earlier. Nankivil missed the front end of a one-and-one when we were up 11, and I thought that might be a turning point. And on a critical late possession, it was Jordan Taylor, not Pop, taking the shot with the clock running down -- why?

But hey, when the alarm clock rings tomorrow I'll have forgotten all about those things and just remember the win. Should be a great confidence boost for the Badgers and carry over to the rest of the year, like the Texas win two years ago.

I'm tired, more thoughts tomorrow ...

Academic All-Big Ten Badgers

2009-12-01T20:11:00.003-06:00

Let's step away from the field for a moment and give credit to to the Badger football players who earned academic All-Big Ten honors:

Zach Brown, Gabe Carimi, Nate Emanuel, Bradie Ewing, Antonio Fenelus, Matthew Groff, Will Hartmann, Jordan Hein, Aaron Henry, Tyler Holland, Peter Konz, Andrew Lukasko, Prince Moody, Brad Nortman, Chukwuma Offor, Curt Phillips, Devin Smith, Blake Sorensen, Scott Tolzien, Mickey Turner, J.J. Watt, Drew Woodward.

That's eight starters, five key reserves, and a smattering of special teams contributors. Nice work in the classroom, fellas!

John Clay to the NFL?

2009-12-01T20:06:00.000-06:00

Not yet. Thank goodness.

John Clay to the NFL?

2009-11-27T03:25:00.000-06:00

Last week the Journal Sentinel had a story about UW coaches seeking input about John Clay's NFL draft stock. It was an appropriate story to write: Clay is in line to be the Big Ten's offensive MVP, and as a third-year player he is eligible to enter the draft.

John has to look into it -- it's his professional vocation on the line -- but my sense is that he's best served waiting another year or even two. From my living room floor, here's how he stacks up.

Pros: Great size, lean, decent medium-range speed, pad level, nose for the end zone

Cons: Lack of breakaway speed (Fresno TD run notwithstanding), receiving ability (no chance to showcase yet), physical style has led to some injuries, ball security -- early in the year, and late in the loss to Northwestern

Without looking at all the other potential draftees among running backs, Clay seems like a third round pick at best, fifth or sixth round pick at worst. He's probably better than P.J. Hill was a year ago at this time, but not by a mile.

If Clay left, a Montee Ball-Zach Brown combo wouldn't be terrible going into next year. But a Clay-Ball-Brown rotation would be nasty and the driving force for what could be a huge 2010 for us.

UW-Maryland thoughts

2009-11-25T17:24:00.007-06:00

Nice win against a ranked team, one that might pay big dividends come March.

I like what this team looks like right now. Good guard play. Improved outside shooting. A go-to post scorer. Lots of big bodies inside to give fouls. Young players bringing energy.

We had Duke a week from now, a game we probably won't win, but looking at the rest of the schedule I'm thinking we're 10-3 heading into the Big Ten, at worst. An Arizona-Gonzaga-Maryland-Duke run makes for a very high quality non-conference schedule.

-My one beef today is with the turnovers, way too many. And while Maryland's defense was good, the turnovers were self-inflicted. Shooting 49.1% and making 10 3-pointers can cover that up, but I'd rather hang onto the ball.

-The scoring was balanced early, then Jason Bohannon took over, then Jon Leuer, and J-Bo's free throw shooting finished things off. What did I say about J-Bo making 75% of his clean looks? Today he was 4-of-5, and when he has the ball in his hands at the end of the game I feel like it's over.

-Leuer didn't do much for awhile, but in the second half he found the places he likes to be in the post and scored on a variety of moves. At 6-10, I can't think of a lot of guys can shut him down playing behind him. Our opponents are either going to have to deny him, double him, or use footwork to push him further away from the rim.

-Really liked Ryan Evans' dunk early. No, it's not my high school infatuation with dunking, but more a reflection of aggressive play. Keaton Nankivil missed another attempt later (fouled in the process), but I still liked it.

-Trevon Hughes had a poor shooting game but did a great job on Greivis Vazquez, whose 18 points were deceiving and not impactful.

-Obviously didn't like all the turnovers, but we did have a healthy 14 assists. Also outrebounded the Terps 33-24, with Keaton, Leuer, and Mike Bruesewitz active on the offensive glass.

-In the immediate postgame Doug Gottlieb said, in praising Leuer, "You look at the Badgers and wonder who's going to replace the scoring and athleticism of Joe Krabbenhoft." Krabby was many wonderful things for our program and I love him, but those are two words that have never been pinned to him, at least not in his collegiate career.

Very productive trip to Hawaii: two wins and an understandable loss. Duke next week represents an opportunity like the Texas game two years ago -- win and the guys might start seeing something special is possible.

UW-Gonzaga thoughts

2009-11-25T00:15:00.001-06:00

Not really disappointed with this loss. I watched Gonzaga's game at Michigan State last week, and they played Sparty really tough before losing. They're athletic, skilled, deep, balanced, and well-coached. Might not be quite as good as some of their recent editions, but they could get to that point. Beating them would have been a huge resume builder, but losing is no big deal.

Some things to like in tonight's game:

-Jon Leuer played very well. He seems to have a good sense on where he should go on the floor in order to find 8- or 10-foot jumpers, turnaround or otherwise. Trevon Hughes didn't have his best game, but we know what he's capable of. With Pop and Leuer, we've got two go-to guys who can create their own shot in different ways, which is nice.

-Jordan Taylor was my second star of the game, he played very, very well. I still see him as more of a caretaker than a scorer, but he's shown flashes of being a go-to guy. He didn't shoot free throws well.

-Both of our point guards struggled containing Demetri Goodson's penetration. Then again, there will be a lot of guys who struggle to hang with him this year.

-Keaton Nankivil missed multiple dunk attempts for the second straight night, as Erik Olson pointed out on Twitter. My response to that was that I hope Keaton keeps trying to throw those down -- better to err on the side of being overly aggressive than trying to lay it in.

-Jason Bohannon still struggles to get his shot off against good defenders. He did get a few clean looks tonight that he missed. It's to the point where against good teams, he's got to make, oh, 75% of his clean 3-point looks if we're going to end up on top.

-The ease with which Robert Sacre caught and scored in the post is disconcerting. We don't have an elite shot blocker, and our height is average, so we can't let 7-footers catch the ball four feet from the basket.

-Still searching for a plus inbounds player from under the basket. If I drew one up and emailed it to Bo Ryan, do you think he'd use it? I've got an old Leroy Young special nicknamed Pick For The Picker.

-Did you see that shot of a shirtless Bo from the team's snorkeling trip? Hot stuff!

So we get Maryland tomorrow for third place. They're projected as an NCAA tournament team, we're not, so it's another chance to build the resume. Guessing that after two hours I'll be sufficiently sick of Greivis Vasquez, a fine player who seems too cocky for my tastes.

UW-Arizona in Hawaii?

2009-11-24T07:36:00.003-06:00

Did you watch the Badger basketball game in Hawaii last night? I didn't -- but recorded it and am watching it right now. Would rather be sleeping, but Charlie apparently would not.

Know that we won, which is great. Know that we got off to a great defensive start. Know that Pop played well, as did Nankivil, who had another explosive dunk. Know that we will typically need Jon Leuer to play more than 10 minutes to beat good teams.

I'm only midway through the first half right now, but the last thing I know is that Mike Bruesewitz looked very impressive against the Wildcats -- active, physical, versatile. See that he earned 22 minutes of playing and grabbed seven rebounds, three offensive. Frankly, if he's good enough to do that on a semi-regular basis I'll be pleasantly surprised and we'll be that much deeper and better.

At the point I'm at in the game we're shooting too many jumpers and not getting to the line, but overall the play has been good.

So we've got Gonzaga tonight. They looked very tough to me in playing Michigan State down to the wire in Lansing, so we'll have our hands full. But it's a prime time game on ESPN during a big college basketball week, so we're already winners.

Final Big Ten thoughts

2009-11-24T06:13:00.000-06:00

I've said it several times this year, but to reiterate: the Big Ten was not good this year. The best team is unimaginative and has lots of holes. The worst team is the winningest program of all time. Lots of mediocrity in the middle. Hopefully Big Ten football can get back on track, like basketball has.

1. Ohio State. Good team. If I were a Buckeye fan (and thank goodness I'm not, couldn't look in the mirror), I would be incredibly frustrated with the offense. Yes, Jim Tressel's uber-conservative philosophy wins games and such, but they don't beat elite teams that way. They probably have the talent to do so, but not the temperament. If I'm Terrelle Pryor, I watched that Oregon-Arizona game Saturday night, saw what Jeremiah Masoli was doing in that offense, and kicking myself for casting my lot with the modern day Woody Hayes.

2. Iowa. Only scoring 12 points at home against Minnesota? Ugh. Nasty defense, though. Let's hope Kirk Ferentz jumps to Notre Dame or the NFL, he has the Hawkeyes rolling again.

3. Penn State. Saturday showed that they are clearly better than Wisconsin, because of their defense, best in the league in points allowed. Offense led the league in third down conversion perentage. Also, they won in Evanston.

4. Wisconsin. Us or Northwestern in this spot? I think we beat them by two touchdowns in Madison, one on a neutral field. We didn't beat a team that ended with a winning conference record this year. I like that we led the conference in time of possession again.

5. Northwestern. They do it with smoke and mirrors. If they jump us in the bowl selection process, it would not be undeserved.

6. Michigan State. The conference's most disappointing team. What happened? They ranked just behind Minnesota in penalties this year, shades of the Same Old Spartans. Greg Jones is the best player in the conference.

7. Purdue. I feel bad that they didn't qualify for a bowl. Their game at Camp Randall aside, they were much improved this year, but still a long way from contending for a conference title.

