Ouch

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-Northwestern thoughts

Given it a lot of thought, and this is the lineup I like best on the floor for Wisconsin:

Wquinton Smith
Brett Valentyn
Morris Cain
J.P. Gavinski
Ian Markolf

Nice to have a blowout for a change, give the bench guys some well-deserved minutes. Northwestern looked pretty terrible tonight, particularly shooting and rebounding, but like Mike Lucas was saying in the waning minutes of the radio broadcast, you can bet it will be a dogfight when we see them again in Evanston on January 31. I'll be at that one, so I'm hoping for a repeat of tonight's game!

-J-Bo's 20 points were a career high. That's a little surprising, I would have thought he'd hit 20 against some patsy over the past year and a half. He played really well. As Tim McCormick pointed out, he hit a couple 2-pointers early, which seemed to give him confidence in his longer jumper.

-Landry, who was incredible against Penn State, had 12, but 10 of those must have come while the Big Ten Network was showing Tom Crean's team melt down against Michigan. He was quiet while I was watching, which isn't necessarily bad.

-Jon Leuer played with much confidence again, 15 points and eight boards. He's getting himself into good positions to score, where his height allows him good looks even if his defender is close. He really is a guard in a 6-10 body.

-Northwestern is really a bad rebounding team, we got 12 offensive on them. Problem is, we missed most of the second-change opportunities. We also missed eight free throws and had some turnovers off lazy passes, so that was about as flawed a 29-point win as possible.

-Mainly because Northwestern shot so horribly. In the first half I thought they were getting better looks than we were, they just weren't making them. NU's defense seems like it can be a nuisance, very pesky, but we handled it with patience until things just kind of unraveled for them.

-Tough to complain about a defensive effort when the other team shoots 31%, but I noticed that we did not switch well off their dribble handoffs, typically allowing the receiver to get a good perimeter look. Conversely, when our smalls got switched on their bigs, they did a good job of using their lower body and not letting the bigger guys establish position.

-When did Michael Thompson become "Juice" Thompson? You can't just let guys go around getting new nicknames when they're 19 or 20 years old. Just take it from T-Money. I'd like to see how Thompson did in a real offensive system that showcased his penetrating skills, and didn't call on him to do ridiculous, unnecessary spin dribbles in the middle of the court.

-Why is Keaton Nankivil getting the Dave Mader treatment? He starts, then goes to the bench and doesn't play much more the rest of the game. Tonight he got 11 minutes, even though he played good D and looked confident shooting a jumper. It probably just boils down to matchups, and the strength of our rotation, but I think if this kid gets more minutes he can be a beast, not just the fifth guy we run out there to bang with big guys.

Purdue on Sunday big game, and like everyone is saying, you can bet that Chris Kramer and Robbie Hummel will be ready for that one. Should be a great matchup.

UW-Michigan thoughts

What a nice win to go into the new year, very pleased with today's effort and result. After the lumps we took in the last week in both basketball and football, this one feels extra nice.

A bit surprised at how easy this one was, given how well Michigan had been playing coming in. Early on I thought the Wolverines' defense was just atrocious, we were getting good looks really easily, more easily than we have against other teams so far.

Having watched Michigan beat North Carolina Central Monday night, it occurred to me, as it did to the announcers, that they might have been a bit tired. But you know what? They're 20-year-olds who aren't going to class right now, they ought to be able to come out with fresh legs no matter what.

It's funny how one win completely changes your outlook on things. At the risk of overlooking or underselling Penn State and Northwestern, we should be 3-0 heading into the Purdue game.

-They said we're 29-1 when Landry reaches double figures scoring, presumably 30-1 now. That's a pretty incredible statistic if you think about it, given the balance nature of team's scoring. We'll probably lose a few games this year in which Marcus hits that plateau, but even so, it underscores just how important his post scoring is to everything else we do on offense. His offensive game was efficient today.

That said, he needs to to a better job of staying out of foul trouble. Right now he's in that Stiemsma-Mader zone of picking up fouls at an alarming rate. Marcus only played 23 minutes today, and while I thought two of his fouls were questionable, he's giving the refs the option of calling them. He's got to play smarter than that.

-Pop sure got hot there for a little while, didn't he? Reminded me of some of the one-man runs Kam Taylor used to go on. Hughes' shooting like that means it will take a really large deficit for us to be out of a game.

-Those two players' scoring performances aside, my players of the game were Krabby and to an extent Jarmusz for the job they did on Manny Harris, who had a terrible day. Harris's offense today consisted of driving wildly to the hoop and hoping the refs bailed him out, which to their credit they didn't. When Harris isn't scoring, everything else comes a lot harder for Michigan. Great job by Joe and Tim to not let him get going.

Krabby also had nine points and eight boards, and Jarmusz had three assists and five boards. Not tough to see the heir apparent to Krabby's "glue guy" role next year, is it?

-Jon Leuer is a deceptively good penetrator, isn't he? He doesn't look like he's moving that fast but with those long legs he covers a lot of ground in a hurry. At the risk of beating a dead horse, it's great that four of his six shots today were 2-pointers.

-Robby Wilson provided a spark off the bench with seven points, and Jordan Taylor hit a big shot at the end of the first half.

-Loved Steve Bardo's reference to former Badger Mike Heineman, a guy who would have fit in well under Bo.

Several nits to pick:

-It looked like Zack Novak wasn't even on our scouting report, and we lit him up. Not surprising, he seems like an excellent shooter and had really open looks.

-Leuer is still a bit too turnover-prone for my tastes.

-J-Bo missed two free throws in crunch time, and our lead was large enough that it didn't cost us, but it might if he doesn't get it together. He's still the player I want with the ball when the other guys need to foul, although Krabby is much-improved in this department.

Time for a couple days' rest, come back and play like this against Penn State on Saturday. Great win guys!

Alumni basketball game

On his short radio segment tonight following our local news, Bo was talking to LePay about the alumni basketball game, which was played Saturday before the UW-Purdue game. They talked for a while in generalities about how special it is, the great guys, yadda yadda yadda.

In Brian Lucas's courtside blog for the actual game I found this mention of the alumni game:

Tonight's honorary captain is Charlie Wills. He was part of the alumni game that took place earlier today. Sean Mason led all scorers with 19 points to lead the Red team to victory. Dave Mader paced the White team with 16 points.

Not surprising that Mason could still fill it up. That wasn't a bad two-person class - Mason and Sean Dougherty - was it?

Earlier in the week Lucas's daily email mentioned other notables:

... rumored to be in attendance include Clayton Hanson, Dave Mader, David Burkemper, Sean Mason and Charlies Wills ...

What was Burkemper, the ref? Lord knows he's got the whistle.

The game got me thinking about what my dream UW alumni game would be - with guys playing in the shape I'm guessing they're in nowadays, so Joe Franklin and Wes Matthews probably wouldn't qualify. Here's my matchup:

Cardinal: Devin Harris, Sean Mason, Michael Finley, Sean Dougherty, Mike Wilkinson

White: Kammron Taylor, Roy Boone, Kirk Penney, Alando Tucker, Rashard Griffith

Who do you think wins that matchup?