P.J. out for bowl game

Mark Stewart of the Journal Sentinel is reporting that P.J. Hill is likely to miss the Outback Bowl. He got hurt in the first half against Indiana and aside from five carries two weeks later against Michigan hasn't played since. Three thoughts:

1. The injury is a bruised left leg. Anyone else ever hear of a bruise needing two months to heal?
2. Has an injury been more misdiagnosed right off the bat? Hearing Bret Bielema in the aftermath of the IU game and early in he week leading up to Ohio State, I was pretty sure he'd get 10-15 carries against the Buckeyes. Now he's out for the year.
3. After winning the last two games Bielema talked about how we'd be full strength for the bowl game, making us a more attractive choice. Any chance he withheld information about P.J.'s injury to assuage any doubts bowl reps may have had about us?

Overall, though, as long as Lance Smith can play, I'm not worried about the tailback spot for the bowl. He and Zach Brown should be fine, although Lance is better at doing his change-of-pace thing when P.J. is pounding away.

Also on the running back front, Quincy Landingham is apparently going to transfer. Bielema said that because Quincy and his dad see the depth at running back, they see the need to move on. Hard to argue, but didn't Landingham come is as a highly-regarded safety who only switched to running back, his high school position, because of eligibility issues with Smith and John Clay during fall camp? This loss bothers me for defensive backfield depth reasons.

New Brewers blog: Brewercentric

This blog is called Badgercentric, but back in the beginning I promised thoughts on the Brewers, Packers, etc. Turns out University of Wisconsin sports have occupied most of my words. It's my main passion, and the fact that we're not exactly in prime baseball time has contributed too.

But a few friends from West Bend who have emailed one another regarding crucial Brewers matters as part of a group modestly named "Brewers Roundtable" got pretty fired up about the Francisco Cordero departure and Scott Rolen rumors and, sick of reading about Wofford hoops, proposed moving the discussion to the blogosphere. It seemed like the discussion might get lost here, so now we have:

Brewercentric

http://brewercentric.blogspot.com

The blog will have a little bit different feel than this, as a bunch of guys are involved in writing posts - Scott Burch, Jon Corbett, Adam Hertel, Walt Landvatter, and Craig Pintens - and they are all much better at articulating Brewers-related emotions than I am. If you'd like to get access to making posts and not just comments, send me an email; warning - if I don't know you, expect heavy skepticism.

Tell your friends and neighbors, tell Rob Deer and Graehme Lloyd, tell Doug Melvin, because we've got a bunch of guys with ideas for what he should do with our favorite team.

Wisconsin-Marquette thoughts

In Chicago for the Zima family Christmas celebration, and missed much of the second half of yesterday's game chasing around Will and my cousin's son Niko.

Probably for the best, would have been hard to watch. From the elevator I saw repeated close-ups of Wes Matthews Sr., which made me throw up in my mouth.

We got beat by a better team that played better than us in a game where we didn't play that bad. Credit to Marquette, they've got a chance at a realy nice year. Thoughts:

-Dominic James was awesome. Still think you should just let him shoot jumpers, but his penetration really broke us down.

-They outrebounded us 41-34, which should not happen. Burke and Barro had 21 points combined, which should not happen.

-Butch played well, as did Leuer. Landry only took six shots. Hughes had 16 but really struggled, 4-15 from the field and 7-13 from the line, he never looked comfortable.

-Don't see turnover numbers right now, but we had a lot, didn't handle their pressure well.

-Liked how Bo adjusted the starting lineup to fit the opponent rather than being stubborn, even though it didn't make much of a difference.

Beckum denied Mackey Award

Well, it looks as though Wisconsin will be shut out of the major individual awards this year. Fred Davis of USC won the Mackey Award for outstanding tight end, beating out Wisconsin's Travis Beckum and Missouri's Martin Rucker. My question is, why?

Beckum had 73 catches for 960 yards and six touchdowns. Davis had 49 catches for 753 yards and six touchdowns. Was it because Davis was a superior blocker? Maybe, I didn't watch USC's running game closely enough to tell, but I know that Davis is basically an overgrown wide receiver, sort of like Beckum.

Wisconsin-Marquette: Still don't care for Tom Crean

Back in this blog's very first post, so, so long ago (2-1/2 months), I declared that while I did not like Marquette basketball, I was working on developing a healthier attitude about the Golden Eagles or whatever they call themselves nowadays. It's hard work, and there are still slip-ups - like the end of the last sentence - but I'm making progress.