8. Minnesota. This is progress? In three years under Tim Brewster they've gone 1-11, 7-6 and are now 6-6 with the chance for a bowl win looking slim, whoever they play. They lose Eric Decker, and their offense was awful without him. Like Rich Rodriguez is doing at Michigan, Brew will probably make thinly veiled references to poor recruiting by his predecessor, but Glen Mason was winning consistently until he was fired. Here's what would trouble me: the Gophers were the most penalized team in the conference this year, and they sure don't have enough talent to overcome that. That's a reflection on the coaching, as it was on UW in 2008.

9. Illinois. You could say they were the most disappointing team in the conference because of all the talent on that roster, but this is what you expect from a Ron Zook team.

10. Indiana. I bet they make a bowl game next year. Like Purdue, they're not far from six or seven wins. But while their passing game is nice, their defense may be even worse next year, and it was pretty bad this year.

11. Michigan. Watched the second half of the Ohio State game Saturday, and the announcers were talking about how RichRod had shared with them that Tate Forcier was struggling academically, and discussed how Forcier's brothers had both transferred. Forcier's play declined this season, but aside from Brandon Graham, he was the lone bright spot for Michigan this season. If he leaves, they start all over again at quarterback again, which means they'll struggle again. Rodriguez talks about underperforming in February, but per Rivals, their recruiting classes have ranked (nationally) eighth in 2009, 10th in 2008, 12th in 2007, 13th in 2006, sixth in 2005. Ohio State is the only Big Ten program that has been comparable. It's coaching, dude.

Actual all-conference Badgers

2009-11-23T20:22:00.004-06:00

So how did I do? Not bad. Underestimated John Moffitt, Jay Valai and Brad Nortman. Happy to be right on the rest.

LB Chris Borland, Fr.
Big Ten Freshman of the Year (media and coaches)
Honorable mention All-Big Ten (media and coaches)
Lots of very good linebackers in the Big Ten, couldn't see him any higher than HM.

T Gabe Carimi, Jr.
First-team All-Big Ten (media)
Second-team All-Big Ten (coaches)
So the coaches think someone named Dennis Landolt from Penn State is better than Gabe? Huh.

RB John Clay, So.
Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year (media and coaches)
First-team All-Big Ten (media and coaches)

TE Garrett Graham, Sr.
First-team All-Big Ten (media)
Second-team All-Big Ten (coaches)
Tony Moeaki being chosen over him on the coaches first team is a joke.

S Chris Maragos, Sr.
Honorable mention All-Big Ten (media and coaches)
Big Ten Sportsmanship honoree
I like the sportsmanship award more than the HM. Great honor for another great walk-on story.

G John Moffitt, Jr.
First-team All-Big Ten (media and coaches)
Who'd have thought the public face/mouth of the program would be a guard?

P Brad Nortman, So.
Honorable mention All-Big Ten (coaches)
I nitpick with him, but Brad was very solid this year, few worries about him.

DE O’Brien Schofield, Sr.
First-team All-Big Ten (media and coaches)
Very surprised that both OB and Jared Odrick were first team picks over Ryan Kerrigan and the Ohio State guys.

QB Scott Tolzien, Jr.
Honorable mention All-Big Ten (coaches)

WR Nick Toon, So.
Honorable mention All-Big Ten (media and coaches)

S Jay Valai, Jr.
Second-team All-Big Ten (coaches)
Honorable mention All-Big Ten (media)

DE J.J. Watt, So.
Honorable mention All-Big Ten (media)

Also of interest:

-Ohio State's defense had one first team pick, Kurt Coleman.

-The coaches made Juice Williams an HM pick. Huh?

-The media made Terrelle Pryor an HM pick. Huh? The Juice/Pryor guys must have cast their votes in August.

-There weren't many top-flight running backs in the conference this season.

-Here's my favorite selection: Eric Decker was a Sportsmanship Award honoree by the coaches. Apparently no one asked Jack Ikegwuonu or his testicles.

All-conference Badgers

2009-11-23T06:50:00.003-06:00

The Big Ten will reveal its all-conference football teams tonight, and Wisconsin should be better-represented than last year, when Allen Langford and Garrett Graham were the only two all-league Badgers. Here's how I see our potential selections breaking down.

First team
John Clay -- No brainer, leads the conference in rushing and touchdowns. Should be offensive player of the year. (Aside: it's sort of hilarious that Terrelle Pryor and Juice Williams were the odds-on picks for offensive player of the year in the preseason, isn't it?)

Gabe Carimi -- Best lineman on the league's highest-scoring offense.

Garrett Graham -- Easily the best receiving tight end in the conference, also an asset in the run game.

O'Brien Schofield -- Started really hot, and though he didn't maintain his breakneck pace as the competition stiffened, he set the tone early for a defense which exceeded expectations this year. Part of me fears that he may get lost in the shuffle of all the Big Ten's excellent defensive linemen -- Brandon Graham, Ryan Kerrigan, Adrian Clayborn, Ohio State's guys -- but OB should be one of the top four.

Honorable mention
Scott Tolzien -- Had a really nice season. Other quarterbacks may have better numbers and may be more dynamic, but I'm happy with our guy.

Nick Toon -- If he played in an offense that passed more, or on a team that was behind more, his numbers would be much better and he'd be a first teamer.

Chris Maragos -- Had four interceptions and played really well, but there were at least four better defensive backs in the league this year.

J.J. Watt -- Nice debut. With Schofield gone next year expect him to elevate his game.

Chris Borland -- Can you choose a special teams player who isn't a returner or kicker? If they have a plcae for someone like this, Borland makes it. Second in the league in forced fumbles and tied for first in fumbles recovered despite only starting a handful of games. A playmaker.

John Moffitt -- A second guy from the line that led the league's top rushing attack ought to earn some sort of all-conference honors. But who? Moffitt? Josh Oglesby? Peter Konz? Kevin Zeitler? I probably picked Moffitt because he's so gregarious, but despite some rocky moments he has opened plenty of holes on the left side and pulling right.

Hopefully I forgot a guy or two, and of these second-tier guys get bumped up, but either way there have been plenty of individual performances to be happy with this year.

UW-Northwestern box score

2009-11-22T11:35:00.000-06:00

Reviewing the box score from our loss in Evanston, there still wasn't much to like.

-Wayne Larrivee and Chris Martin (who I probably came down on too hard on Saturday) kept talking about how Northwestern pushes tempo and shoots for 80 offensive plays. Turns out they ran 66 and we ran 65.

-They had nine penalties. If they had played a clean second half, the final score probably wouldn't have been that close.

-Same with third down conversions. The finals were 6-of-14 for them, 4-of-13 for us, but they were converting over 50% until near the end. This is an area in which we've really improved this year, on both sides of the ball, but Saturday we weren't good on third down.

-Have we run that end around to Lance Kendricks since he gained almost 100 yards on it during the Purdue game? Why not?

-Who was our defensive star of the game? Blake Sorensen led in tackles but didn't seem to make any big plays. Devin Smith broke up two passes and had seven tackles, but seemed to get burned in coverage on a regular basis. Jae McFadden had a tackle for loss and fumble recovery, but also had a blatant facemask penalty.

Chris Borland had a quiet game, credited with a forced fumble but seeing the replay I question that. O'Brien Schofield and J.J. Watt were effectively neutralized. Niles Brinkley had a big hit on Northwestern's last real possession to break up a third down pass.

How about Jeff Stehle, who tipped a pass and had a sack?

UW-Northwestern thoughts

2009-11-21T17:37:00.009-06:00

Any time the Badgers lose to Northwestern, in any sport, it really stings. Why? Because the school does not care about athletics. The students, faculty, alumni, surrounding area -- no one cares. Clearly.

They are the Big Ten's premier academic institution, and for that they should be lauded. That's what universities should strive for. But their facilities are laughable, their athletes less talented, their paying fans far fewer in numbers than most of the conference.

And yet, our football team never seems to win in Evanston. Much to the delight of the several thousand polite people wearing purple, whose individual cheers were audible during the broadcast. Their students rushed the field after this game, which made them 5-3, 8-4 and likely gave them an Alamo Bowl berth. Really? I thought these kids were smart.

The final margin was two points, but it wasn't that close. We were outplayed from start to finish. Winning that game would have been highway robbery. I would have taken that, of course, but it it would not have been deserved. Northwestern took it to us and got the result they deserved.

At some point in the fourth quarter Charissa Thompson remarked that the Badgers' sideline was quiet, and had been all game, while Northwestern's was enthusiastic and lively. That showed on the field. Our guys had their moments, but it felt like they were going through the motions. Northwestern played with enthusiasm and heart.

Overall, I'm still really happy with the way this season has played out, and will elaborate more on that later, but today sucked.

-I hate harping on individual guys, they're amateurs giving it their best, but Isaac Anderson had the worst game by an individual Badger in recent years that I can remember. First offensive play of the game he drops a touchdown pass. Then he muffs the kickoff return and gives us awful field position. Then his holding call wipes out a first down catch and run by Nick Toon (who had another nice game). Then he's penalized for running forward before the snap on a play in which he caught a touchdown pass. Ike's had a nice year for us, but he really struggled today.

-Thought Scott Tolzien played a nice game. He generally found open guys, although he wasn't able to avoid the pass rush at key times.

-Awesome game for Garrett Graham, who sewed up all-conference honors today. They could not hang with him.

-During the game I was writing a post on John Clay's NFL draft prospects, and remarked that his ball security has been much better since he had his problems early this year. Then he coughs it up on not much of a hit when we're driving in for the go-ahead score. In my mind he's still clearly the Big Ten's offensive player of the year, but today was not one of his better days.

-There will probably be some praise for Mike Hankwitz in the aftermath of this one, but we still scored 31 points, so their defense wasn't that good. There's a good chance we might end up leading the conference in scoring this year.

-The secondary did not have its best day today, but a lackluster pass rush had a lot to do with their struggles. Mike Kafka had plenty of time to throw, and when we did get close to him we generally weren't able to bring him down. Decent player.

-Defense made it the entire year without allowing 100 yards rushing to a Big Ten opponent. Sort of unbelievable, no?

