Time to demand more from Ryan's Badgers
by Adam Hoge on Mar 22, 2010 5:49 PM CDT
in Wisconsin Badgers Basketball
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PrintIn the wake of Cornell's thrashing of the Badgers in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday, there is a lot of talk about whether or not the 2009-10 UW men's basketball season was a successful one.
It's a great question.
On one hand a team that was predicted to finish in the bottom half of the Big Ten and struggle to make the NCAA Tournament, beat the likes of Duke, Michigan State, Purdue and Ohio State -- all of which are in the Sweet 16 -- en route to a No. 4 seed in its 12th straight NCAA appearance. On the other hand, a team with readjusted expectations to win the Big Ten title, win the Big Ten Tournament and reach the Final Four took major steps backward at key times and failed to accomplish any of those goals.
So are we supposed to praise the Badgers for overachieving or judge them for a disappointing late-season swoon?
Maybe it's time for Badger fans to demand more from Bo Ryan.
Sure, nine straight NCAA appearances (12 in a row for the program) are impressive, but a 2-6 second round tournament record is not. Bo Ryan has built the Wisconsin program into one of the country's most consistently successful ones, but it will never become elite until it does more in March.
It's simple. With success comes expectations and it's fair for any Badger fan to expect more than heartbreaking losses to 7th-seeded UNLV in 2007, 10th-seeded Davidson in 2008 and 12th-seeded Cornell Sunday.
What we see every year from Bo Ryan is a team that overachieves by beating good teams at the Kohl Center and competes for a conference title against coaches and players they know like the back of their hand. Once the Badgers step outside the Kohl Center bubble and the Big Ten bubble, a very average squad emerges. One that can't play with the nation's elite and can't step up its game against sharp-shooting mid-majors that don't care how good of a defense they are playing against while they splash 30-foot threes in like it's nothing.
Sometimes -- and most of the time outside the Big Ten -- winning basketball games comes down to making shots. I can't tell you how many times I heard about "making shots" from UW coaches and players in the last few weeks while Wisconsin got hot against Indiana, Iowa and Illinois and then got locked in a freezer against Illinois in Indy, Wofford and Cornell.
We saw a team wearing red Sunday that frankly didn't care much about their own defense or the defense it was playing against. Cornell just cared about making shots and advancing. It was simple.
Bo Ryan's formula of playing great defense, not turning the ball over, winning the rebounding margin and making more free throws than the opponent attempts works like clockwork in the Kohl Center. Unfortunately the Badgers don't get to play postseason games in Madison.
It's no fluke that Wisconsin beat the Spartans, Buckeyes and Boilermakers at the Kohl Center but lost to all three of them on the road. It's also no fluke that UW beat Duke this season in Madison, but got blown out at Cameron Indoor Stadium two years ago.
So how does Bo take the next step? Well, it comes down to the same thing I wrote about before the Badgers played their first game this season: recruiting. At some point, Wisconsin just needs guys that can simply put the ball in the basket.
And you might say, "But Adam, it's not like UNLV, Davidson and Cornell were loaded with five-star recruits."
My response to that is, "Yeah, that's why they didn't make the Final Four either." (We'll see about Cornell, which by the way is a more complete team than both UNLV and Davidson, but I would still be surprised if they can get by Kentucky and West Virginia.)
The bottomline is that Bo Ryan has won the Big Ten, he's won the Big Ten Tournament, he's made the Elite Eight and he puts a competitive team on the floor year in and year out. But here we are again talking about a team that fell short of the Final Four.
It's hard to say this was an unsuccessful season, but there is zero hardware to show for it -- not even a Maui Invitational championship trophy. There's no doubt this year's team was better than last year's, but when it comes down to it, neither team won the Big Ten, both lost in the first round of the conference tournament and both lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
So what's the difference? Not much.
Next year, Jon Leuer will return as a pre-season All-American candidate and Jordan Taylor takes over an offense with a chance to become the best point guard in the league. But UW will once again have major holes to fill and right now it's hard to argue that those holes will be filled with players capable of making the Badgers a Final Four team.
