Stan Van Champion?

Got this email from Chris Earl today:

Tellin’ you, Scott.

Stan Van Gundy will hold the Larry O’Brien Trophy in his hands in 10 days ...

And it will be a glorious day. A glorious day.

Here is my enduring memory of Stan Van Gundy: It's New Year's Eve 1994. My parents had gotten me tickets for the UW-Marquette game, and we're sitting at the Bradley Center watching the Badgers get their asses kicked soundly by MU, with the crowd full of former, current, and future dentists and xylophone players giving me and my fellow Badgers all sorts of hell.

And what comeback did we have? Here we had a future NBA All-Star, Michael Finley; the most highly-recruited player ever to matriculate at Madison, Rashard Griffith; experience in Andy Kilbride and Brian Kelley; and a promising point guard in Darnell Hoskins. And when it was all said and done, Stan Van Gundy had led this crew to a losing record.


How did that happen? How did he get the Magic, minus their All-Star point guard; with a center who previously couldn't shoot free throws; with two soft forwards; with J.J. Redick and Mickael Pietrus playing key minutes at shooting guard; how did he get this team to the Finals, where they have a decent shot at upsetting the Lakers?

Maybe the guy can actually coach. The huddle shots during the Eastern Conference finals showed two different coaches -- Van Gundy feverishly encouraging his team, drawing up plays in one, Mike Brown standing back while his players appeared to run things in the other. Stan drew up some awesome plays; I forget which game it was, but he drew up a halfcourt play that got Rashard Lewis open for a go-ahead 3-pointer that was a thing of beauty.

Maybe he just didn't get a fair shake in Madison. If memory serves, he was retained after Stu Jackson's departure to keep Rashard around and keep the key recruiter on Sam Okey around. But he obviously was lacking at the time in either the X's and O's department (doubtful) or the chemistry-fostering department (more likely). Also, despite the star power on the roster, there was little or no depth, and key players like Kilbride and Kelley had limited games.

It would have been interesting to see what Stan would have done had he been given the chance to lead the Wisconsin program for a few years. The program and roster obviously took a completely different direction with the arrival of Dick Bennett, one which led to more sustained success than the program has ever seen, success which continues today. But given the coaching chops Van Gundy has shown since, it's a decent bet that we would have seen similar success, just in a very different way.

We'll see about your prediction, Chris, but if Stan is holding that trophy in two weeks, I'll be most excited to see the endorsement deals he ends up with. Subway, anyone?

Badgers-Gophers: A '97 classic

March 8, 1997 is a special day for me. It was the day the Badger basketball team beat Minnesota at the Fieldhouse in a dramatic game to clinch a birth in the NCAA tournament. It preceded a great pull-out section we put together for the Cardinal, and propelled a few of us to a memorable trip to Pittsburgh.

And the Notorious B.I.G. was killed that night.

The Big Ten Network brought me back to that day by replaying that game, won 66-65 by Wisconsin, on its recent Wisconsin day. Watched it last night, and here are some thoughts:

-Starting lineup for Wisconsin: Ty Calderwood, David Burkemper, Sam Okey, Sean Daughtery, Paul Grant. That's a big lineup, like ours this year before Flowers was reinserted into the lineup, probably too big and slow to win big.

-Daugherty would have been a good fit in the Swing offense. His game was similar to Butch's, but he was smoother and Butch was more assertive.

-Grant was somewhat clumsy at times, but really athletic and pretty jacked. Not too hard to see why the NBA made him a first rounder. Just checked, and he played 111 minutes in his NBA career, and interestingly had five years between stints with the Bucks and the Jazz.

-Burkemper was rocking some Hasselhoffian chest hair.

-Minnesota had a really good team, so deep and balanced. Courtney James was a stud. Sam Jacobson was an awesome athlete. Quincy Lewis was just flashing what he would become. That doesn't even mention Bobby Jackson, the best of the bunch.

-All that said, looking at Clem Haskins makes my blood boil. He and the athletic department that enabled him got what they deserved.

-Calderwood's shot wasn't pretty, but it was courageous. That kid was just a winner, flat-out. You could see his importance to our program in how the team did the next year when he was injured - the last losing season we've had.

-Did you know Mike Kosolcharoen's dad was an Olympic swimmer for Thailand? Ahh, Special K. My memory's fuzzy, but didn't we do a point-counterpoint in the Cardinal debating whether he should be starting (when he was), with Gitter taking the point that he shouldn't be? And didn't Mike call Gitter up to share his opinion?

-Man, did the Fieldhouse get loud. Always thought the move to the shiny new Kohl Center would mean a diminished home court advantage. Good call.