-Can't think of a single defensive player who stood out as playing well individually today.

-I've been tough on David Gilreath for his returns this season, but that punt return for a touchdown today was really nice. Not spectacular, but excellent execution between the returner and his blockers was textbook.

-Despite the general lack of interest surrounding Northwestern sports, they still wind up having good teams from time to time because of the sheer will of leaders like Pat Fitzgerald. That guy is a hell of a coach, and as long as they hold on to him -- which should be a long time -- they will be competitive.

Boy am I glad I didn't make the trip to Evanston today!

UW-Northwestern halftime thoughts

2009-11-21T16:00:00.007-06:00

Wow, that was horrible. Northwestern is a slightly above-average team, well-coached, but they looked like the freaking 1984 San Francisco 49ers in the first half. I honestly don't see any way we win this game, our guys look uninterested, and our coaches overmatched.

-Isaac Anderson's first half performance sums it up. On our first play he drops a touchdown pass on a perfectly thrown ball from Scott Tolzien. Later he muffs a kickoff, then doesn't realize he needs to hustle after it and get it out of the end zone.

-Tolzien has played reasonably well. Paul Chryst has done a good job of getting Garrett Graham open, and Scotty has found his tight end.

-That doesn't really matter if we can't get the running game going. I can't think of one run thus far that has indicated we're ready to bust out. And this isn't Iowa or Ohio State we're playing against here, it's Mike Hankwitz stopping us with smoke and mirrors.

-We've had absolutely no pass rush so far, so while you can say our defensive backs have been clueless, Mike Kafka has had all day to find his guys.

-Poor special teams again. We allow their slow kickoff return guy to take one back into our territory, untouched except for a pathetic tackle attempt. Brad Nortman booms a coffin corner punt almost out of Northwestern's end zone. Anderson's muff.

-On Twitter our guy Randy Kessler commented that he hates Wayne Larrivee. If he weren't the Packers' radio guy I'd hate him 100% of the time, too, now I tolerate him for three hours on Sundays. Pair him with Chris Martin, terrible all the time but even more annoying calling a game with his alma mater, Northwestern, and when we're playing poorly ... it's tough to listen to.

-Seeing the see of red at Northwestern's high school stadium (Jim Polzin estimates that in his sight line it's 80-20 UW-NU fans, although he can't see a large portion of the stands) made me feel good, but if I was with my fellow Badger fans right now I would be incredibly upset for having made the drive.

I was trying to figure out what this does for our bowl prospects, but right now I'd be better off going to help Jana paint our laundry room. We're going with a very bright yellow, in case you're interested.

Three questions from Edward

2009-11-20T06:49:00.000-06:00

Regular reader Edward was nice enough to comment on a recent post in which he posed me three interesting questions. Here goes:

Am I going to jinx the Badgers by going to Evanston next weekend to watch them (Badgers at Northwestern is always both exciting and terrible)?

Yes, Edward, you are. I thought about seeing if NU had tickets available for the game, since it's an easy drive for me and my wife and mom would probably find some things for the boys to do in Chicago.

But then I remembered that my dad, brother, and brother-in-law went to Evanston in January to watch the Badgers play basketball, and even though we had a ton of UW fans in attendance, we lost. Glad we went, and we'll probably go again. But watching the Wisconsin football team lose on the road -- which I have not experienced since the 1998 Michigan game -- is excruciating.

The game this Saturday is really important -- for a 10-win season, January 1 bowl implications, an outside shot at a Big Ten title -- so I figured I'd play it safe and watch the game on TV. In addition, I will be wearing the same clothes I've worn every other Saturday this fall.

I think the final score of this game will be something like 24-23.

What do you think the chances of Iowa and Penn State losing and Wisconsin getting into the BCS are?

Slim and none. I'd peg the odds of either Iowa or Penn State losing at 3:1, both at 20:1. It's a long shot that Minnesota beats Iowa. I'd peg the odds of Wisconsin getting into the BCS at 100:1. Word is out that the Big Ten isn't all that hot this season, and the Ohio State-Iowa game reinforced that to the rest of the world. Plus, TCU and Boise State going to deservingly take two BCS spots away from BCS conference schools.

What is up with the bad couple weeks for Badgers in the NFL? I kind of follow them in the NFL but ... Owen Daniels gets injured for the season after Jaworski calls him the best TE in pro football, Chris Chambers gets cut because, apparently, they thought his personal life was getting in the way of his play and Jim Leonhard suffers a broken thumb. Are any Badgers actually having a good year in the NFL?

I was thinking the same thing Monday night while watching the Browns-Ravens game. The Browns are one of what seems like 10 god-awful teams in the NFL, and they are dragging the best former Badger in the pros, Joe Thomas, down with them. So I turned to this handy link I found on Twitter, which informed me that:

-Lee Evans caught two touchdown passes last week.
-Chambers averaged 20 yards per catch.
-Matt Shaughnessy had his second career sack. He's looking like a guy who turns out to be a better pro than collegian.
-Leonhard had a nice game, and might not necessarily be out.
-Some other guys did some other intangible things.

I think the ascension of Daniels, Leonhard and Thomas was something of an aberration, and what we saw last week is more in line with typical Badgers-in-the-NFL production.

UW-Oakland thoughts

2009-11-19T06:44:00.002-06:00

OK, I didn't watch this game. Didn't listen to it. Didn't attend it. Followed the in-game blog intermittently.

But this is a great photo, isn't it? I read that Keaton Nankivili threw down a monster dunk, and it sure looks like he did. Had a nice game -- 13 points, nine rebounds, four blocks. He was 5-for-8 from the field, but 1-for-4 on 3-pointers. Ordinarily that stat would bother me, but I like Keaton's shot from that range and hope he shoots it often.

Conversely, Jon Leuer had 12 points, but missed all three of his 3-pointers. I would rather he stay close to the basket, 15 feet and in, I like what he's doing from short range.

Pop had 15 points, but I wish he didn't have to play 35 minutes for us to beat Oakland.

Nice effort from Ryan Evans, seven rebounds in 22 minutes. It would be nice if he continued to deserve those kind of minutes.

And last but not least, Mike Bruesewitz will not be redshirting this year, played two minutes. This seems like a curious decision, with Evans looking solid and Tim Jarmusz also solid at the 3 spot. Hopefully it's not one of those Greg Stiemsma/Nankivil deals where he plays 25 minutes this year as a freshman and three years from now is looking like a really good player right when he exhausts his eligibility.

Kyle French

2009-11-18T06:05:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to watch UW recruit Kyle French, a kicker for Menomonee Falls. My brother-in-law Nick was a star for the Falls back in the day, and the game (against Appleton North in the Division 1 semifinals) was in Oshkosh, only an hour away.

As French lined up for his first attempt, about a 40-yarder, Nick told me that when Kyle has missed this year, he's missed left. And guess which way he missed the 40-yarder? He came back and made about a 22-yarder to clinch the game in the fourth quarter.

He has plenty of leg, though, each kick he attempted had the power and trajectory you'd hope for. And, kicking from his own 40 with the aid of a slight wind, he nearly put his last kickoff through the uprights.

As long as Philip Welch stays solid, French can redshirt, mature for another year, then kick three years for the Badgers.

Interestingly, Whitefish Bay's Will Hagerup, a top punting prospect, recently chose Michigan, presumably because he didn't want to have to sit behind Brad Nortman.

Big Ten thoughts

2009-11-17T06:35:00.002-06:00

Last week I was watching the Big Ten Network, and the studio analysts were debating a simple question: is it good for the Big Ten if Ohio State wins it every year?

One guy said yes, it's good to have a team in the national hunt every year. The other guy said no, it's better if other teams rise up and get their shots on a regular basis.

You would think that my take on this would be aligned with the latter view, and for the most part that's true. But on the other hand, Iowa, along with Minnesota, is the Big Ten program most like ours. Our states' demographics are similar, we recruit many of the same areas out of state, our staff has many Iowa connections. If they win the Big Ten, they strengthen their position relative to Wisconsin. If Ohio State wins, so what? It's like the Yankees winning the AL East. They should win the conference every year anyway, as the lone big-time school in a talent-rich state.

Saturday's Iowa-Ohio State game was much better than I thought it would be, a great credit to Iowa. A Facebook friend of mine posted a link to a good story, and I found a similar one:

Everybody a loser in Ohio State's disgusting 'victory'

Thorny victory for OSU

Ohio State is a most uninspiring conference champion and BCS qualifier, only headed to Pasadena because of a dearth of elite Big Ten teams. Their very good defense has no stars. Their most celebrated player, Terrelle Pryor, is more hype than production -- he threw for 93 yards. OSU's saving grace is they won't be embarrassed in the national title game, and since the Pac-10 also stinks this year they have a good shot to win the Rose Bowl.

Here's how I see the conference with one week to go.

1. Iowa. If Ricky Stanzi's healthy, they win in Columbus. But give that Vandenberg kid credit, he showed some guts and poise. Wish Kirk Ferentz would have had the guts to go for the win at the end of regulation.

2. Ohio State. Yawn.

3. Wisconsin. It's crazy, but if Michigan somehow beats Ohio State we would win a share of the conference title. I'd take that in a second. As long as we're picking nits on every other team, though, do we have a win over a quality team this year? Fresno State may be the best team we've beaten.

4. Penn State. It's hard to differentiate between us and PSU, but why are they ranked ahead of us? We lost to the same teams, but they lost both at home, while one of ours was on the road. We have similarly ho-hum non-conference resumes. I suppose their defense is better than ours.

5. Northwestern. They lost to Syracuse and Minnesota early, but have gotten consistently better since. My respect for Pat Fitzgerald and his staff remains the same as it was before the season.

6. Michigan State. Hope they beat Penn State, but if they don't this season has to be considered a disappointment. It may be already. Their biggest win this year is over a terrible Michigan team.