For instance, while watching Marquette blow out Oklahoma State in Maui a couple weeks ago, I sort of had an admiration for how well they were playing - a buzzsaw. Although I think Dominic James and Wes Matthews are a tad overrated, they are still very good players, and for my money Jerel McNeal is the best player on the team and may be the most underrated player in the country. I really admire how Ousmane Barro has worked to improve over his career, even though he seems to have regressed this year. That really just leaves Dan Fitzgerald as an obviously dislikeable player.

I still don't care for Tom Crean, though. Granted, this comes from a fan of Marquette's biggest rival, and I'm sure there are plenty of fans out there who don't care for Bo Ryan. But Crean just bugs me.

It's the seemingly fake tan he's often sporting, leading to the hilarious nickname Tan Cream. It's the way he or his press secretary, Todd Rosiak, usually doesn't go four sentences without mention Dwyane Wade or the 2003 Final Four fluke (there I go again). It's how he had about 25 kids transfer out of his program over three or four years. It's the fact that he wouldn't schedule UW-Milwaukee until the core players from their awesome run had exhausted their eligibility. It's how, according to the postgame sidebar in the Journal Sentinel, Crean kept his starters in pressing and chucking up 3-pointers at the end of a 40-point win over the Panthers.

And at the root of it all, he just seems phony. Again, I'm sure people think the same thing about Bo, but Bo is funny, a great sense of humor coupled with a healthy dose of self-deprecation - he doesn't take himself too seriously. I don't get the sense that Crean has that side to him. Everything seems calculated, even his warm moments. I Googled Kyle Singler last week and the first picture I saw of him was receiving an honor in Maui, and guess who was standing behind him? Tan Cream in a Hawaiian shirt looking like he was ready to hug Singler.

Being an open-minded man, I invite any Marquette fans or people who know Crean to vouch for him here, we're willing to listen. Or do MU fans feel roughly the same way I do, but don't care because the program is in better shape than it was under Mike Deane and Kevin O'Neill?

As for the game, I haven't watched the last two UW-MU matchups, bad for my blood pressure. Last year we listened for the score on our way to Chicago for Christmas, and Nick couldn't believe my anxiety level; it is pretty ridiculous, but I'm working on it. My gameday boycott stems from the 2004 game, where Travis Diener lit us up in a performance that gave me the dry heaves and had me throwing pillows in front of my mother-in-law.

On the court, I predict Marquette pulls out a close one. That was my inclination going into the season, and seeing our performance against Duke only reinforced it. Of course, Marquette doesn't have the shooters Duke does, and this one's in the Kohl Center.

But I don't like the individual matchups. Yes, we have height on them, but I see Joe Krabbenhoft and Marcus Landry struggling to mark McNeal and Matthews. On the other end, I'm not sure Krabby and Landry's height advantage is as big an advantage, both Marquette guys can probably deny the post well or body up, whichever way they choose to play it. This goes back to my thoughts in yesterday's post - with that fourth scholarship do you take a 7-footer or a 6-6 guy in the Matthews mold? I guess we'll see which approach wins out on Saturday.

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.

Spotted: Rob Jansen at Cameron Indoor Stadium

Just got this email from Andy:

People who wear gray Wisconsin shirts ... Rob Jansen is one of them: www.uwbadgers.com/blogs/default.aspx?postid=335

I think I've spotted the young man, but I'm not quite sure. Can someone clarify? You'll have to click on the picture below or go to the picture on the UWBadgers site and magnify the photo.


What, you couldn't get seats next to Andy North, Rob?

How was it, the result aside?

Wisconsin-Wofford hoops thoughts

Gotta be honest: thought the Wisconsin-Wofford basketball game was tomorrow night, but because of the 8 o'clock start I only missed a couple minutes of uninspired basketball. Even so, you're going to get a couple minutes of inspired blogging right now:

-We're still ranked? Thought that Duke loss might knock us down a peg or 12. Hope we're still ranked after Saturday.

-I like throwback jerseys in all sports, but in some cases they just serve as reminders that the evolution in uniform design has been for the overall good. Take the Badgers' jerseys tonight. Without any red trim, they looked like practice jerseys. Also thought the knee-high striped socks were a bit much, and borderline disrespectful to Wofford. Think they'd wear those against Ohio State?