-The Badgers played great defense in that game, but it looked different than the great defense we play now. It was much more frenetic and scrambling than our current scheme, and probably more than Bennett's usually was. Minnesota was the first and only opponent to score 60 points in the Fieldhouse that year, that's impressive.

-I really like that on the Badgers' last offensive possession, which ended with Calderwood getting fouled, Bennett didn't call timeout. Trust your kids, let them play.

-Okey, Okey, Okey ... what could have been. I wonder how he would have fit in under Bo, or Stu Jackson for that matter.

There were times when I'd go "Huh" or "nice shot" and Jana would say "I thought you were at this game." True, but I didn't remember every last bounce of the ball. I remembered the winning free throws and steal, but that's about it. That's what's great about this series on the BTN, and why I can't wait to watch the other games.

Freshman starters

Reading about Jeronne Maymon's recruitment last week got me thinking: how often have freshmen started at Wisconsin? Off the top of my head, Alando Tucker was the only one I could think of in recent times. Here are the freshman starters for Wisconsin basketball in the last 26 years:

2003: Alando Tucker
2002: Devin Harris
1998: Mike Kelley
1996: Sam Okey, Hennssy Auriantal (Maymon's mentor)
1994: Rashard Griffith
1992: Michael Finley
1990: Larry Hisle
1983: Rick Olson
1982: Brad Sellers, Cory Blackwell

That's some list. Tucker, Harris, Griffith, Finley, Blackwell and Sellers were all first or second round NBA draft picks. Kelley might be the best defensive player in program history. Olson is the program's fifth all-time leading scorer. Okey was Big Ten Freshman of the Year, the only one in school history. Auriantal led the team in steals as a freshman for Dick Bennett's first team.

That's 11 freshman starters in 26 seasons, or ninein 25. Shouldn't be any freshman starters on next year's team, even though we lose two starters to graduation. That's the sign of a stable program that recruits, retains, and develops players well.

We shall name him Brian Butch

I can remember the exact moment I found out Brian Butch had committed to Wisconsin.

In the fall of 2002, Jana and I were driving to work, and were passing St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Waupaca when Jack Barry was giving a rundown of the headlines we'd hear in that morning's newscast. "... and a nationally-ranked basketball recruit from Appleton commits to the Badgers ..."

The news elicited a gutteral yelp from me that took my wife by surprise. But not as much as my follow-up announcement: "Jana, I want to name our first son Brian Butch Tappa."

Of course, that didn't happen, although Bo Ryan Tappa is still on the table for #2 (right Babe?) ... although those initials would be one letter shy of BRAT.

This begs the question: when you're 18 years old and your college choice inspires yahoos in the sticks to pledge their first born's name in your honor, what do you have to do to not be considered an underachiever, as many have suggested over the past five years?

Win. And win. And win and win and win. Butch was a big contributor to Wisconsin teams that won 105 games, making him part of the winningest class in school history. To me that trumps anything else that can be said about Brian - and thankfully, his extended, triumphant senior season allowed more than enough nice things to be said about him - and makes him the most successful high-profile recruit in UW basketball history.

Kurt Portmann? He was a marginal contributor on some teams that made the NIT, but that's about it. Rashard Griffith? Had a couple nice years and went to the NCAA Tournament, but was only here for two years. Sam Okey? Same thing. Anyone else have other names to throw into the equation?

But, say the detractors, didn't Alando Tucker and Mike Wilkinson and Michael Flowers also have something to do with those 105 wins? Sure, but as I think Will mentioned in a comment on the Stiemsma post, if Butch doesn't break his arm at Ohio State, we might win the Big Ten last year and beat UNLV to reach the Sweet 16, and nobody is throwing around the word "empty" in conjunction with the 2006-07 Badgers. That team hit a wall at the end, and maybe a healthy Butch helps them get over that wall.

What's next for Brian? He's been racking up plenty of frequent flyer miles lately (interesting story here on uwbadgers.com about how much he's traveled since February). Hopefully he can find employment playing hoops after college. The NBA doesn't seem likely, he just doesn't have the athleticism to keep up. But his inside-out game could certainly play in Europe, where I imagine he'd be a big hit.

How will history remember Brian Butch as a Badger? All-conference pick? Underachiever? Polar Bear?

How about this: Winner.

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."

Pittsburgh post

Don't know why Olson chanted "Pittsburgh post! Pittsburgh post!" in a comment on the blog last night. Maybe it was because Coppin State was competing in the play-in game. Maybe he took a charge from Sam Okey in a rec league game.

Maybe it's because the game in Pittsburgh is the only time I've seen the Badgers play in the NCAA Tournament, which starts tomorrow, but this is as good a time as any to mark the 11th anniversary of this memorable experience.