7. Minnesota. Huge win over South Dakota State. Wonder where that one will rank on Tim Brewster's resume when he needs to dust it off in another year or two. Apparently the win made the Gophers bowl eligible, so we should hope they beat Iowa on Saturday so we can possibly finish ahead of the Hawks. Fat chance of that happening, though, Minnesota looks awful now.

8. Purdue. Can't finish. Marginally better in first year under Danny Hope.

9. Illinois. Fire Zook?

10. Indiana. Can't finish. Marginally better than they were last year, Bill Lynch should be safe.

11. Michigan. I love it when Michigan-Ohio State is a no-lose situation for people who hate both teams. If Ohio State wins, Michigan fails to qualify for a bowl. If Michigan wins, we have a chance to tie for the Big Ten title. Fat chance of that happening, though. Michigan's defense is so bad even Pryor should be able to move the ball against them.

The Big Ten stinks this year. But by my count, so does the Pac-10, Big East, Big 12 and ACC.

UW-IPFW thoughts

2009-11-16T05:13:00.005-06:00

Toggled back and forth between the Badger and Packer games Saturday afternoon and evening, and frankly the Packer game was far more interesting. As much as the Badgers' win was convincing and expected, the thing that stuck out to me was the six straight UW possessions that ended in turnovers. I'm not overly concerned, but what an ugly stretch that was.

A potential implication was that Jordan Taylor was playing the point at the start of that stretch, and Bo appeared to be making a point when he put Wquinton Smith in with about 10 minutes to play, which is unprecedented. Jordan will pull it together.

Jon Leuer looked good. He made 8 of 10 shots, and none of his field goal attempts were 3-pointers. His postgame is decisive and confident, and he made a couple mid-range jumpers.

Glad to see Ryan Evans earning minutes and playing well, he seems to be able to defend swingmen and do some things on the boards. Rob Wilson didn't hesitate on offense.

And what about Timmy Jarmusz hitting three 3-pointers and leading the team in rebounding? He's a lot like Joe Krabbenhoft, only a little better shooter and not as good a rebounder and defender.

Jason Bohannon played 31 minutes and took only three shots -- but blocked three shots. Can't imagine that'll happen again.

The Big Ten Network announcers said our game against Oakland on Wednesday will be a challenge, so that should be interesting to watch. Iowa lost to something called UTSA on Sunday, so I guess anything's possible.

UW-Michigan box score thoughts

2009-11-15T20:12:00.012-06:00

Had a few minutes to look over the detailed box score of the win over Michigan, and here's what stood out:

-Scott Tolzien averaged 15 yards per completion, vs. 9.2 yards for Michigan's QBs. Our passing game isn't just dinking and dunking and tossing it to the backs in the flat, it's picking up big chunks of yardage at a time.

-Our time of possession edge was 35:49 to 24:11. In the fourth quarter it was 12:02 to 2:58. For the year our averaged is 33:15 to 26:45. I love that.

-Piggybacking on that, John Clay went over 1,000 yards Saturday, which makes five straight seasons we've had a 1,000-yard rusher. This following two non-1,000-yard years after a 10-year run. Don't know why, but that streak was always really important to me, it epitomized what Wisconsin football was all about under Barry Alvarez and how it should always be. A streak like that is dependent upon featured backs staying healthy -- if Anthony Davis had stayed healthy this streak would be at 17 straight years -- but it shows that we value the run and always have good lines who can lead the way for our backs.

-I know it was just one run, but let me say again that Zach Brown looked very good on his one carry, for 12 yards. Is Montee Ball really that much better than him right now? Between the tackles, maybe, but Brown can get around the corner. Was his concussion fairly serious, or has the staff just not gotten over his fumbling?

-Nick Toon is averaging 15.1 yards per catch right now, that's pretty darn good.

-Thought Isaac Anderson looked pretty good on kickoff returns, better than David Gilreath has looked this year, although he still did a little too much stutter stepping.

-Chris Borland led us with 11 tackles, had 1.5 tackles for loss and half a sack, forced a fumble and had a QB hurry. And his performance didn't stick out one bit. Has he already gotten so good and so consistent that we're taking him for granted?

-Blake Sorensen was second in tackles with seven. His play has been quietly solid this year, much better than I expected.

-O'Brien Schofield with seven tackles, two hurries, a TFL and half a sack. Great way to cap his home career. Same for Jae McFadden, with six tackles and 2.5 TFLs.

-And let's hear it once again for Jeff Stehle, who had two TFLs and a sack in his last home game. He, Dan Moore and Patrick Butrym have really been decent at a position I figured would be a major weakness for us this year.

This Badger team won't go down in history as one of the best ever, but every week it's fun to look at these box scores and see different guys stepping in and contributing.

UW-Michigan thoughts

2009-11-14T13:48:00.006-06:00

That was exactly the second half we were looking for! I could not be more pleased with the win -- defense played well enough, offense was in control when the game mattered, lots of guys got involved. Always good to beat Michigan, which will probably be back at some point in the near future. They've got some good playmakers, but a lot of holes on defense and in the running game.

Most points ever against Michigan? I'll take that.

-I was hard on Scott Tolzien for his first half performance. He was brilliant in the second half. Helped, of course, by the fact that he had all day to throw and his receivers were wide open. Nick Toon had another career day, Isaac Anderson was open time and again, and Garrett Graham delivered the performance we expect from him. Lance Kendricks made a really nice, athletic play on his touchdown reception. We'll give the passing game a B, but an A+ for the second half.

-John Clay won't go down as the top star of this game, but had another very good day. As I Tweeted late in the game, who is a better candidate for Big Ten offensive player of the year than him? Montee Ball got a lot of good reps, and Zach Brown had one very nice run. Reassuring to see the running back depth that our offensive needs. A- for the run game.

-So let's give props to the offensive line for the job they did protecting Tolzien in the second half and for run blocking, excellent job fellas. Jake Bscherer must have done a good job replacing Josh Oglesby. Gabe Carimi was called for two holds, one of which was a terrible call in which he had whipped his guy and the guy just twisted and fell.

-Hard to pick one guy on defense, but a lot of guys were solid. Niles Brinkley made a nice pick that should help his confidence. Devin Smith's coverage improved as the game went on. Jae McFadden had some nice player early in the second half. The Big Ten Network crew named O'Brien Schofield the defensive player of the game, he did most of his damage early.

-It's sort of incredible that we haven't allowed a Big Ten opponent to rush for 100 yards this year. Coming into the season that figured to be a weakness, with two new defensive tackles and two new linebackers. But that unit has obviously been excellent, and our success has stemmed from there.

One more Big Ten team to go, and Northwestern is always tricky. But we've guaranteed a winning conference record in a rebuilding year. The senior class that played its last home game today deserves a lot of credit for that.

Last year the Michigan game was the lowest of lows for the Badgers and their fans. This year the Michigan game is a reason for us to smile and enjoy life in red.

UW-Michigan halftime thoughts

2009-11-14T12:28:00.006-06:00

The only reason this game is close is because of our self-inflicted wounds: Scott Tolzien's interception and his fumble Michigan returned for a fumble. Then again, they ran into our punter and had a field goal blocked, so neither team has played a spotless half.

What bothers me is something Big Ten Network analyst Chris Martin said at one point: Michigan is playing with a greater sense of urgency than we are. He was right. Michigan is fired up, we are methodical. They need to win to become bowl eligible, and they aren't going to get that win against Ohio State. We need this win to keep hopes of a 10-win regular season alive, but we're not playing like it.

-Tolzien is carving up Michigan's pass defense when he has time to throw. Their pass coverage is truly putrid, Nick Toon and Garrett Graham have been wide open a lot. Michigan does have a decent pass rush, and Brandon Graham is as good as advertised. We need to double-team him, or chip him with a tight end or back at least, because Tolzien will make plays if Graham doesn't get to him.

-We also haven't done much in the run game yet, need to pound John Clay more. From my living room, Clay was absolutely not in the end zone on that touchdown, and I'm really surprised the refs didn't overturn that call. The end-around to Lance Kendricks worked nicely again.

-Conversely, Garrett Graham was called for holding on an end-around to David Gilreath. Without having stats in front of me, I'm pretty sure Graham has been called for holding more than any of our linemen this year.

-Toon is really coming on, isn't he? Can't wait to see what he and Tolzien can do together next year.

-Huge play by J.J. Watt on the blocked field goal. It's interesting that Michigan took a delay of game penalty to try and get its kicker a better angle for the kick, but we declined it. Not sure whether or not that played into the result of that kick, but it's worth taking a look at.

-Our run defense has been solid so far. Jeff Stehle probably just played his best half of football as a Badger, in his last home game. O'Brien Schofield has had a decent game thus far as well.

Problem is, when we don't pressure Tate Forcier quickly, he's carving us up. His receivers are wide open more often than not, and he's finding them. That kid's a good player, the word is he's been in decline lately but he hasn't shown it today.

My buddy Jim Polzin just noted on Twitter that Michigan has been outscored 75-12 in the second half of its last three games. That's encouraging, but Indiana had a recent history of second half collapses and outplayed us then in our game last week. Have to go out and make it happen, not just sit around waiting for them to implode.

What to make of Michigan?

2009-11-11T19:35:00.003-06:00

You may have seen me kidding in the past couple weeks about all of the "We're back!" proclamations coming from Michigan fans after they beat Notre Dame earlier this year, considering how much they've struggled recently. But all kidding aside, their early performance seemed to indicate that while they were probably not back to being conference title contenders, they were at least much improved over last year's horrible team.

(Quick aside: While Jana and I were in New York in August, we were in Times Square and I saw a young man wearing a "Michigan Football 2008" T-shirt. Thought it was pretty funny -- that's like wearing a "Wisconsin Football 1988" T-shirt, but probably even worse given the infrequency of poor seasons in Ann Arbor.)

But they've been losing an awful lot lately, and I'm not quite sure why. They're Michigan, and Rich Rodriguez's whining last year aside, the cupboard was not bare when Lloyd Carr left. There's talent there.