-Jon Leuer had a great backdown half-hook move in the first half. He's going to be really good for us sooner rather than later.

-Stephen Bardo and Dave Ryan talked about Marcus Landry's transition from the power forward to the small forward spot, and it was the first time I'd really thought about that as a reason for his lack of scoring and assertiveness this season. But in the swing, he shouldn't be getting the ball in radically different spots, should he?

-The difference between Brian Butch averaging 11-12 points per game and 15-16 points per game was illustrated when he missed a wide-open layup in the first half. The announcers said he should have dunked it, and he did dunk one a couple minutes later - he can do it, but his footwork and timing need to be absolutely perfect for it to happen. I would have thought that after five years of college he'd have added explosiveness to his game, but at this point it's not going to happen. It's a shame, too, because he's got a scorer's mindset that is rare in big men.

-Greg Stiemsma had a layup soon thereafter that it looked like he could have dunked, same deal as Butch. Stiemsma's game is unlike that of any other big man I can remember - great passer, unconventional but effective jump shot, soft inside on offense, ferocious shot blocker.

-Stiemsma should have been ejected after his technical, that was unnecessary. He didn't play anymore after that, so I suppose the point is moot.

-Jason Bohannon played great tonight. My favorite play of his wasn't his 3-pointers, but his offensive rebound tip-in. He's not the most athletic guy out there, but he's got good court sense. Also, just noticed that his current ringtone is Kanye West's "Good Life," which makes me feel better about my run with "Golddigger" as my ringtone.

-Great scoring balance tonight: J-Bo 14, Joe Krabbenhoft 12, Landry 11, Butch 9, Trevon Hughes and Michael Flowers 8.

-I loved Steve Bardo and the other Flyin' Illini when they were in college - Kenny Battle, Nick Anderson, Kendall Gill, Marcus Liberty, Lowell Hamilton. Bardo had a nice shout-out to Wisconsin high school hoops late in the game.

-We've quietly got the third-longest home winning streak in the country right now. Have a dark suspicion it ends Saturday.

-Here's a new drinking game - if the announcers calling a Badger game this year make it through a whole game without mentioning Krabbenhoft's lifetime stitches, drink 10 beers.

-Nice little scoring move by Tim Jarmusz late in the game.

-Finally, did you see how that kid from Wofford shot free throws? He held it one-handed, underhanded, before stopping and starting two other times. It would have been one thing if he was money shooting it that way, but the three I saw him shoot were missed badly. Here's a tip for the kids from Ken Tappa: make your free throw motion as simple as possible, the ability to repeat the motion whether fresh or fatigued is so important.

BCS thoughts

The big news for Badger fans stemming from tonight's bowl shakeout is that we're playing Tennessee in the Outback Bowl. That'll be a good matchup - pretty much like Arkansas last year, only this team has a better passing game. The Vols were the overwhelming preference of Badgercentric votes, who voted cast 11 of 16 votes for Tennessee. More as we move toward the game. Here are the initial reactions from this corner after tonight's announcements.

-I like what Fox did putting cameras with different teams, a la CBS and the Selection Sunday show. Did you see how packed Hawaii's arena was? The enthusiasm was great.

-So we get LSU-Ohio State for the whole ball of wax, eh? You might be expecting whining or a rant from me about now, but you know what? These are the probably the two best we have this year after he regular season ... which says something about the mediocrity of college football this year.

-Or it says something about the excitement and unpredictability of college football. Matt Hayes of the Sporting News is typically highly ignorable; his shtick is to eschew thoughtful analysis in favor of one-liners aimed at filling his Inbox with hate mail (and believe me, I've had several written before hitting delete and not giving him the satisfaction). But he wrote something published on Yahoo last night that was pretty good, read it here. He wrote that USC and Oklahoma should emerge to play for the national title. Can't disagree that those two (or Georgia ... or Virginia Tech) are the most deserving teams at the time, and there should be a playoff, but as is often said, in college football every week is a playoff, and these teams faltered for whatever reason.

-Best thing about the title game matchup: no spread offenses, just real men lining up and trying to beat each other up. I will get off this tangent someday.

-Happy for Kansas getting a BCS bid, but did they deserve it over Missouri? Hell no.

-Michigan gets a January 1 bowl in a year where they lose four games, including one to a Division I-AA team. There is no justice. Unless Tim Tebow scores about seven touchdowns on the Wolverines' sorry-ass defense. If Zach Brown and Tyler Donovan put 37 on these losers, Tebow can.

