Wisconsin-Minnesota thoughts

Yet another game that was fun to watch knowing that we won. I really like how we took the crowd out of the game early, and it sounded like we had a lot of Badger fans at The Barn. Is that right Schwib and Toohey?

-A terrific game by Pop. He was never out of control, and he really anticipated the Gophers' lackadaisical passes en route to his six steals. My one concern is that he gets caught up in making steals and lets up on playing solid positional defense. Remember, steals don't equate to good defense, and I'm sure Bo won't let that happen with Hughes. I love Trevon's demeanor after all those big plays - no chest pounding, just business as usual.

-Minnesota doubled Butch and Stiemsma in the post at times in the first half, don't remember seeing anyone do that against us to this point. The big guys didn't exactly handle it spectacularly, just kind of survived. Thought the Gophers also used their hands guarding the perimeter more than any other team I'd seen this year, surprised they didn't get whistled for that more often.

-Matchups obviously dictate this, but we seem to be going with a smaller lineup a lot: Hughes, Flowers, J-Bo, Krabby, and Landry. Good lineup for closing out a game and for guarding the perimeter, but not bad rebounding either.

-Early in the second half Minnesota scored a few points in a row to cut our lead to like 15 points and I heard what had to be about 10 fans in the student section shouting the now cliche "Ohhhhhh!" It sounded like a dead cat moaning.

-Liked the offense overall, but too many possessions went down to the last five seconds on the shot block with Pop taking a 3.

-Let's pick a nit: way too many unforced turnovers.

-I think Tubby Smith played too many guys. Ten guys got eight minutes or more, and Tollackson - their only guy who scares me offensively - only got 16. They never seemed to have a cohesive unit on the floor. Do you really need to find minutes for a mediocre guy like Abu-Shamala? Contrast that to our tight rotation, which is eight at the most, and in the Minnesota game was really only six. Playing at that pace, you can use less guys.

-Even though they're not putting up Alando Tucker-esque numbers, Hughes and Butch, probably even Landry, can be counted on to score in double digits, which is important. It was concerning that Landry had three shots blocked, he seemed to be too relaxed on those shots.

-Is it me, or have Flowers and Krabby shot more reverse layups than anyone you've seen in the last 10 years? Those shots aren't easy.

-Finally, and I feel uneasy writing this because it is somewhat critical of a good kid: Tanner Bronson reminds me of a guy we had on our varsity sophomore year. His name was Christoph Schmidt, a foreign exchange student from Germany, and he was terrible. He'd get on the court in garbage time and run around like a chicken with his head cut of before doing something embarrassing.

To be clear, I do not think Tanner is embarrassing, he's a sharp kid who's busted his butt for four years and will be a success in whatever he pursues after college, likely coaching. That's admirable. But I can't remember a time when he's done anything productive with the limited minutes he's gotten at the end of games. Case in point against Minnesota: he misses two free throws badly, that's something he should be able to do. Finish the game on the right note - let Tim Jarmusz and Keaton Nankivil feel like their limited minutes count. Earlier in his career, it was cute, but now I'd rather see a guy like Brett Valentyn, who might contribute some day, get those minutes.

Wisconsin-Indiana thoughts

Upon returning from Germany, I walked into my boss's office for a review of what I had missed. Naturally, the conversation was 90% about basketball, and he told me about the Badgers' wins, especially the one over Indiana. "You've got to see the pick Krabbenhoft set on Gordon," he said.

Just got done watching it, and he was right - it was a crusher. What a night for Krabby. I'll overlook the shaky free throw shooting. Five assists and 12 rebounds, to go along with great defense and pick setting, and he was the man of the match.

-What offense were we running in this game? It sure didn't resemble the Swing. Maybe that's because Indiana was so inept stopping dribble penetration, which is puzzling. Pop had a bad night shooting, but he penetrated well.

-Another nice game for Landry - double-digit scoring and rebounds on plus-50% shooting while staying within himself.

-Butch struggled to finish inside again, but if the tradeoff is that he's now making more 3-pointers, I'll take it.

-Steve Lavin made a good point about our transition defense, saying we "built a shell." Not many people are better in transition defense.

-Eric Gordon is something else, isn't he? Explosive, powerful, skilled. Not always the best decision maker, though, and he's not going to get away with those things against good teams. I think he'll play point guard in the NBA and be spectacular from the start.

-D.J. White is a bully. This is the guy I thought he'd be three years ago when he was a freshman, but injuries really slowed him. The refs really give him leeway, although Landry did draw a charge (with a bit of a flop).

-Lance Stemler is horrible, how was it Sampson played him 26 minutes?