On offense, Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown are good running backs. Roy Roundtree and Martavious Odom are among a roster full of high school All-American wideouts. Tate Forcier looks like the exciting playmaker they lacked last year, and Denard Robinson is an electric athlete. On defense, Brandon Graham, Donovan Warren, Stevie Brown and others are above-average players.

So why are they struggling so much? Appparently they're losing the turnover battle decisively, and they give up big plays on defense. Sounds a lot like us last year.

We should win this game. Not easily, because as I said before there's a lot of talent on that roster, and most of their coaches have had some level of success at previous stops. If we establish the running game and pick our spots in the passing game, we should put up a lot of points. Red zone trips need to end in touchdowns, not field goals like they did in the first half of our game last year. If we keep their guys in front of us on defense, chances are they'll turn the ball over eventually.

And we'll leave it at that. As readers of this blog know, the Michigan game last year was completely devastating to me (and obviously the team as well), and I lashed out with some poor-loser commentary that earned rebukes from visiting Wolverine fans. I'm working on being a better sport, and it's coming along fairly well. That should hold true this weekend ... as long as we win.

Chris Borland's flying tackle

2009-11-10T19:19:00.003-06:00

Saw the clip of Chris Borland's flying tackle in high school during the UW-Indiana game and figured it would be on YouTube. It was, here it is. This kid is amazing.

He's short for his position. He's obviously an above-average athlete, but it's not like he's an athletic freak. But his football instincts, his ability to read plays and anticipate where they're headed, are just off the charts. Can't wait to see him do something like this during his time as a Badger.

Plus a high school highlight film to boot.

Big Ten thoughts

2009-11-09T20:03:00.002-06:00

Lots of action at the top of the conference this weekend, but not much cleared up. As a Facebook friend of mine noted, Ohio State's convincing win over Penn State was less an indication of the Buckeyes' strength than it was of the Big Ten's mediocrity.

1. Iowa. Won't be the 2002 Ohio State of the 2009 season after all. Still think they're better than OSU this year, I guess we'll find out next week. If Ricky Stanzi can't go I don't like their odds.

2. Ohio State. Lots of talk about Terrelle Pryor after the Penn State win, but he still only threw for 125 yards and completed less than 50% of his passes. Iowa's defense is going to eat him up. But OSU should still win.

3. Wisconsin. Didn't look great in Bloomington, but appear to be the best of the rest.

4. Penn State. Mainly because these guys aren't all that convincing. The next two weeks, when we play teams that PSU beat convincingly, will be a good indicator.

5. Northwestern. Not so long ago they seemed dead in the water, headed for a disappointing season, but now they're bowl eligible and pulled off the biggest stunner of the year in the conference.

6. Michigan State. They're back! Oh wait, only Michigan gets to say that after beating Western Michigan.

7. Purdue. Michigan isn't playing well right now, but winning there for the first time in 43 years is huge for the program. Makes their performance in Madison look like an aberration.

8. Minnesota. Lose to Illinois at home? Yeesh.

9. Illinois. Or maybe these guys are just finally playing to their potential.

10. Indiana.

11. Michigan. Both teams suffered close losses at home, but Indiana's was to the better team. Also, unlike Michigan, the Hoosiers own at least one win over a Division 1 team since October.

UW-Indiana box score

2009-11-08T09:47:00.008-06:00

Thoughts from the Wisconsin-Indiana box score:

-As much as Indiana shredded our pass defense, here's an interesting stat: we averaged 17.6 yards per completion to Indiana's 12.6. On 11 attempts, that's a pretty good day for Scott Tolzien.

-If we get through a game with a roughly 5:2 run-pass ratio, we're usually going to win.

-Time of possession advantage for Badgers: 33:45 to 26:15.

-Interesting punter comparison: Brad Nortman's gross average was 44.2 to Chris Hagerup's 37.8, but Hagerup's net average was 37.0 yards to Nortman's 32.5. Touchbacks will do that to a guy. Nortman's solid, I'm not complaining, but he can work on his coffin corner touch.

-Just one end around called today, a week after Lance Kendricks ran it so well and a year after David Gilreath ran it so well against Indiana. The fake end around was employed regularly.

-No surprise that Chris Borland led the team in tackles with nine, including one for loss and his incredible interception. But Devin Smith was second with eight, an indication of how often Indiana passed. Interestingly enough I don't remember a single play Smith was involved in.

-Will Patterson led Indiana with 10 tackles, but Montee Ball flat run over him on his second touchdown run. That's a true freshman running over a senior thought to be one of the best linebackers in the conference. The future is bright for that one.

-Indiana's defense is not good, and most of their key players are seniors. Besides Patterson, there's Greg Middleton and Jammie Kirlew, who were rendered non-factors by Gabe Carimi, Josh Oglesby and Jake Bscherer. It's hard to see the Hoosiers getting considerably better any time soon.

-Jay Valai had a tackle for loss and pass breakup, and was generally more noticeable today than in most other games this year. Which got me thinking: he's making less highlight reel plays, but he's also whiffing on tackles less often. Overall, his play has been solid, as has that of Chris Maragos, which has helped as our young cornerbacks have had their ups and downs finding their way on the edge.

UW-Indiana thoughts

2009-11-07T13:59:00.007-06:00

What else can you think about this but, "Whew"? Glad we won, but that was far from the dominant four-quarter effort we should have shown against an inferior opponent in front of a crowd smaller than one you'd see at a Texas high school game.

First, give Indiana credit. They did some nice things in the passing game. Their defense got better in the second half, although it got better when our all-conference running back went to the sideline.

But we made enough plays to win on the road. Can't be too upset about that.

-Offensive MVP? How about Nick Toon. He had five catches for 123 yards, and his last two were huge. The long one set up Montee Ball's second touchdown run. The last one came on third down on a poorly-thrown ball by Scott Tolzien. If Toon doesn't make that catch, Indiana gets the ball back with a ton of momentum. Great game by Nick.

-Defensive MVP? Chris Borland is obviously top of mind; his pick in the third quarter thwarted a nice Indiana drive. But that play was made posibble by O'Brien Schofield, who hit Ben Chappell as he was throwing. Borland's stat line may be more robust, but OB came up with big plays at crucial times. What a year.

-That said, on the whole our pass rush was lackluster on the day, which is probably why our pass defense was the worst it has been since the Fresno State game. Then again, Indiana put up 24 points at Iowa, far better than we fared against that defense, as well as 28 at Northwestern and 33 at Michigan. So the Hoosiers' offense isn't bad.

-Not listening to the radio broadcast, but haven't heard yet why John Clay didn't play in the second half. He was on the sideline walking around, looked to be mentally with it. Our running game was obviously less effective with him out, but Ball played well in his first extended action -- 115 yards, two touchdowns, good ball security. We need Clay to beat good teams, though.

-Clay's status is obviously of primary concern, but I'm also worried about Josh Oglesby. When he walked off the field after holding his knee, I was optimistic, but he didn't return. He's had a good year, and Jake Bscherer, while probably not a terrible liability, isn't the force in the ground game that Oglesby is.

-I'd give Tolzien a C for his play today. Against a pass defense that bad, 194 yards isn't that hot. If his receivers hang on to those two well-thrown balls that they dropped, his numbers are significantly better. And he didn't take any sacks. Bottom line: he didn't do anything to lose the game for the Badgers, which was just what we needed today.

So Iowa loses to Northwestern, Michigan loses again, at home to the team we beat 37-0 last week. We'll see what it all means for Wisconsin after the Penn State-Ohio State game tonight. A top-flight bowl game remains a possibility.

UW-Indiana halftime thoughts

2009-11-07T12:18:00.005-06:00

You know me: it's tough to be satisfied with the halftime score when we should be up something like 31-7 or even 31-0. Indiana is every bit as unimpressive as Purdue was last week, but the fact that this game isn't over yet is an indication of just how well we played last week and how flawed we've been today.

-Seems like it's time to get David Gilreath off returns for a game or two, it's clearly not working for him this year. That fumble couldn't be blamed on blocking.

-Scott Tolzien started shaky, the touchdown pass to Isaac Anderson notwithstanding, but got better. Of course, that's when Garrett Graham and Anderson got the dropsies, pissed away our great field position, and led to Indiana's second touchdown.

-We should be running the ball up the ball every play. John Moffitt had a terrific block on John Clay's first long run. On Clay's touchdown run, Kevin Zeitler had a nice initial combo block with Peter Konz, then moved on to the linebacker and Clay ran into the end zone untouched.

-Did you notice O'Brien Schofield and Chris Maragos make the play on kickoff coverage? I like the move to play our best guys on special teams.

-What an athletic play by Maragos on that pick. Bad decision and pass by Ben Chappell, but Maragos showed his old wide receiver skills to haul the pass in.

-This is the best Montee Ball has looked thus far, although it's probably just because the blocking is better.

-Indiana's pass defense really is horrible, our guys are wide open consistently. And yet their run defense appears to be worse.

-Interesting that we've only see the end around once so far, to Gilreath. After last year's success with this play against IU, and last week's success with Kendricks running it, you'd have expected to see it more. But that's probably what makes Paul Chryst such a good offensive coordinator.

-Around the conference, I see Iowa is losing at halftime, undoubtedly setting them up for yet another second half comeback that analysts can hyperventilate about.

-Finally, another shoutout to our rookie of the year, Chris Borland. He makes tackles for loss, stops runners short of the sticks, returns kickoffs into the other team's territory. What an awesome find by the coaching staff, can't wait to see him get better and better during his time in Madison.

Let's step on their necks early in the second half. They've had success attacking Niles Brinkley, it would be nice to not let that snowball.

What to make of Indiana?

2009-11-06T12:27:00.003-06:00

Is it just me, or do the Badgers make you feel a little bit like the old Lou Holtz every week? We're winning, but every week I look at our opponent and see mainly their positives and the ways they could beat us, not the opposite. And we're not overwhelming enough to erase all doubt in the outcome of a game before the opening kickoff.

