Big problem?

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.

Josh Gasser

With Diamond Taylor leaving school after violating the school's student-athlete discipline policy, a scholarship opened up a year early for Josh Gasser. He's a Port Washington kid whose stock was really on the rise, with offers from the likes of Maryland and Arizona State.

As of now he's slated to be the only point guard on the roster after Jordan Taylor exhausts his eligibility. At 6-4 he's taller than the kids we've had playing the position lately, which leads to the inevitable question of whether he'll be quick enough to guard the position in the Big Ten.

As a 20-plus points per game scorer, it's obvious he knows how to score. And judging by his jersey, he's plenty familiar with Bo Ryan's offense.

Gasser join Evan Anderson in the class. Now all we need is Vander Blue to re-commit. Come on Vander, we love you!

Thursday thoughts

First off: Stringer Bell is on The Office! How exciting is that? I just hope he's a character that hangs around for awhile and isn't gone in three episodes. It would be awesome if Avon Barksdale and/or Marlo Stanfield dropped by and capped Bob Vance because he didn't pay protection money.

But anyway ...

-Watched most of the Madison Memorial-Germantown game, and am really excited about Vander Blue. Last year you could see potential, but it he was very much unpolished. Tonight: 35 points on 12-of-20 shooting from the floor, including two 3-pointers, and 9-of-9 from the line. Yes, many of those field goals came in transition, where he showed great athleticism, but he also made a few long jumpers and looked very good on them.

Jeronne Maymon, on the other hand, looked sluggish and lackadaisacal, although he did have seven assists. Without having seen that team play before tonight, my guess is opposing teams gear up to stop Maymon and make the other guys beat them, and a team like Germantown with size can slow him down a bit. He'll probably have a big game Friday night.

-Didn't see the Racine Horlick-Eau Claire North game, but Evan Anderson didn't do much. Looks like he was in some foul trouble. I'm not too worried about him, though -- he had a rough year with injuries, and I'd look for him to have a big year next year.

Jamil Wilson had 24 for Horlick. One recruiting message board I read had a guy purporting to be a friend of Wilson's who said Jamil wanted to be a Badger. But the implication was that we weren't willing to wait until March 8 to find out his college choice, a date that held significance to his deceased mother. Too bad, I've heard lots of good things about him, and he's headed to Oregon; at least it's not East Lansing. Sure hope Ryan Evans pans out.

-Bay Port-Beloit just doesn't excite me, seems there's always a game like that on Thursday.

-Minnesota looked unbelievable early, then cooled down, then showed just about how good they really are. I can't believe we lost twice to that team this year, it's sickening. Goodbye Lawrence Westbrook, good luck in Europe. (NOTE: Per the first comment before, I'm wrong about this, we have to see Larry charging into Big Ten defenders and throwing the ball at the rim for another year. Damn.)

-Conversely, really nice win for Michigan. I'm surprised we beat them twice this year, includin that really convincing one in Ann Arbor.

-Purdue also won to make the Big Ten 2-1, we'll see how Illinois does. It would be nice for the Big Ten to have a winning record in the tournament, maybe shut some critics up.

-It seems like every time I switch channels from the high school game to the college game on CBS it's going to commercial.

-Not enough Rural Insurance commercials during the WIAA broadcasts.

This is such a great time of the year. It's somewhat less great when your 10-month-old repeatedly crawls over to the satellite receiver and turns it off, leaving snow on the screen. He usually turns around and smiles, which makes it cute and semi-acceptable, but come on Charlie, not in March!

Diamond and Bruiser

Basketball's early signing day passed several weeks ago without much fanfare. Diamond Taylor and Mike Bruesewitz made official their intentions to play for Wisconsin, which pleased me.

It's a solid two-man class. In Taylor, you have a combo guard, the kind we need more of on our roster. In Bruesewitz, you have a forward who can bang inside or play a little on the perimeter. Both seem to be good fits for Bo Ryan's Swing offense, and after signing two 7-footers last year, adding perimeter depth makes sense.

The Big Ten Network's coverage of signing day didn't spend much time on our guys, other than to say that it was fitting that a guy nicknamed "Bruiser" would end up in Madison, and another play on words involving Taylor's first name. Overall it seems like a pretty blah year in Big Ten recruiting, with next year being pretty big. With Evan Anderson and Vander Blue in the fold, we're poised for a great class.