Could Wisconsin be good enough to win the Big Ten next year? Yes. Should they stretch UW's NCAA Tournament appearance streak to 13? Yes. But will they be good enough to make a Final Four run?
Well, there's a lot of work to do.
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This was an ugly loss, and I'd GLADLY swap spots with any other 4 seed...after the fact, of course.
Trevon Hughes had 7 turnovers yesterday; which is abysmal. If you take JUST Trevon’s turnovers, and Cornell gets only two points off each turnover, then Wisconsin would ONLY have lost 69-73. Still heartrending, but not as bad. Take away half the breaks Cornell got (the ridiculous CHARGE Trevon was called for when any idiot would have counted the basket) and Wisconsin MIGHT have won this game. And we’ll never know, because Wisconsin lost.
Ultimately, the officials were horrid yesterday, but Wisconsin killed itself (or Trevon killed Wisconsin, depends how you look at things) against a solid shooting squad. What made things worse was the fact that Wisconsin DIDN’T adjust after the first steal (Okay, Leuer got the ball swatted away, which should have been a foul…) and the game spiraled out of control.
One piece to Trevon Hughes if you want to get to the NBA: MAKE A LAYUP! Maybe that’s harsh, but he’s just missed SO MANY…
by OBrienSchofieldismyHero on Mar 22, 2010 8:06 PM CDT reply actions
I thought the biggest play of the game was the wide open layup Hughes missed after that sweet spin move.
That layup would have cut the deficit to two points in the first half and continued to build momentum Wisconsin was already getting back. Instead, he misses the layup and Cornell hits a three on the other end to go up seven. Wisconsin never got closer the rest of the game.
Bucky's 5th Quarter. SB Nation's Wisconsin Badgers community.
The announcer thought that Hughes started to lose the ball before he even went up with it,
but I’m pretty sure he just missed it.
by Adam Tupitza on Mar 23, 2010 12:59 AM CDT up reply actions
Hughes having a really bad game, along with our relatively poor defense killed us yesterday. It sure didn’t help that Cornell shot the lights out but it didn’t seem like we did a good enough job switching and showing on screens. Cornell got too many open looks at the basket, which is something you can’t allow a great shooting team to have the luxury of doing.
Another thing that should be mentioned is us getting out rebounded by 7. Too me, that’s just embarrassing. How we were able to do well rebounding against teams like Michigan St. and Purdue but not Cornell is just puzzling. Cornell got way too many second chances, and as a result capatilized on many of these chances.
by packallday555 on Mar 22, 2010 11:33 PM CDT up reply actions
Biggest beef with Bo this year was
the number of minutes Jarmusz got. It is pretty clear what Jarmusz brought to the table, medicore defense and a liability on offense. In almost 22 minutes of play he averaged less than 3 ppg, 3 rebounds and .6 apg. I’m new to this site so maybe you talked about this before but how does he get so many minutes?
If there was one common complaint of the season, this was it.
And it’s still worthy of discussion so don’t worry about bring it up again. Check out the site’s archives and you’ll see a number of stories and comments about the minutes Jarmusz got. He should have been out of the starting lineup WAY before he was actually taken out.
Bucky's 5th Quarter. SB Nation's Wisconsin Badgers community.
Even as a back up
I thought he got to many minutes. Thought Wilson should have been the 7th guy after evans
Your right. Jarmusz was mainly used because he was supposed to be their defensive stopper but the reality he is no better then average on defense, and presents absolutely no offensive threat to opposing teams. Seeing him catch a pass, and preceeding to do his typical pump fake despite having an open look at a shot grew old to me.
I think Bo kind of was hoping he could take over the role Krabbenhoft played for us but obviously that didn’t happen. It would have been nice to see Wilson play over him as well as Brueswitz, who is a guy that the potential to be a player just like Krabbenhoft, only possibly better.
by packallday555 on Mar 22, 2010 11:37 PM CDT up reply actions
Good read.
Heard basically the same conversation on ESPN radio today, and on the wisconsin state journal articles. Some people calling for Bo to leave, which I think is way too much. He is a great coach, who probably the best at getting the most out of his players. That being said, is it too much to start thinking the Badgers should not only consistently be making the NCAA, but also begin to advance further in the tournament? I know I may be biased coming after a loss, but I don’t think it is.