Take Indiana. By all accounts, they're terrible, just as they were last year, and almost every year in the past two decades. But they scare me.

They were in position to beat Michigan at the end of their Big Ten opener. They were up big on Northwestern but collapsed. They led the best team in the conference on the road in the fourth quarter but collapsed.

So they're close week after week, but can't finish. This week they could play us tough from the start but finally finish. Or this could be the week that the emotional toll of close loss after close loss catches up with them and they get blown out.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, but in my mind, the best way to blow them out would be to run the ball as often as possible. I loved the first drive against Purdue last week, all runs. Even though Indiana's run defense is better than its pass defense (especially minus Ray Fisher, their best corner), the run defense isn't very good either. Their pass defense is last in the league, but they're third with 14 interceptions and Scotty Tolzien has thrown the ball to the wrong guys at times this year.

Ignoring my inner Lou, I think the Badgers win this one by two touchdowns.

Will's first Badger game

2009-11-06T06:28:00.000-06:00

Took Will to his first Badger game on Saturday, got a first-hand look at the Purdue game. It was a great day. Will was very patient and enjoyed all the different parts of a football Saturday in Madison: the band, Bucky's various Halloween costumes, Jump Around, and a blowout win for the good guys. And I didn't even have to keep a constant stream of food shoveling into his mouth. Can't wait to take him again!

Kids Day at the Kohl Center

2009-11-05T20:27:00.002-06:00

Friday was Kids Day at the Kohl Center, a nice event the University of Wisconsin athletic department staged because most of the state's schools were out for the day. There were a number of stations where kids could try their hand at different sports, and of course get free stuff.

The highlight came when we snuck inside to watch hockey practice, and a Badger skated over, picked up a couple pucks with his stick, and flipped them over the glass to the boys. They loved it!

Oh, and Jana told the boys the story of the 2002 Wisconsin-Northern Michigan game, in which five brave Yoopers traveled to the Kohl Center, cheered their pure little hearts out, but were mercilessly heckled by Badger fans as UW came back to win with two late goals. You can see she's still got a ways to go before she gets over it.

Player development

2009-11-04T20:27:00.007-06:00

In the wake of the disappointing 2008 football season, I wrote that perhaps the most alarming trend in the UW program under Bret Bielema's stewardship was the lack of player development. After all, it is likely that our recruiting efforts will always yield more two- and three-star players than four- and five-star, so if we're going to compete in the Big Ten we need to coach our kids up.

With four regular season games and a bowl left this season, it is not premature to say that a number of Badgers have shown significant improvement this season. Two stick out in my mind, one on offense, one on defense.

O'Brien Schofield: Something of an afterthought in a linebacker class that included Travis Beckum, Elijah Hodge and DeAndre Levy, he became a serviceable defensive end, then the best defensive end in the Big Ten. Also the team's vocal and emotional leader. Other guys like Mike Taylor, J.J. Watt, Chris Maragos and Chris Borland have made big plays this season, but Schofield has lived in opponents' backfields from the first defensive possession of the season, and gave hope that a unit that figured to be a weakness might be an asset.

Scott Tolzien: He's regressed a little against better defenses, but his play this year has been a definite upgrade over what we had last year. With lesser quarterback play, we're probably 4-4 at best this season, maybe worse. What's interesting is that Tolzien wasn't ready to play extensively last year, when Dustin Sherer and Allan Evridge disappointed. What happened for Tolzien this offseason? Better coaching? Or did the proverbial light bulb just go on?

What other Badgers have been two-star recruits, per Scout?

Going back to that class of 2005, Jonathan Casillas and P.J. Hill were both two-star recruits who are now on NFL rosters. Jae McFadden and Jeff Stehle were two-star recruits who are starting on a pretty good front seven. Garrett Graham was another two-star guy from that class, but it's hard to say he has developed in his time here since he was pretty good from the minute he started playing. The recruiting experts just missed on that one.

In the class of 2006, Gabe Carimi was a two-star recruit, and he's a future NFL left tackle. Mickey Turner, Isaac Anderson, John Moffitt, Jay Valai, Maurice Moore, Culmer St. Jean -- all two-star guys who have become big contributors to a team that has a chance to win 10 games.

A number of two-star guys who are contributing in their first and second years: Brad Nortman, Antonio Fenelus, Travis Frederick and Borland. That doesn't count Maragos, a walk-on.

Going through the lists, there aren't many guys who stick out like Schofield and Tolzien, who toiled in obscurity for several years before emerging as team leaders. The rest of these guys have just improved enough to play important roles on an above-average team. And that, not statistics or individual honors, is really the only way we will be able to gauge player development under Bielema: wins and losses.

Badgers in the NFL, good and bad

2009-11-03T20:18:00.003-06:00

Some ups and downs for former Badger in the NFL.

Down, Owen Daniels hurt his knee and is out for the season. This one is really too bad, Daniels has established himself as one of the best tight ends around and Houston was coming on. Hopefully he can recover fully.

Up, Matt Shaughnessy had a great game against San Diego, with five tackles, including a sack and two tackles for loss.

Down, Chris Chambers, who in the same game had a big catch for San Diego, was released by the Chargers the next day. He was picked up by the Chiefs, though. He figures to have another productive year or two left as a professional.

Big Ten thoughts

2009-11-01T19:06:00.002-06:00

One thing I forgot to mention in the Purdue game wrap-up: we're bowl eligible. Last year that came as a huge sigh of relief, which may have been the best indication of how disappointing the season was. This year it's just another thing to check off on the list of goals.

Which bowl are we headed to? I think we're clearly the fourth-best team in the Big Ten, and since Iowa doesn't look like it's headed to the national title game and neither Ohio State nor Penn State deserve a BCS bowl bid, my best guess is we're headed to the Alamo Bowl. Which would be fine. Hopefully we could play a name program like Oklahoma or Nebraska.

Big Ten thoughts heading into November:

1. Iowa. They seem a lot like 2002 Ohio State, don't they? Remember, they almost lost to Northern Iowa and Arkansas State at home. But who's going to beat them?

2. Penn State. If they played Iowa again, who would win? Probably still Iowa.

3. Ohio State. Reflection of where the conference is and where OSU you is: they're clearly in a down/rebuilding year yet no worse than third in the league.

4. Wisconsin. No complaints.

5. Michigan State. Despite losing to Minnesota last night, I still think they're the better team. On the play before Duane Bennett's immaculate reception the refs blew a replay overturn that negated an MSU fumble recovery. Still, when the other team has 143 penalties like Minnesota did, you've got to win.

6. Minnesota. Did you see those thousands of empty seats at the Gophers' new stadium last night? Maybe it was too cold; they should build a dome. Can you imagine what that place will look like when the opening season novelty wears off? What, it already has?

7. Indiana. They seem to be close to finishing a big win. Hope it doesn't happen next week.

8. Purdue. As bad as they looked yesterday, they've at least beaten some teams. They almost beat Oregon at Oregon, and Oregon blew out USC, so by that logic we'd beat USC by about 30.

9. Northwestern. I guess.

10. Michigan. That huge win over Western Michigan seems like forever ago, doesn't it? They seem to be getting comfortable down here. If they beat Purdue next week to become bowl eligible that would theoretically make them less desperate in their game against us the following week.

11. Illinois. They still stink.

UW-Purdue thoughts

2009-10-31T18:26:00.011-05:00

Twenty-one years ago, my dad took me to my first Badger game at Camp Randall Stadium. Wisconsin lost to Michigan 62-14. We walked up to the ticket office five minutes before kickoff and got tickets on the 45-yard-line. The stadium was about half full.

Today, I took my son to his first Badger game at Camp Randall. Wisconsin beat Purdue 37-0. We were lucky to get tickets because Purdue returned some of its allotment. The stadium was full, save for a few students who couldn't drag themselves to the game.

What a pleasant difference two decades makes. Today was the best kind of game: a laugher, decided in the Badgers' favor early, yet still some drama late as the defense tried to preserve a shutout. I was nervous coming in, given how well Purdue had played lately and how we had played in our last two games.

We played a pretty good game today, but PU just stunk. Joey Elliott wasn't accurate, and when he was his receivers dropped the ball. They couldn't stop the run. They couldn't hang onto the ball. And we did what we needed to do, with pleasing results.

-Let's start with the special teams. David Gilbert's play was amazing, and another piece of evidence in the case against that ridiculous method of punt protection. I have been surprised not to see Gilbert in more for more snaps at defensive end, but he, like Chris Borland, has proven to be a real playmaker on special teams. And good for Aaron Henry getting a score, hopefully that will help his confidence.

-Speaking of confidence, let's not overlook Philip Welch making all three of his field goal attempts. This week the talk was of his inconsistency, his groin injury, of Alec Lerner maybe getting some attempts. But he looked sharp on his field goals, and booted a couple touchbacks. I thought Brad Nortman looked good, too. Only blot on the special teams was David Gilreath fielding a punt at his own 5, then almost running himself into a safety. He did have a couple nice returns.

-Purdue helped our defense pitch the shutout, but the boys played pretty darn well, too. J.J. Watt sticks out in my mind, with some nice penetration and knocking down the pass at the end to preserve the goose egg. His new haircut is brutal, though. Dan Moore and Jeff Stehle got in on tackles for loss, as did Jae McFadden, who led us with nine tackles and was around the ball a lot. Brendan Kelly made a good play at the line of scrimmage and knocked down a pass.

-And what about my favorite rookie, Chris Borland? One TFL and two fumble recoveries, including one in which he forced the fumble. Assuming Mike Taylor comes back healthy next year, that's an awesome plamaking duo at linebacker for the next three years.

-It was Devin Smith and Niles Brinkley at corner the whole game, as suspected, and they played well enough. Nice pick by Devin, showed some good footwork to stay inbounds.

-Purdue was 2 of 16 on third down, awesome.