Two other things:

-It appears Jamil Wilson has narrowed his three to Michigan State, Texas, and Oregon. Apparently Marquette has been jerking him around lately, pulling its offer than reintroducing it through Wilson's dad, and he took them off his list. Is there still a chance he ends up in Madison?

-Rivals recruiting analyst Dave Telep assessed a number of the Big Ten classes, leading off with Indiana's. He led with something like this: "For Tom Crean, it's always been about threes. When he went to the Final Four he had Dwayne Wade, Rob Jackson, and Travis Diener. Then he had Dominic James, Jerel McNeal, and Wesley Matthews, and he won a ton of games."

I'll say it again: has anyone in the coaching profession gotten more mileage out of winning four games than Tom Crean? Aside from riding Wade to the Final Four in 2003, Crean won exactly one NCAA Tournament game in his other eight seasons at Marquette. He'll probably do OK at his new job, but geez, if he win the Big Ten Tournament some year you half expect him to use it as a springboard to run for governor of Indiana.

Evan Anderson commits to Wisconsin

There's nothing like working ahead, is there? Bo Ryan and his staff wrapped up its recruiting class of 2010 this weekend when Evan Anderson of Eau Claire North committed to play for Wisconsin.

The commitment wasn't a huge surprise, but it was a huge get nonetheless. Anderson is the #10-ranked player nationally in the class of 2010 per Scout (second-ranked center), and #5 per Rivals. Don't get me wrong, I know how much — or how little — these rankings mean, but it will be nice to peak at these rankings for the next couple years and see Wisconsin in the right-hand column near the top of the list, the spot usually reserved these days for North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, and Ohio State. Those were the types of schools who were beginning to take an interest in Evan, similar to Brian Butch at that age, and it's good to lock up a homeboy and get him to Madison.

From my one time watching Evan, on television in the state tournament in North's game against eventual state champion Wauwatosa East, he looked worthy of the hype. He runs well and showed the ability to use both hands offensively around the basket. Other observers say his defense is much more advanced than his offense at this stage, but that would apply to most 6-11 16-year-olds.

So now we're done with our next two recruiting classes (with a big asterisk next to Jamil Wilson's name), and can start focusing on recruiting ... kids who are currently high school freshmen. Gulp. The thing is, UW is not alone in getting commitments from kids at such a young age. One the Scout list seven of the top 10 kids had already committed to a school.

Here's how the next three batches of incoming freshmen shapes up at the moment:

2008: Jared Berggren, Ian Markolf, Jordan Taylor, Robert Wilson, Ryan Evans
2009: Mike Bruesewitz, Diamond Taylor
2010: Vander Blue, Evan Anderson
For good measure, let's throw in 2007: Tim Jarmusz, Keaton Nankivil, Jon Leuer

So, theoretically, our 2010-11 roster is already set. It will look like this:

Center/power forward: Nankivil, Berggren, Markolf, Anderson, J.P. Gavinski (redshirt senior)
Small forward/power forward: Leuer, Bruesewitz, Evans
Shooting guard: Jarmusz, Wilson, Blue
Point guard: Jordan and Diamond

That's pretty good balance, and a pretty versatile roster. Just about all of those last seven guys will be able to swing between a couple positions, and that's a lot of height among the bigs. It's a real similar roster to the one we had this year, with maybe a little more depth at guard if all these guys pan out. Adding a talent like Wilson would be a major wild card, I see him filling the Marcus Landry role on future rosters if we can wedge him in somehow.

These early commitments can sometimes seem anticlimactic, as they take us out of the running for the high-stakes recruits at the top of the lists. But realistically, we're not going to get those guys anyway, and it's good for the stability of the program to get these verbals early.

Feeling Blue - Vander Blue

Bo Ryan picked up his first commitment for the class of 2010 yesterday when Madison Memorial's Vander Blue pledged to become a Badger. Among his other suitors were Indiana, Kentucky, and Marquette, and other big names seemed poised to follow.

I saw him play at the state tournament in Madison, and saw why there was interest. Vander is good at driving and getting to the rim, and was active in Memorial's trapping defense. He didn't try any 3-pointers - no one on Memorial did, a rarity - but he is said to have a nice mid-range game.