The whole thing started on the last Saturday of the regular season (think it was the last year before the Big Ten Tournament), when Wisconsin upset #2 Minnesota to basically clinch a spot in the tournament. That game ended with me hugging Milinovich; the day ended with me hugging an Ole English 40. The next morning, I was in the Cardinal office working on our mammoth Big Dance preview section (16 whole pages!), when Millie walked in and said "They shot Biggie." With East Coast-West Coast tensions in the rap community simmering, this was inevitable, but no less sad.

Throughout the course of the day several of us made plans to road trip it wherever the Badgers went, which ended up being Pittsburgh. It was me, Olson, Milinovich, and Millie's friend Garza, who worked with him at the Nitty Gritty. Garza and I didn't have credit cards, which meant we couldn't drive the rental car, which worked out well for us.

We left late Thursday afternoon headed for the Steel City, and Erik and Mike drove through the night in less-than-ideal conditions. I remember the precipitation teetering between rain and freezing rain, and made light of the fact that the thermometer was toggling between 32 and 33 degrees - "Ice! Rain! Ice! Rain?" To which Erik barked "Shut the f$&* up! It's not funny!" Erik eventually forgave my distractions and introduced me to pre-"Closing Time" Semisonic.

We pulled into Pittsburgh at the crack of dawn and ate breakfast at a restaurant that seemed shady, and headed to the arena. The place, where the Penguins were still playing at the time, had to be one of the more decrepit facilities the Big Dance was held in at the time, a real dump. Erik and I went to the press room, I opened up an orange juice and a notebook to prepare pregame notes, and promptly fell asleep, waking up 45 minutes later with spiral notebook grooves indented in my face, and my notebook covered with drool. Very professional.

Went to press row courtside about an hour before the noon tipoff, and went to work on a foreign journalism paper I was writing about Benazhir Bhutto. Got a lot done there. Our game against Texas went about as expected. We were a 7 seed and they were a 10 seed, although consensus was those should have been switched. Dick Bennett was mad at Ty Calderwood for not eating his vegetables at the team meal or something like that, and benched him to start the game. Two minutes or so later, with the Badgers down about 25-0, Ty came in. Reggie Freeman and Kris Clack were just too much that day, and the Badgers' feel-good season was over.

But not our fun in Pittsburgh. Next we saw Coppin State beat South Carolina in what I believe was the second #15-#2 upset in tournament history, a really exciting, feel-good story. Every time I hear the name Fang Mitchell, as I did when CSU made it back to the tournament this year, I think of that day. Texas beat Coppin by one in the second round.

The night session was also good, with New Mexico, Millie's second-favorite team for I forget what reason, beat Old Dominion, which featured fans with funny Southern accents ("He woked!" = "He walked!").

The capper was Louisville beating UMass, which was one year removed from the Marcus Camby-led run to the finals. The highlight of that game, arguably of the entire trip, was the Louisville dance team, which was legen ... dary (more legendary than this picture I found). Let's put it this way: not one guy in attendance left to relieve himself at halftime. Millie made one of the more poignant comments I've heard, one I'd repeat if I wasn't relatively sure my mom would be reading this post. I wrote about the Cardinals dance team in the Cardinal the next week, and a few weeks later, getting carded buying beer somewhere in Madison, the guy noticed my name and said "I've seen the Louisville dance team before ... oh my god are they hot!" (Note: Louisville won its sixth national dance title in 2007.)

That night we went out for an evening of Iron City Light and Garza trying to pick fights with Pitt undergrads. After I had gotten done getting fresh with a cannon (details still fuzzy), we made our way back to the hotel, where Erik snuggled with a doll bearing the likeness of his girlfriend and future wife, Molly. Weird.

On the drive home we stopped off in South Bend to pay homage to Rudy Ruettinger and took photos of Touchdown Jesus. It should be noted that Olson, in his first attempt at sports photography, came back with some terrific shots, including an Okey dunk.

Why bring all this up now in such detail? It's a reminder that not so long ago, a trip to the tournament made an entire season worthwhile. Once in the postseason, we didn't do much winning of note - it was the extracurriculars that made it fun as much as anything. A return trip the next season was not something you took for granted. The 1998 team lost Calderwood early and Okey halfway through and finished with a losing record. Figures, my senior year.

Of course, the 1999 team overachieved and righted the ship, and we're now sporting a 10-year tournament streak, one of the longest in the nation. In a decade's time we've gone from "just happy to be here" to being disappointed by anything less than a Sweet 16 appearance. That's OK, raising the bar is how you achieve more in life. But don't get spoiled, and don't forget to try an Iron City Light along the way.