-Offensively, didn't you want to see Lance Kendricks get to 100 yards rushing? Has a tight end run for 100 yards ... ever? In the past 50 years? Great play to start the game, and they never figured out how to stop it. What a weapon.

-Also loved the first drive: 80 yards, all rushing. John Clay did nothing spectacular today, but racked up 123 yards rushing like he should have. Montee Ball's first run was nice, but after that there didn't seem to be anything there and he was repeatedly stuffed. Was it the blocking or was he misreading things?

-First catches for Kraig Appleton, glad to see his burnt redshirt won't go for naught. The best play he made was actually on a catch rule incomplete because his foot was just out of bounds. He sure looks the part physically, every bit as built as Nick Toon.

-Sort of a nothing game for Scott Tolzien, who made some decent passes and some not-so-great passes; at least none of them were picked. He had Toon open for a touchdown but overthrew it a bit, Toon made a great play to make the catch. He may have held on to the ball a bit long on a couple occassions, resulting in sacks, but that's debatable.

-Time of possession edge for Bucky: 36:45 to 23:15.

-Well-officiated game, only six penalties, gave things a nice flow.

-Listening to the postgame radio show, heard this gem from Van Stoutt interviewing Watt:
Stoutt: J.J., Indiana beat Iowa today. How does it feel to control your own destiny?
Watt: Um, I think Iowa came back and won that game. I think it was 42-24.

Nice one, Van. Even if Iowa had lost, how would that mean the Badgers controlled their own destiny?

Who's next, Indiana? They're spunkier than expected. But I like where we're at.

Purdue

2009-10-30T08:08:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting fact: According to Athlon's season preview magazine, Purdue signed 21 players in its 2009 recruiting class. Fourteen of them are from Florida. Zero of them are from Indiana.

Interesting, no? True, new coach Danny Hope is from Florida and has strong ties there, and there are a lot of athletes down there. It makes sense to mine that place for talent, as we're doing. But geez, Indiana has some players too, and it doesn't make sense to concede all of them to IU, Notre Dame, Michigan, etc. Given the statue of IU, maybe it makes sense for us to get in on that.

Two weeks ago, this game seemed like a cakewalk to me. Then Purdue beat Ohio State, we collapsed against Iowa, and this looks a lot tougher.

Still, it's a game we should win. Frankly, we should be favored to win all five of our remaining regular season games. But, just as frankly, we could lose any of them. It's just that type of team.

We've got to to come out and run John Clay. Repeatedly. PU has the ninth-best rush defense in the Big Ten. Pound the rock.

Of course, Paul Chryst possessing a superior offensive football mind to mine, it wouldn't shock me to see us come out with Scott Tolzien winging the ball around. Especially since starting seems to give Clay the heebie-jeebies.

We'll be in Madison today, hoping to catch Kids Day the the Kohl. Tomorrow I'll be taking Will to his first Badger game. We've been practicing by attending high school games just down the street from our house. Wish me luck!

P.J. and Pressley in the pros

2009-10-29T20:19:00.003-05:00

What a great day for former Wisconsin running backs yesterday, as P.J. Hill and Chris Pressley were both signed by NFL teams. The only downside to Hill signing with the Eagles is that it comes because Brian Westbrook, one of the key players on my fantasy team, might be out with a concussion. It's doubtful P.J. will see much playing time, but whatever, he'll be able to hang out with Jack Ikegwuonu.

As Dave Heller says, with B.J. Askew out for the season Pressley has a better chance of playing. After all, teams don't sign fullbacks to sit, that's usually not a position where teams stockpile guys ... unless it's the Packers.

Hoops scrimmage thoughts

2009-10-26T21:24:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine at work attended Sunday's basketball scrimmage and passed along these thoughts:

We went to the Red-White scrimmage last night. Great fun. Some thoughts:

-Jared Berggren could be Brian Butch's little brother. Physically they look a lot alike and have similar games, although Berggren doesn't have the outside shot -- yet. I like him. Not sure how much he'll be able to contribute in the Big 10 but he'll play.

-Ryan Evans has some hops and made a few nice plays. And he has this '80s fade haircut going for him.

-Keaton Nankivil looks a lot quicker than last year.

-Trevon Hughes is a man. Offensive players better be very careful with the ball around him or they will quickly become defensive players.

-Not sure why Ian Markolf didn't redshirt last season: he looks like a stiff -- not as bad as Gavinski but does not look comfortable with the ball at all.

-Get Mike Bruesewitz in the weight room another year and he will be the second coming of Joe Krabbenhoft. Not sure where the interior points are going to come from.

-Jon Leuer still looks more comfortable working outside in than inside.

-The new uniforms feature REALLY long shorts.

Thanks Paul! Here's another good review from Hoops Marinara.

Fallout of Mike Taylor injury

2009-10-23T14:55:00.004-05:00

Earlier this week we heard that Mike Taylor's knee injury will sideline him for the rest of the season. First thought: dammit! Not another rotten thing to happen to the Badgers this week!

Second thought: Silver lining is that Chris Borland will be on the field even more.

Third thought: Why wasn't Borland getting snaps instead of Culmer St. Jean or Jae McFadden?

Fourth thought: St. Jean and McFadden, while not playing a starring role, haven't been bad this season. Linebacker, which I thought was perhaps our weakest entering the season, has actually been a plus position.

Fifth thought: Blake Sorensen's been better this year than I'd reckoned, too.

Final thought: But Taylor was our best linebacker this season. He was always around the ball, always making plays in the opponent's backfield. As Bielema said, Taylor has three years ahead of him, and assuming he recovers well he'll keep getting better. Linebacker looks good for the next few years.

Landry's a Knick!

2009-10-22T20:36:00.002-05:00

Well, surprise, surprise, some good Badger-related news this week. Marcus Landry made the Knicks!

What a great story: Marcus pays his own way to try out for the team, sticks it out, and eventually sticks for the opening-day roster. Everyone knows his story, couldn't happen to a better guy.

In all honesty, I'm surprised. Landry was a nice college player, never quite reached stardom. His game doesn't seem suited for the NBA. At 6-7, you'd think he'd have to play small forward, and his quickness and ball handling skills do not appear to be NBA-caliber.

He does have a nice postup game. Much like another undersized four-man, for the Rockets: Carl Landry. My suspicion is that if Marcus's name was Smith, he may not have even gotten this shot in the first place.

But whatever, this is great news! In that vein, Hoops Marinara has a really nice rundown of other former Badgers playing professionally.

UW-Iowa box score thoughts

2009-10-19T21:36:00.005-05:00

Unsurprisingly, not much to like in reviewing the box score from the Iowa game. Here are a few things:

-We held them to 1.7 yards per rush.

-We only had two penalties.

And ... that's it. Scoreboard.

-We averaged 44.6 yards per punt, but only 38.6 yards net. I've been pretty happy with Brad Nortman this year, but his work pinning punts inside the 10 could improve.

-Chris Borland led the Badgers with 10 tackles. Won't be the last time. Added a sack, 2.5 tackles for loss and a forced fumble. I can't remember the last time a true freshman made such an impact on such a consistent basis on defense.

-J.J. Watt had eight tackles, and a whopping four for loss.

-That was a nicely timed blitz by Devin Smith that resulted in his sack. Would like to see more corner blitzes.

-Two tackles for loss, a fumble recovery, and a quarterback hurry for O'Brien Schofield. Louis Nzegwu had a hurry too.

Halfway point

2009-10-19T19:06:00.002-05:00

We're four weeks into the Big Ten season, and if anything is certain, it's this: the conference is every bit as mediocre as critics have alleged. If Iowa is the league's best team -- and they most certainly are -- and no one's even close -- and no one is -- that's troubling.

Which makes our losses the last two weeks even more troubling. True, the Badgers have performed about as well as expected. But with Michigan still seemingly not back all the way, Ohio State capable of losing at Purdue, and Penn State beatable, this was a year where the door was open for the second tier to do something special. Unfortunately, it's Kirk Ferentz's team that has barged through.

1. Iowa. They still have to play at Michigan State and Ohio State, but would you pick against them in either of those?

2. Penn State. In line to get blown out by an SEC team in the Capital One Bowl.

3. Ohio State. At least they're not in line to get blown out in a BCS bowl any more, god forbid the national title game. What a terrible offense.

4. Wisconsin. Michigan State has the better record, but their opponents haven't been that tough and we beat them. This is as much a reflection on the conference's weakness as the Badgers' performance thus far.

5. Michigan State. Has rebounded nicely from a rough start, as predicted.

6. Michigan. Beat someone before you bust out the "We're Back!!!" banners.

7. Minnesota. En route to a Glen Mason-esque finish.

8. Purdue. I suppose, they beat Ohio State.

9. Northwestern. Thought they'd be better.

10. Indiana. The game story for the Hoosiers' win over Illinois mentioned their bowl hopes. Uh huh.

11. Illinois. Wow, who saw this coming? That Ron Zook is a heckuva coach.

Great weekend

2009-10-18T19:01:00.004-05:00

So Vander Blue has committed to Marquette. That's just the kick in the groin we needed after the football loss to Iowa.

Don't even know what to say ... other than to say this seems like a very immature choice to close an awkward process. Marquette gets the nod because they run a four-guard offense (Buzz Williams' glorified YMCA "scheme")? Because he's been friends with Jeronne Maymon since he was a kid (first time I've truly been disappointed in Maymon's college choice)? Whatever. If that's what floats your boat, so be it.

What UW has to offer isn't exactly a perfect package. But, bias acknowledged, I think Wisconsin is a better choice than Marquette. For anyone, let alone Vander Blue.

But hey, committing to UW that early was an immature move as well. Maybe if he hadn't chosen us first this wouldn't hurt so bad.

Making immature decisions is what teenage boys do. Lord knows I made plenty of immature decisions when I was Vander's age, they just weren't this public.

Fully expecting much gloating from Marquette fans, as is their right. I'll do my best to ignore it, or delete it if it happens to show up here.