From my limited exposure to Blue, I've been trying to come up with a comparison, but am stumped. The penetrating ability is a little bit like Trevon Hughes, but he's taller. His body reminds me of Devin Harris, but he doesn't seem to be as good a scorer ... although he is just a high school sophomore.

There only appears to be one scholarship left for the class of '10, and it would appear to be ticketed for Evan Anderson. Other notables from that class include Flavien Davis of Milwaukee and Kameron Cerroni of Sussex Hamilton.

Sunday morning thoughts

Still smiling about Carolina's humiliating defeat last night, thank you Kansas. Thinking about the tournament in general.

-The most unexpectedly impressive player I saw yesterday was Cole Aldrich from Kansas, and teammate Sherron Collins provided a huge energy boost during the Jayhawks' first half blitz. In the other game Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts were the expected big stars for Memphis. Where are they from? Big Ten country.

Rose and Collins are from Chicago, Aldrich from the Twin Cities, and CDR from Detroit. Kansas has long taken guys from Big Ten states - Julian Wright, Kirk Hinrich, and Nick Collison come to mind - and lots of good players leave Detroit and Minneapolis as well. Maybe if Michigan and Minnesota did a better job building a wall around their home states instead of chasing recruits from elsewhere, they wouldn't have fallen so far.

-It seems that Marquette is seriously considering promoting assistant coach Buzz Williams to the head job in the wake of Tom Crean's departure for Indiana. I think this would be a bad move. Beyond the absurdity of having a head coach named Buzz, promoting assistant coaches to ensure recruiting stability is seldom a good idea. You've got to pick the best coach available, period, not the one who'll placate your recruits.

Remember how Stan van Gundy turned out in Madison? Yeah, he got Sam Okey to come to UW, but in the meantime he flopped miserably coaching the Rashard Griffith-Michael Finley team, and Okey couldn't coexist with Dick Bennett.

It worked pretty well for Kansas State this year with Frank Martin's promotion ensuring Michael Beasley came to Manhattan. But none of Marquette's recruits is in the same league as Beasley (few would be). Marquette should do what's best for the long-term health of its program, not cater to the whims of an 18-year-old in New Jersey.

-Chris West writes a terrific blog about Wisconsin college basketball, and this post nicely summarizes the Marquette situation.

-If MU does choose Williams, it'll be interesting to see how that affects their Midwest recruiting, as most of the Gold's recent commitments have come from different regions. Highly-regarded high schoolers, but not ones they're competing with us for. Will they still butt heads with us for Jamil Wilson and Evan Anderson? Or will they be chasing some kid we've never heard of in Texas? Even though I like our track record against Crean, he did get lots of quality kids from the state to Milwaukee - Diener, Novak, Merritt, Matthews, Christopherson.

-On that note: Will recently measured in the 95th percentile for height among 3-1/2-year-olds, and on Friday he got a scholarship offer from Indiana. That's us practicing for signing day 2021.

-On that note, I'm relieved to see Tony Bennett is seemingly out of the running for the Marquette job. What loyalty he's showing to Washington State. It's got to be somewhat of a slap in the face to the Gold that their job isn't seen as enough of a step up from Wazzou or Xavier or Virginia Commonwealth for their coaches to move to the Humongous East.

-You know what UCLA right now reminds me of? Duke in the late '80s. A team that gets to the Final Four every year but falls short because they don't have the horses. It was sort of amazing to me that so many people had the Bruins as the national championship favorite ... although I did have them losing to Georgetown in the finals (good call moron!). Ben Howland's team seems to lack something electric that makes a team a champion.

-Glad I didn't fill out a bracket for money this year, my predictions were god-awful. Then again, I did write "If you made me bet $1 million on the Final Four I'd pick: UCLA, North Carolina, Memphis, Kansas. Strong #1 seeds."

Thanks for a good year, Badgers

It was inevitable, but I was still hoping it wouldn't happen. When I hopped on Google Analytics yesterday morning, I noticed that traffic on the blog had dipped roughly 30% Saturday from Friday. Could it be because the basketball team lost, unofficially ending the 2007-08 Badger sports season?

Unfortunately, I think so.

