Wisconsin-Purdue thoughts

One day this week after basketball two of my buddies were talking about college hoops. One of them is a big North Carolina fan (way to cheer for the underdog, dude), and they were talking about how superior ACC ball is to Big Ten ball, mocking games with 23-20 halftime scores.

You know what? That's called defense, not putting together 10 McDonald's All-Americans on the court and letting them run around. You can argue about the aesthetic merits of each conference, point to the ACC's dominance in the annual challenge, etc., but if you want to see a well-rounded game, you're more likely to see it in the Midwest than out East.

There's beauty in watching a big guy hedge properly on a pick and roll, or watch weakside help in the post. Three years ago our "offensively challenged" team played Carolina's collection of future professionals recruited by Matt Doherty and scored 80 points - Clayton Hanson had a big game, for crying out loud. So don't tell me Big Ten kids don't have skills.

This is my way of leading into today's Wisconsin-Purdue game, which was not an exercise in offensive futility, but in well-executed defense.

No shame in this loss. Purdue's legit, and if they don't factor in the conference title race this year, they will next year. Those are freshmen who are going to be around for four years, and they've got good sophomores, too - probably not a dominant group, but a very good one.

Don't know about you, but I'm just tickled that we are now a team that students storm the court for. Last year Indiana, this year Purdue - beating Wisconsin is a huge deal for these storied Big Ten powerhouses. I could get used to that.

-Free throws, free throws, free throws. If we hit the same percentage at Purdue, we're ahead in the last minute - maybe with a cushion if we hit the front end of one-and-ones. You knew it was going to cost us at some point, and it did today.

-A good indicator of the job Purdue did defensively: we dribbled the ball way more than usual. This led to people like Pop getting caught in tough positions, like along the baseline, and turning the ball over. Still, we found good looks. Really liked the job Leuer did passing, although the rest of his game left something to be desired.

-On a similar note: is it just me, or does it seem like television broadcasters are always talking about how seldom we turn the ball over, then point out how we're trending ahead of that average in the game? Tonight that happened, although we came in at the 13 per game average.

-Stiemsma was very weak in the post on offense tonight, as happens too often. This is odd, because on defense his personality is strong and aggressive.

-Speaking of Stiemsma, he hung on the rim once to avoid landing on a Purdue player and the PU student section went nuts. This happens way too often, and indicates a low basketball IQ in the crowd. It reminds me of freshman year, when our varsity was playing Milwaukee North at the West Bend Fieldhouse, and one of their players dunked on us. One of our guy's dads, who had probably never seen a dunk in person before, started hollering for a technical foul to be called, and looked like a real rube in the process.

-Butch played really well tonight. If he can start hitting 3-pointers on even a 25 percent basis (he was shooting 9 percent heading into this game), our offense is much more dangerous, and Landry will have more room to operate down low. The Sporting News college hoops column this week made note of his nice senior season, and noted that he had redshirted during our run at a national championship in 2003-04. Really, national championship? I mean, we had Devin playing at the top of his game, and Wilkinson, but Alando had gotten hurt early and robbed us of that third dynamic player you need to make a serious push.

-In about a two-minute span in the broadcast, the announcers referred to Bo Ryan as one of the most underrated coaches in the country, and Krabby as the most underrated player in the Big Ten. I appreciate the sentiment, but again, this seems to be noted in every UW broadcast, so who's underrating them anymore? It reminds me of when I was in Ohio covering Fremont Ross, and I wrote in the paper that Ross point guard Robb Ritzmann was the most underrated player in the Great Lakes League. Mike Pidanick, ever the smartass, said "You're the only one who covers this league and you're always raving about him, so who else other than you would be underrating him?" Good point. At some point that "underrated" tag is a cliche and you need to come up with a better way to describe someone.

-Thought the officiating in this game was subpar, lots of iffy foul calls, out of bounds calls, and resulting makeup calls.

-Did you hear Doris Burke call Hughes a "next level" player? What do you think? The potential is there.

-I like Matt Painter and he's doing a great job rebuilding that program. But he's too demonstrative for my taste, constantly running up and down the sidelines, arms wildly gesticulating. Not to say that Bo doesn't get emotional and let refs have it, but he's steadier. When Landry hit that big shot against Michigan the other night, Bo clapped twice, pointed at him, and said "nice shot." Not that anyone heard him. Leave it to the kids and the fans to get emotional - I want our leader to be in control of his emotions at most times.