Even if, as I'm hoping, Vander goes on to have an undistinguished college career that doesn't leave us longing, that would be disappointing because we'd wonder what he could have done playing for a real coach. Chances are he'll have a good college career, based on what he's shown in high school. He's the real deal.

The only way this works out well for us is if he transfers home in a year or two, which given the way things go at Marquette isn't impossible, and Vander took the high road and was classy in his comments about Bo and Howard Moore. But given the hard feelings that have come from this process, isn't likely.

I can't take the high road on this. For the second straight day, I'm livid. This sucks.

Wisconsin-Iowa thoughts

2009-10-17T13:44:00.005-05:00

Today's proceedings at Camp Randall have left me feeling livid. Livid!

This is the first time this year that I have been truly disappointed in this team, and in this program. Because make no mistake about it: the results of today's game prove that Iowa has a program far superior to ours.

Not superior players, mind you. Their offensive skill position players are pedestrian at best, ours are more talented. Their quarterback still doesn't impress me -- he just threw the ball to wide-open players. They have a good defense, but as we showed in the first half, it's not impossible to move the ball on them.

And yet ... they dominated the second half today and go home winners. Their players' execution was nearly flawless. More importantly, the scheme adjustments they made at halftime were far better than anything we did.

Think about it: in the first half, we were running the ball for 5-7 yards a pop. There were big holes. On passing plays, we had guys open, and Scott Tolzien found them.

In the second half, with basically the same guys on the field (forget Garrett Graham's injury -- while he's obviously an important part of our offense, the results would have been the same with him) we created no holes, our receivers were double covered, and Tolzien threw it to the guys in white jerseys.

Defensively we were no less disappointing. For all the raves about Moeaki, definitely a good player, if Antonio Fenelus can't run with a tight end, we've got problems. Their running back will probably win praise, but he got his yards when our defense lost its focus and composure.

And when the defense did make a big play to give the offense a chance to score without actually moving the ball, Philip Welch shanks the kick right. We've gone from field goal kicking seeming like a definite strength at the season's beginning to being an uncertainty at best, a liability at worst.

Near the end of the game, when they were having their way with us, this thought occurred to me: It's like we weren't even on the field in the second half. Iowa did whatever they wanted.

Every time the cameras cut to Kirk Ferentz on the sideline, so calm and in control, I thought, "Man, I wish that guy was our coach, and his staff our staff." It's not the first time I've thought that way. But this year, when the Big Ten is truly up for grabs, if we had superior leadership like Iowa we could be pricing plane tickets for Pasadena now. Instead we're looking at what, San Antonio? No shame in that, but in years where the traditional Big Ten powers show vulnerability, we've got to be ready to take advantage. This year, we're not quite there.

Remember what I wrote at halftime?

"While I'm happy with the proceedings thus far, I also remember Barry Alvarez's last game in 2005, when we were up by a similar score at halftime and got dominated by Iowa in the second half. They make good halftime adjustments. Let's hope our coaches can do the same."

Unfortunately, today was a carbon copy of 2005. That loss left me feeling similarly upset and disappointed. But that year, we rebounded to beat Hawaii and then Auburn in a bowl, definitely a great ending to what ended up being a very nice season. Purdue is looking better than I figured, we'll have to bring it in two weeks. Let's hope our players and coaches take the week off to figure out how to be more like Iowa.

UW-Iowa halftime thoughts

2009-10-17T12:15:00.006-05:00

Not too much to complain about in the first half, we played well. Offense moved the ball fairly regularly, but Iowa's excellent defenders made some plays you'd expect them to make. Our defense was tight, with the exception of the one long pass play. I'd much rather be up two scores.

-Horrible kickoff coverage again to start the game. Iowa's Wegher looked like he was running in sand, but he still got it out past the 40. A Twitter post noted that we seemed to have more defensive regulars on the unit on subsequent kickoffs -- good move.

-J.J. Watt has been excellent coming off both edges, and O'Brien Schofield has continued adding to his honors resume. We need them to keep making those plays in the second half of the game, and the season.

-Mike Taylor gets hurt, and who's around the ball making plays? Chris Borland, of course. He's awesome. Hope Taylor's injury isn't too bad.

-John Clay was really running well before he got hurt, showing nice patience and vision. The offensive line has looked really good on running plays, the last one being Montee Ball's touchdown run -- great execution. Ball is looking like a guy we can trust.

-On his first punt return, David Gilreath doesn't call fair catch and gets drilled by a gunner with a running start. On Iowa's next punt, he doesn't catch it and the Hawkeeys get 15-20 yards in favorable bounces. Not only is our punt return game not a positive right now, it's a liability.

-I had just finished praising Jay Valai to my dad -- how he's had less highlight hits this year but also less major miscues -- when he seemed to be out of position on Iowa's long pass play. Can't say for sure without seeing the film or knowing the coverage call, though, so it may not have been his fault.

-Why put Curt Phillips in? Scott Tolzien was coming off his best drive throwing the ball, and we follow that up with a three-and-out. True, Curt looked good on his keeper run and was a shoestring tackle away from breaking it. And since Phillips hadn't played in a couple weeks it's not likely Iowa spent any time preparing for him. But it was a curious decision at the time.

While I'm happy with the proceedings thus far, I also remember Barry Alvarez's last game in 2005, when we were up by a similar score at halftime and got dominated by Iowa in the second half. They make good halftime adjustments. Let's hope our coaches can do the same.

Barometer

2009-10-16T12:59:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is a barometer game. Iowa is the most comparable Big Ten program to UW. Our states are similar demographically. We recruit the same areas outside of the Midwest. Not sure if you've heard or not, but our head coach has a Hawkeye tattoo on his leg.

However, we rarely seem to be at or near the top of the conference in the same year. Just 2004, the year when we lost at Michigan State, then went into Iowa City still with a chance to go the Rose Bowl but were humiliated, comes to mind.

This is shaping up to be one of those years. Right now, based on its wins over Penn State and Michigan, Iowa seems like the better team. Then again, they barely beat Northern Iowa and Arkansas State. I would expect the first team to show up at Camp Randall.

Iowa's defense is nasty. Their defensive line is good, but not as good as Ohio State's. Conversely, I think their back seven is better than Ohio State's. I can't see us scoring more than 20 points.

On the other hand, their offense doesn't scare me a bit. Lots of people give Ricky Stanzi props, but to me he's an average quarterback at best. Their running backs aren't nearly as good as ours, or their receivers. Nice line, though. Still, I can't see them scoring more than 20 points.

So where does that leave us? Special teams. Which doesn't leave me feeling very confident.

Win this one, and we've got a legit shot at the Rose Bowl. Lose, and it's Alamo Bowl at best.

Time to show you're in control, Bret.

Makes you proud

2009-10-15T20:44:00.002-05:00

It's natural, from time to time, to grow cynical watching big-time college sports. No need to go into details, but UW is not immune.

That's why stories like this one are so refreshing.

Wisconsin QB Tolzien inspired by 6-year-old cancer patient

Makes you proud.

Attention Gopher fans: new Big Ten bowls

2009-10-14T20:35:00.003-05:00

The Big Ten has announced a new bowl lineup starting next season, with most of the shake-up coming at the bottom. The first new bowl is the Texas Bowl in Houston, with a Big 12 opponent. I wonder what airline tickets from Minneapolis to Houston go for?

Or Minneapolis to Dallas, for something called the Dallas Football Classic versus a Conference USA team. Ugh.

The best new bowl game is the Gator Bowl, which is one of my favorites. There's a lot of history in that Jacksonville bowl, and we'll get an SEC team. We also still have the Insight Bowl, Outback, Capital One, and Rose Bowls.

Say goodbye to the Champs Sports Bowl, which was forgettable, and the Alamo Bowl, which I liked.

Badgercentric

I'm sorry

Dancing

ugh

UW-Illinois thoughts

UW-Iowa thoughts

UW-Indiana thoughts

J.P. Tokoto, in person

UW-Northwestern thoughts

U-S-A! U-S-A!

UW-Minnesota thoughts

Hey pizza boy

UW-Indiana thoughts

UW-Indiana -- didn't watch it

UW-Illinois thoughts

UW-Michigan thoughts

UW-Michigan State thoughts

Jet lag

UW-Penn State thoughts

UW-Michigan thoughts

Stretching is Essential

UW-Northwestern thoughts

Ouch

UW-Purdue thoughts

UW-Michigan State thoughts

Less Cooks in the kitchen

Goodbye, Erik Smith

Nice pick-ups

UW-Penn State thoughts

More post-Champs thoughts

UW-Ohio State thoughts

UW-Miami box score

UW-Miami thoughts

UW-Miami halftime thoughts

Already?

UW-Chicago thoughts

Nobody loves Tolzien

Merry Christmas!

Royce White quits Gophers on YouTube

UW-Milwaukee thoughts

Bigger Ten

The majors

Mizzou-rah

Alando Tucker: Minister of Hygiene

UW-Cal Poly thoughts

Best of the decade: How I voted

Bucky's best of the decade

Big problem?

UW-Marquette thoughts

Sports Illustrated jinx for Clay?

UW-Hawaii thoughts

UW-Green Bay thoughts

Champs

Duke: The afterglow

UW-Duke thoughts

Academic All-Big Ten Badgers

John Clay to the NFL?

John Clay to the NFL?

UW-Maryland thoughts

UW-Gonzaga thoughts

UW-Arizona in Hawaii?

Final Big Ten thoughts

Actual all-conference Badgers

All-conference Badgers

UW-Northwestern box score

UW-Northwestern thoughts

UW-Northwestern halftime thoughts

Three questions from Edward

UW-Oakland thoughts

Kyle French

Big Ten thoughts

UW-IPFW thoughts

UW-Michigan box score thoughts

UW-Michigan thoughts

UW-Michigan halftime thoughts

What to make of Michigan?

Chris Borland's flying tackle

Big Ten thoughts

UW-Indiana box score

UW-Indiana thoughts