A few weeks ago Andy said to me "What are you going to write about when basketball season's over? Because I don't want to read about your freaking personal life." The feeling is mutual, bro.

What am I going to write about?

-Sporadic Badger news. For instance, Tyler Donovan just signed with a CFL team, the Edmonton Eskimos. That's really great, the CFL is a better fit for a mobile quarterback like Tyler, and hopefully he finds a long, successful career north of the border. Maybe he turns into the next Doug Flutie. Badgers in the NFL Draft will get some coverage.

-General Badger thoughts. For instance, I plan on reflecting on the careers of the four departing senior basketball players, my favorite Badger games, etc. Maybe I'll dig into recruiting more, especially key basketball prospects like Jamil Wilson and Evan Anderson. When the preseason football magazines start coming out in June, we'll take a look at those, and break down some of the key Badgers for this fall's team.

-With the Badgers done, I can focus my sports energies on the Brewers for better or worse on Brewercentric. Head on over there and check out the discussion, Walt and the guys have been getting the hang of group blogging.

-General pop culture stuff. For instance, Jana and I watched Michael Clayton on Saturday and liked it. Tilda Swinton was excellent, Clooney was good, as were all the other key players. It was a bit confusing, and might not have been as good as all the hype surrounding it .. sort of like The Departed. But we're still glad we watched it.

-The Office is going to start airing new episodes again too, right?

-If you do want to read about my freaking personal life, Jana and I are blogging about our adventures in parenting at Raising Tappas. Will is good for a yuck a day, and we'll have our hands full with #2. (And by the way: we test drove those three vehicles on Saturday, and are a heavy lean to the Honda Odyssey. Yes, Badgercentric's going minivan. Maybe I'll try to grow a ponytail to compensate for my middle-age insecurities.)

When I started this blog in late September the day before the Iowa game, it was really just as a writing outlet and a way to keep in touch with friends and family. And that's what it will remain going forward. But in just over six months it's brought me in touch with so many more people, including old college buddies with whom I'd lost touch, and been a terrific experience.

If you've been visiting every day and choose to scale back, no hard feelings, I'd probably do the same. But Badgercentric isn't going anywhere, and I'm already looking forward to what the 2008-09 Wisconsin sports season has in store.

My day in Madison: State basketball

The best part of my day: getting within 12 inches of the Big Ten Championship trophy awarded to the Wisconsin basketball team last night. Of course, we were separated by thick glass and a geriatric Per-Mar security guard (is there any other kind?), but I admired it longingly as it stood front and center in the men's basketball offices at the Kohl Center.

It's a pretty impressive display, really - the new hardware flanked by all the other trophies we've racked up in the last decade. Conference championship trophies, Big Ten Tournament trophies, regional championship trophies. A video loop of recent highlights playing on a big flat screen. I'm ready to sign Will up for the program right now.

Andy and I were at the Kohl for the state boys basketball tournament, which we went to regularly in the '90s. Back then we saw B.J. LaRue and Mukwonago fall valiantly to Jose Winston and Milwaukee Vincent at the dawn of their dynasty. We saw Madison West's Reece Gaines have a horrible game in front of the home folks. The years we didn't go, we'd stay glued to the TV, watching the games and eating Girl Scout cookies.

It was time for some new memories, and we got them.

-The primary reason I wanted to go was to watch our Iola-Scandinavia Thunderbirds in a Division 3 semifinal. It wasn't pretty, but the kids gutted out a three-point win over a very capable Eau Claire Regis team. Our headliner, Mike Griffin, scored 21 in spite of a tough shooting day, but a little guy by the name of Chad Gunderson was our hero today, hitting some big 3-pointers and coming up with some key steals.

-In Saturday's final we play LaCrosse Aquinas, who looked really tough in beating favored Whitefish Bay Dominican. Aquinas just has a bunch of kids who know how to play basketball the right way and put the ball in the basket. This year's senior class in Wisconsin doesn't have many Division 1 college prospects, but Dominican's Kwamain Mitchell is one of the best, and he'll play for Rick Majerus at St. Louis.