-Landry had a tough game, 2-for-10 from the field. He had trouble finishing in close, and threw up some bad-looking shots.

-On ESPN today Doug Gottlieb, explaining why he didn't hate Wisconsin as an emailer from Florida opined, called the loss to Marquette at the Kohl Center a bad loss, and denigrated the Big Ten. Gottlieb's smarminess is his shtick and he's looking for outrage, but I respectfully disagree. Also: in the midst of praising Kansas for running roughshod over its competition, a "very good Big 12." Really? Outside of Kansas, only Baylor has less than four losses, and they aren't for real. Back to the lead of this post - people have their beliefs and biases and it's going to be awhile until the Big Ten is admired nationwide.

-Indiana in Madison and Minnesota at the Barn - we could be looking at a three-game losing streak heading to Iowa. But I'm optimistic we won't be.

Calling O-H-I-O

SATURDAY ADDITION: Jim wrote a nice story on the Glenville connection in today's Cap Times, read it here. It's sort of buried on madison.com, but it's very well done and worth a read.

Most of you know that I spent my first two years post-UW in a humble little state called Ohio. It was an interesting time. Basically, my buddy Mike Pidanick and I would work 90 hours a week and play Madden and NHL ’96 for the other 78 hours. In warm months we added daily golf, with one year on the links accounting for 95% of my lifetime rounds.

We also spent lots of time watching high school sports, and after returning to Wisconsin I couldn’t help but think: the level of play and athleticism is significantly higher in Ohio. The difference was most noticeable in basketball, where athleticism is easier to spot. But the football players were also better. My second year there, Ben Roethlisberger came into Fremont and threw eight touchdown passes against our hometown boys. Eight! I can’t even begin to imagine a kid doing that in Wisconsin.

This has been on my mind more than usual since we play Ohio State this week. Let’s face it, the Buckeyes are going to take just about anyone they want from the state, but there are still lots of good guys left over. Lots of them end up playing in the MAC. I’m not saying we should be competing with Toledo and Kent State for recruits every year, but would Roethlisberger, Charlie Frye (who we also covered), or any of those other MAC stars contributed at UW? Damn right they would have. But we can also get high-level talented kids that would excel at OSU.

Henry Mason’s efforts have been outstanding mining talent from that state. I may be off a year or two here (Jim can help me out), but in the years preceding Mason’s arrival in Madison, we didn’t get much from Ohio. Kevin Huntley – a Crimson Streak from Fremont St. Joseph Central Catholic – was a solid four-year contributor. But after Mason arrived came a line of real standouts: John Favret, Chris Chambers, Mike Echols, Chad Kuhns (a Bellevue Redman), Lee Evans. Russ Kuhns, Delante McGrew, and Dontez Sanders were starters. On today’s team, Jason Chapman and Kyle Jefferson and standouts, Lance Smith is good when he’s eligible, Shane Carter is making plays, and Otis Merrill, Prince Moody, Daven Jones, Brandon Kelly, and Bill Nagy are also on the roster, most with a chance to contribute some day. All except Moody are northern Ohio, most of them Northeast Ohio, guys.

The Ohio connection, in particular Bedford/Cleveland, is the best pipeline we have going right now. St. Louis was great for awhile – the Fletchers, Bryant, Starks, etc. – and we’ve got Wes Kemp coming next year. It is vital to the future of this program to keep these alive. We can only get so much out of Wisconsin, the Twin Cities should theoretically be more competitive with Brewster at the U, and Zook and Weis should take more of Chicago than we’re used to. New Jersey is another goldmine, but the rise of Big East football, Schiano at Rutgers in particular, and Penn State's return to relevance will make it tougher to get Ron Daynes out of that region.

I love how the Bedford kids talk about Chambers and Evans with such reverence, hopefully Jefferson can keep the tradition going.

As for tomorrow’s games, I have low hopes, but that’s okay. We ought to be a significant underdog, whether PJ plays or not, and have a chance to pull a stunner. My sense is that we will overachieve and play just well enough to lose by single digits. There’s nothing wrong with Ohio State, but the fact that they’re the clear-cut #1 nationally is more a reflection of college football’s dearth of elite teams than a reflection of their dominance. Last year’s OSU team would beat this year’s by 20.

Prediction: Ohio State 20, Wisconsin 16