-Deandre Thomas is listed at 6-8, 295. Two-hundred ninety-five what, kilograms? I haven't seen a guy that fat playing Division I hoops since Oliver Miller at Arkansas. It's amazing that with the constant running that comes with basketball that he would still be borderline morbidly obese.

-One of my opponent villains last year was A.J. Ratliff, who went insane during our game in Bloomington. This year he plays five minutes and is a non-factor. What happened there? (Since you asked, my other villains from last year were Drew Neitzel and Kevin Kruger.)

-Lavin made a comment that this is Bo Ryan's first UW team without a surefire first round NBA draft pick. Very untrue. Devin Harris wasn't a surefire NBA player until his junior season. Alando Tucker's NBA worth was debated for three years. The better description would have been that this is his first team without a clear-cut leading scorer or All-Big Ten player.

-Flowers and J-Bo both shot 3-pointers well earlier in the shot clock than usual. They were open looks, but both missed badly.

-Pop's behind-the-back pass to Flowers was just beautiful, went back and watched it five times, before they replayed it five times.

-Good crowd at the Kohl Center, they were really into it.

Hope to catch the Minnesota game tomorrow and make it three wins in three days heading into the Purdue rematch.

Wisconsin-Iowa thoughts

Not one to write home about, but a good win nonetheless. A survive-and-advance feel, and any time you win on the road it's a good deal. Iowa is better than I remember, but a team we should beat.

-This one's fresh in my mind, but how embarrasingly bad was the Big Ten Network's play by play guy? Was his name Jim Kelly? If he wasn't Iowa's regular announcer then I'm not 75% bald. "JJ!" "Hello! (after Johnson's 3)" "Gorney just got run over!" "Coach Todd." Show some professionalism, fella. Or "I can't imagine why these fans are booing" after Pop turned his ankle ... maybe Bohannon's coming in and they've been booing him since he committed to UW three years ago?

-At one point I wrote down "FREE THROWS" and was sure it would cost us the game, but we were money down the stretch. Love sending J-Bo to the line in that situation, he is our closer.

-Butch's 12 were quiet, but his two 3-pointers were obviously huge. Gorney did a nice job not letting him get his feet and legs were he wanted. Conversely, if we would have lost because Seth Freaking Gorney scored 10 points, mostly on long jumpers, I would have puked.

-Really nice game by Landry, although he did mis some short ones. He's found his rhythm on offense, glad he's spending most of his time in the post. His dunk was the most explosive play by a Badger this year, and his late block on Freeman was clutch.

-Tony Freeman had a nice game, but really struggled late in the shot clock and cost Iowa in some key situations. Krabby did a great job on Johnson, who was 1-for-9, the 1 being a wide-open transition 3. As well as Krabby did on defense, he made Johnson work hard on post defense on the other end. Another game showing why Joe deserves so much praise.

-Is it me, or does Kurt Looby travel every time he touches the ball?

-At one point when we were struggling from the free throw line, Cyrus Tate, who shoots them like a blind shot putter throwing a dart covered with melted butter, was the second coming of Rick Barry and I thought we were in big trouble.

-On the postgame radio show Bo just told Lucas that Stiemsma's minutes, while not packed with stats, were big because they gave Butch and Landry legs at the end of the game. That guy might be a pretty smart coach.

-Why isn't Purdue ranked? They're 18-5, 9-1 in the Big Ten - that' ridiculous.

-Switched to the Carolina-Duke game during commercials, and guess what?!? Dickie V's back! And just in time for his twice-annual fellating of the Tar Heels and Blue Devils, baby! Just thinking about how pleasantly quiet the college basketball season has been ... no more. He did manage a plug for our boys and Bo during one soliloquy to Duke's excellence.

Now I have to watch those Indiana and Minnesota games, which I'll enjoy even more than this one.

I'm home

You may have been wondering why I haven't posted in a couple days. No, I wasn't held over by customs agents in Munich (although one member of my traveling party was taken to "another room" by a man with white rubber gloves ... only to return in tact).

In fact, even with a 10-hour flight thrown in there were very few bumps in the road - until we reached O'Hare, where the fog was as thick as pea soup, so bad I can't believe they let us land. All ensuing flights in the Midwest were canceled.

A mere 27 minutes of air time from home, we were forced to stay at a Hampton Inn, a cruel blow softened by reading about our win at Minnesota and watching Marquette's effort against Louisville.

Never fear, I have the Indiana and Minnesota games DVR'd and will watch them later this week, after tomorrow's game at Iowa. We should also talk a bit about the football recruiting class, it seems somewhat ho-hum.