-One of the state's other Division 1 kids, Oshkosh West's John Benkoske, overcame foul trouble to help his team beat Germantown in overtime. Benkoske is following former coach Lance Randall and former West stars Tom Levin and Andy Polka to Loyola. Andy and I left this game at halftime, the first half was notable only for the banter between the two student sections. The second half was a thriller and so was the OT. This was the second-worst decision I've made to leave a game at halftime; the worst was in 1998, when we left an Ohio State-Michigan State game at halftime, and the Spartans came back to upset the #1 Buckeyes.

-In the other game we saw, Madison Memorial beat Lake Geneva Badger. The interesting player in this one was Memorial's Jeronne Maymon, a man among boys with 28 points, 12 rebounds, eight blocks, and four assists. There has been talk about him becoming a Badger. Looking at his game, I'm not sure. He's got a nice face-up game up to about 15 feet, and is skilled, but he is still dominant because of his superior size (probably 6-6, 220) and athleticism. Don't think he could do it like that at the next level. However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought Alando Tucker was probably a similar type of player in high school, and he turned out all right.

The two things that concern me: he missed a game this year with an "academic issue," and there were too many times today when he was loafing, not playing with consistent energy. Almost like Shaq. I can't recall anyone like that coming into our program. We'll see.

The other guy from Memorial that is drawing recruiting attention is a 6-3 sophomore guard by the name of Vander Blue. In today's game Vander didn't really distinguish himself from Memorial's other guards - Maymon's older brother Devonte had a great game - but he still had 13 points, seven boards. Smooth athlete, seemed to glide a bit, and fit well with Memorial's full-court pressure defense. He'll be a good one, and let's hope that if he's good enough, he stays home.

-In the last game, I watched Wauwatosa East play Eau Claire North on television. East is the better team and won, but I was interested in seeing North's Evan Anderson, a 6-11 sophomore. Some outlets have put him as a national top 10 recruit for the class of 2010; some people who have seen him play wonder why he averaged only eight points per game this season and say he's a UW-Green Bay-type player.

Watching him tonight, I think he can definitely be a Big Ten player. Of our current and recent bigs, he reminds me most of Butch, only he doesn't have much of an offensive game more than five feet from the basket. He does run much better and more naturally than Butch, shows confidence using both hands, and has a knack for shot blocking. It's rare for a 6-11 sophomore to have a refined game, so you're really just projecting future development, and from my admittedly limited exposure to the kid's game, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to recruit him.

Links, links, links

It's a slow night in Badgerland, so I wanted to point out some of the links we've added to the right-hand column in the last month or so.

-The official uwbadgers.com basketball and football blogs. Some food stuff here from the UW sports information department. The basketball blog, from Brian Lucas, is obviously the more active of the two right now; he also does a daily email newsletter.

-The Wisconsin Basketball Recruiting board. Keep track of the Badgers' recruiting targets (Evan Anderson! Jamil Wilson! Tyler Griffey! Diamond Taylor!) and already-committed high school players. Lots of updates from Heavystarch, who originally turned me onto the site in a comment here.

-The Wisconsin Sports Network, a nice site on state preps sports. Not much on future Badgers (Flavien Davis?!?!), mainly because there's only so many of them.

-Camp Lambeau, a nice blog with an emphasis much like this one, only with more on the Packers and multiple contributors.

-The Chris West Basketball Journal - Chris is a basketball junkie and does a great job getting to a game whenever he can. Apparently he was also worried about the Penn State game.

-Hoopraker, a Big Ten basketball blog that's a good place for getting up to speed on conference opponents.

-Brewercentric, the best blog about the Milwaukee Brewers written by guys from West Bend on the World Wide Web! Stop by to see what these dudes think about Mike Cameron.

-Toohey's Randomania, where Tim Toohey writes about Maxim and brake pads. That dude needs to give me a permanent reciprocal link.

-Chris Earl Books. "You're in the Hot Box, hello! Buy my books!"

-Javier and the Bear, my cousin Dan Zima's band.

If you're looking to exchange reciprocal links, or if you just want to suggest a link to a good Badger-related site, please email me at scott_tappa@hotmail.com.

Happy new year!

OK, here's what a geek I am: You know how you sometimes are sitting around in the morning and you remember a brief dream you had the night before? This morning I was reading my Sporting News college basketball preview while brushing my teeth, and remembered that last night, I had a dream/nightmare that big-time big man recruit Evan Anderson of Eau Claire had committed to Marquette. Thankfully, that has not yet happened.