Offense was not the problem, as the Badgers shot almost 50%, but versatility on the defense end seems to be a glaring weakness. The Badgers are praised on there D, but how much is that due to the low number of possesions, and how much is that due to the Badgers D?
Also mentioned the recruiting, and I think this is also an issue. I wouldn’t mind it so much, if there weren’t sooo many (of what seem to me) the exact same player sitting the bench, not getting any minutes. For every Mike Wilkinson, there seems to be four JP Gavinski’s not playing. I’m not saying there not good athlete’s, but they don’t seem to be D1 college athlete’s. It’s not as if Bo is not going after the big names (Evan Turner was almost a Badger according to what I heard on ESPN radio, although I didn’t know that), but he isn’t getting them to commit, despite the number of NCAA appearances. Could the Badgers slow down style be to blame, where more 5 star athletic players want to go to school where they can run and gun, score, and show off all there talents? I’m not sure.
Anyway, I guess I got carried away on this comment haha, but I got give credit to Adam Hodge, and the other contributors who run this blog. I just joined this year, and have really enjoyed the articles and the game threads commenting with everyone. A lot of good discussion, and effort being put into the blog and it pays off. Good Work!
Appreciate the comments. It's all about the readers who contribute with comments and FanPosts so thank you!
And yeah, Turner chose OSU over Wisconsin (safe to say he might the right choice) and Kansas’ Cole Aldrich was also almost a Badger. Bo seems to have a lot of near misses with recruits (most recently, Vander Blue).
Bucky's 5th Quarter. SB Nation's Wisconsin Badgers community.
I get the feeling that Bo
is kinda like Keady in that he is great up until March but cant get over the hump. I think he will but he needs to recruit a pure scorer who is willing to play within the offense.
by Delaware Boiler on Mar 22, 2010 9:35 PM CDT reply actions
And I think the best way to do that is...
point to what Alando Tucker and Devin Harris have done in the offense we run. Both are playing in the NBA right now. I really think that’s a decent selling point to get a guy who can score the ball consistently.
by Adam Tupitza on Mar 23, 2010 1:06 AM CDT up reply actions
We still have been getting those kinds of players though. Hughes and Leuer were both good scorers for us, and I think both could be considered “pure” scorers.
The Badgers problem is they just don’t ever seem to be playing their best basketball come tournament time. I thought going into the tournament that they would for sure win 2 games, and possibly more if the bracket was set up right.
Hughes didn’t play very well in our 2 games in the tourney and that to me was the reason for our struggles. We were most effective this season when we were running the shut clock down to 10-12 seconds, and when Hughes was creating off the bounce. He did a great job of driving and dishing, and shot really well too. It didn’t really seem like we did a whole lot of that, or at least not effectively.
by packallday555 on Mar 23, 2010 10:33 AM CDT up reply actions
A cautionary tale:
There is a program that once had the exact same kind of success Wisconsin currently enjoys. They existed in a state that did not produce a great deal of its own talent, but recruited smartly, filling its roster with players who fit its style of play and who flew a little under the radar. The result was a program that would challenge for the league every few years, consistently made the tournament and, for over a decade, never lost in the first round.
However, the fanbase became spoiled and looked jealously upon their peers’ successes. So warped was their self image that they ran off their steady (but never flashy) coach following a 20-10 season that culminated with a Sweet 16 loss to the eventual National Champion (in the closest game of their winning run). They replaced this even-keel coach with a young, up-and-coming coaching star who instantly brought in better recruits and a “sexier” style of play.
Initial success was no different from that of the previous coach and eventually the program began to slip well below its historical standards. When the coach’s wandering eyes took him elsewhere, leaving the school in the lurch, a proven, “can’t miss” hire was made from one of the country’s most respected mid-major programs. Four seasons later, the school is looking for another coach after their program has now descended to its historical low-point.