But now it's time to collapse while watching Super Tuesday returns.

Badger coaching tree, part 3

Last week our HR director walked into my office and noticed a picture of Camp Randall Jana got me for Christmas. We talked about Badger football for a bit, and he told me his cousin's husband used to play for UW back in the day and they went to a lot of games.

"What's his name?" I asked, expecting it to be someone like Ryan Sondrup.

"Tim Krumrie," he said.

Oh, he didn't live on my dorm floor freshman year, but I've heard of him. Later I raved about Krumrie's record-setting UW career to Jana, who nodded lovingly as the statistics went in one ear and out the other.

It got me to thinking that I hadn't included Krumrie and a few others on the first two rounds of my Badger coaching tree (round 1, round 2), so here's Round Three.

-Krumrie is now the Chiefs' defensive line coach. Saw him a lot on HBO's training camp show. He's doing a great job in KC with guys like Jared Allen and Tamba Hali, wouldn't be surprised if he got a coordinator look soon.

-Todd Strop played at UW under Barry and was UW-Stout's head coach for a few years before stepping down amidst some ugliness. He's now the special teams coach at South Dakota.

-Bob Docherty is the tight ends coach at UW-Oshkosh.

-Darryl Sims, a former first round draft pick after a great defensive line career in Madison, coached at Oshkosh while I was covering the team, then was head coach of the Cologne Centurions in NFL Europe, then coached with the Raiders. He was a finalist for the Oshkosh head coaching job that went to Pat Cerroni. Good guys, both.

-Ryan Englebert, who started his career at UW before transferring to Stout, is Stout's running backs coach.

-Lance Leipold, who led UW-Whitewater to the Division III national championship in his first season as head coach, was a graduate assistant under Barry from 1991-93. Learning about Leipold's UW ties made me think of him as a possible candidate in the event Bielema leaves in the near future - a candidate in the mold of Jim Tressel, an inspired hire by Ohio State. Then again, let's see who he does with his own recruits.

Love that the list keeps on growing, and these are only pro and college guys. There have to be many more former Badgers coaching high school ball, right? Any leads?

Wisconsin-Minnesota: 2005 pictures

Snowed in one recent morning so I spent some time cleaning up my Hotmail Inbox. Found these pictures from Mr. Scott Burch, taken at the 2005 Wisconsin-Minnesota game. Most people will remember that game for Jonathan Casillas's blocked punt and Ben Strickland's recovery for the game-winning touchdown, but many of us will remember Toohey's similar second-half explosion. Others will remember the Toren-Tappa bipartisan Baggo dominance.

Wow!

Just got back from a press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel at the Bundeskanzlerin (kind of like Germany's White House, only built 10 years ago), and just saw the score of last night's Badger game. Wow! That's a great win, I had that penciled in as a loss. Sounds like Gordon was adversely affected by a wrist injury, but no one will remember that! Another signature win for the program ...

New Wisconsin sports site

Last week I got an email from a guy at a new website covering all Wisconsin sports: SportsBubbler. Check it out at www.sportsbubbler.com.

The guy wanted to know if he could use one of my stories about the Badger football coaching tree on the site, with a link back to this blog. I said sure. Hopefully this will mean more solid members of the Badgercentric community commenting on UW sports, Erin Andrews and The Office.

Goldmine Radio

Another quick plug for something work-related: last week we launched an online radio station for Goldmine Magazine. We're calling it Goldmine Radio, you can check it out at www.goldminemag.com.

Let me know what you think, from the quality of the music to the quality of the stream. We have a pretty wide variety of artists' music, from unknown indie label fare to local musicians to Willie Nelson and Barry White. And if you have friends or relatives who are looking for an outlet for their music, send it my way and we'll put it up.

Hayden, Evans in TSN

A couple notes from last week's Sporting News:

-Nick Hayden was mentioned as one of five East players who helped themselves most in the East-West Shrine Game.

A dominant week assured him of being drafted. Hayden will stick as a third or fourth tackle who consistently contributes.

That's great to hear. Hayden seems to be a good fit as a 3-4 end.

-Lee Evans was mentioned in a column called Restoration Projects.

Bills WR Lee Evans went from an 82-catch season in 2006 to a 55-catch campaign. With his great speed an body control, he should be more of a factor. Evans needs to get stronger and add more polish to his route running, and the team should move him around to make it harder for opponents to key on him.

You know what else would help? Get him a competent quarterback! Same thing Chris Chambers went through in Miami. It kills me to see these talented UW receivers getting stuck with worse QB play in the NFL than they had in Madison. Back in the Chilly-Samuel years, used to be the other way around.