Feeling good about the Outback Bowl because we're underdogs. Watching ESPN's bottom line during yesterday's bowls, it appears 70% of those users are picking Tennessee, as are 73% of Yahoo users. The Vegas odds are tighter, essentially calling it a toss-up with the Vols a 1.5- or 2-point favorite.

On the radio preview Matt LePay was just talking about how a guy like O'Brien Schofield might play a lot, even start; one of the papers reported this in the last couple days. Another big variable is time of possession: UW is #2 nationally, UT #100. The wind is blowing pretty hard in Tampa, which should work in our favor.

Final note: While watching the Outback and Cotton bowls today remember that Polzin said Wisconsin and Arkansas might be playing for the national title this year, a point I missed but he reminded readers of today.

A look at the Badger basketball recruits

A few weeks ago I mentioned my love for preseason college football magazines. That was actually preceded by my love for preseason college basketball magazines. My first was Street and Smith, 1987-88, with Keith Smart and Bobby Knight of Indiana on the cover. By today's standards it was remarkably tame, mostly black and white newsprint. Inside was the high school All-American team, headlined by Alonzo Mourning, Billy Owens, and Chris Jackson.

Those high school All-American lists were always fascinating to me. In the pre-Internet world, this accounted for 90% of the prep hoops information I got in any given year, the other 10% being the McDonald's All-American game.

I was tardy getting my first preseason pub this year, but picked one up last week - Sporting News - and immediately flipped to the high school pages. I was pleased to see three of the Badgers' four recent signees listed.

-Jared Berggren, a 6-10 center from Princeton, Minn., was high honorable mention.

-Robert Wilson, a 6-2 (or 6-5, depending on what you read) wing from Garfield Heights, Ohio, was also high honorable mention.

The Berggren signing was key. His commitment happened before Tubby Smith took over at Minnesota, and if Tubby can build any semblance of a wall around that state, it will cut off a nice little talent pipeline we've had going these last few years (Jon Leuer, Kammron Taylor, Jordan Taylor). He'll move in nicely to the spots Brian Butch and Greg Stiemsma will be vacating. Rivals has him listed as the #11 center prospect in the country.

Wilson is just as important. As was exposed against Duke, we need guards/wings to hang with top teams, and we're just not that deep there at this time. The current freshman class brought in two bigs and a wing who's more of a shooter than a lockdown defender, although Tim Jarmusz's athleticism may be underrated.

-Jordan Taylor is the other guard Bo Ryan signed, a 6-1 point guard from Erik Olson's neck of the woods, St. Louis Park, Minn. He doesn't show up anywhere on my All-American lists, but he may end up being the most important member of this recruiting class. With Michael Flowers graduating, we'll need a backup point next year, and though Bo usually doesn't play freshman point guards much, you need insurance behind Trevon Hughes. Rivals ranks Taylor as the 22nd best point guard in the country. Sounds like a good kid - National Honor Society, won other academic awards.

-Ian Markolf, a 7-1 center from San Antonio, was the last guy to commit, and made Sporting News' honorable mention All-American list. Can never have too many 7-footers, as long as they can play.

Or do you? While I will never criticize Bo and his staff for their recruiting - 20 years ago, the Badgers would be lucky to get one high school All-American, let alone three or four - part of me wonders if the roster is getting too heavy on bigs. The college game has become so guard-oriented, as we saw against Duke and as we'll see Saturday against Marquette. There aren't many teams like Florida the last two season that can throw out an NBA style lineup with prototypes at 1-2-3-4-5. It isn't hard to imagine a 2010-11 viable frontcourt of Leuer, Berggren and Markolf or Keaton Nankivil, but would defensive matchups ever make that possible to put out there?

No Wisconsin kids in this class, but there are two key recruits from the state in the class of 2009: 6-11 Evan Anderson of Eau Claire North and 6-7 Jamil Wilson of Racine Horlick. Lots of the power programs are lining up for these guys, getting them to commit to the state's most popular basketball program would be huge. We're also still in the running for guard Diamond Taylor of Westchester (Ill.) St. Joseph's, Andy's favorite high school player.