-Strangely, I feel happy for Illinois, even if their Rose Bowl bid does signal a beast to be reckoned with to our south.

-Best non-January Bowl: Sun Bowl, with South Florida playing Oregon, if Dennis Dixon is playing. Or, as usual, the Holiday Bowl: Arizona State vs. Texas.

-Michigan State gets Boston College (free fallin'!) and Oklahoma State is excited to play Indiana (JUST ASK MIKE GUNDY! HE'S A MAN!). Good for the Hoosiers shaking off their bowl drought in honor of Terry Hoeppner. Poor Penn State, which gets Texas A&M in the Alamo Bowl in what should be a home game for the Aggies.

-By my count Wisconsin beat just three bowl teams this year: Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana. Iowa did not reach a bowl - and didn't deserve to. And Purdue stole Minnesota's coveted spot in the Motor City Bowl - guess those Gopher band geeks will need to make "'07 Beat Miami (OH)" patches for their letter jackets.

-I'm going to take the Heisman poll off the blog tonight, but we got 36 votes. The final: Darren McFadden 14, Tim Tebow 7, Glenn Dorsey 6, Todd Reesing 3, Colt Brennan 2, Chase Daniel 2, Pat White 1, Chris Wells 1. Here's betting Tebow wins, but like this season, anything can happen.

Decker-Ikegwuonu: A revisionist perspective

Before getting into the BCS mess that may or may not be resolved later today, I want to touch on a comment left on the blog last night from "Tom."

Decker "appeared" to punch him in the groin. He did not actually do it. Ike lost his jock trying to cover Decker and had to leave the game to go find it.

To refresh your turkey-soaked memory, in Wisconsin's win over Minnesota two weeks ago Minnesota wide receiver Eric Decker punched Wisconsin cornerback Jack Ikegwuonu in the groin area. The story I referenced did use the word "appeared," and while I can't find any clip of it happening on YouTube, did it actually happen?

As fate would have it, Jim Polzin talked with Ike and Travis Beckum this week for a story about exploring their NFL draft options, and Ike had this to say about the incident:

Ikegwuonu admitted he lost his focus after being punched in the groin by Minnesota wide receiver Eric Decker during the second quarter of UW's regular-season finale two weeks ago at the Metrodome.

"That's my fault,'' said Ikegwuonu, who used the words "cheap shot'' and "bush league'' to describe Decker's actions. "I didn't see it coming. It kind of took me out of my game. I was more thinking about getting him back than playing my technique and doing things like that, and obviously it showed. I've just got to let those things go by and just forget about them."

Ikegwuonu, who left the field for one play after the punch, said he didn't know what precipitated Decker's actions.

"Maybe his coach told him to do it, I don't know,'' Ikegwuonu said. "When I look at the way the game went, that's the only thing I can think of because it was really early in the game. I probably had covered him maybe a handful of plays before that. I don't even think I touched him before that. That was really surprising."

Maybe his coach told him to do it? Now, it's no secret I'm not Tim Brewster's biggest fan, but I have a hard time alleging a head coach of instructing one of his players to punch another player in the scrotum. We all know how much that hurts, right?

But as for Tom's "appeared" defense (must be a lawyer): after seeing him lie on the ground in agony, and reading his words, can you still deny it happened?

For another look at it, read the Journal Sentinel's Badger Blog.

-If you didn't click on the first link above, you should, it's a quick read but touches on the juniors' thoughts going into a crucial decision making time. What do other people think about about these guys' draft prospects?

For Beckum, I think he's a wonderful athlete and player. However, at present, he's probably too small to be a tight end and a little bit too slow to play wide receiver in the NFL, although I don't have the stopwatch figures to back that up. If you can get open, you can get open, though, and he'll be a hell of an H-back when he gets to the league. However, do H-backs ever get drafted before the third round?

For Ike, it's been well-documented that he has the size/speed combination to succeed as an NFL corner, but had an inconsistent season. There's also his run-in with the law in DeKalb, we'll see what happens there. Never spoken with him, but he seems like a thoughtful, articulate young man. My guess is that if you average the league's opinion of him, he's a third round pick right now, but that a couple teams might consider him first round material, and it only takes one to make it happen.

As said before, if they both come back we are stacked next year.