Here’s the difference: Iowa (if you hadn’t figured it out) had nearly 40 years of uninterrupted competitive basketball teams. Although their thought process may have been misguided, it was understandable that they felt it was time for the “next level”. Wisconsin, however good they’ve been for a decade, has known futility in the very recent past. The “height” of UW basketball after Bud Foster was consecutive 2nd place finishes in the early 1960’s. Think back to Stu Jackson; the Badgers had both Michael Finley and Rashard Griffith on the same team and could only muster an unimpressive second-round loss to Mizzou after finishing 7th in the league. Prior to the magical Final Four run, Dick Bennett’s coaching apex at Wisconsin consisted of a 32 point output in a first round loss to Missouri State (they of the previously-alluded-to Steve Alford).
This is all to say: Stop it. Stop it, all of you. You are Wisconsin. You have a birthright in Hockey and two decades of good-to-great football. The fact that Bo Ryan has elevated your basketball program (and do not kid yourselves into thinking Bennett had already done this by virtue of one great run) to its current status is gravy. You have, by all accounts, one of the truly great teachers and (perhaps more importantly) people in the entire profession. Never loose sight of how lucky you all are to have Bo Ryan lest you become Iowa.
Less memorable than Sam Okey's Hawkeye career.
by Kyle McCann't on Mar 23, 2010 10:31 AM CDT reply actions 3 recs
Sometimes I think people just get antsy.
There’s such a pervasive culture of rapid turnover in college athletics that I almost feel like one fanbase sees another school making a move and thinks, “hey, wouldn’t it be great if we got someone like coach X” without considering what they already have.
I don’t even know if Wisco has had a few “weird years” so much as unlucky ones. In the last three NCAA’s, they’ve been eliminated by two schools that were far better than their seeds (Davidson and Cornell) and one that was just a poor match-up (Xavier). The reason I’ve never liked the idea of a playoff for football is that the best team would not necessarily win. It’s about match-ups. Sure, there are those that feel like if a team really is the best team, they will win regardless of the competition but that is simply not true. NC State, Villanova, Arizona and Syracuse are just a few of the National Champions in the past few decades to have won while probably not being the “best” team. Hell, I am the only non-Wisconsin fan I’ve ever met who actually picked Dick Bennett’s 2000 team to reach the Final Four. Keep in mind, at the time, Wisconsin wasn’t what we know them to be today. They made the tourney once or twice a decade at that point. But I looked at their bracket and thought, “if the teams get through that I think should, Wisconsin is going to be a really bad match-up for them.” Sure enough, the only team that figured out how to beat them was the one in the tourney that knew them best (MSU).
Sorry for the long digression, but my point is this: in college basketball, if one measures success in championships then they will certainly be disappointed. The days of Wooden’s UCLA teams are over. Only a handful of schools have won multiple championships in the last 30 years. There is too much room for the unexpected with so many teams and such a large tournament. What Ryan does, that simply is not appreciated enough, is he gets you there. He gives you a chance. It’s like Lotto, you gotta be in it to win…
Less memorable than Sam Okey's Hawkeye career.
by Kyle McCann't on Mar 24, 2010 9:01 AM CDT up reply actions
I don't disagree with anything you said.
But I will say that if you are losing to Davidson, UNLV, and Cornell then you simply weren’t the best the team in the tournament so it doesn’t really matter if you got a bad draw. You were going to lose eventually anyway.
I’m not so much worried about who Wisconsin is losing to, I’m worried about the fact that other than one season, they aren’t getting anywhere near the Final Four, despite having two 30 win teams.
Bucky's 5th Quarter. SB Nation's Wisconsin Badgers community.
But how do you know
those teams aren’t overachieving to reach 30 victories in the first place? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Bo Ryan do an “average” job with a team.
it doesn’t really matter if you got a bad draw. You were going to lose eventually anyway.
Actually, that was kind of my point: If one of the eventual vanquishers of Wisconsin were to have met their demise at the hands of an equally difficult match-up prior to facing the Badgers, who’s to say Wisconsin doesn’t go to the Final Four? Again, from experience, I remember Iowa getting upset in the first round a few years back by Northwestern State. NW St. would have been easily beaten by the majority of the teams in the field, but after I researched a bit about that team my heart sank; I knew the one style Iowa struggled with were full-court press, man-to-man teams. I looked ahead a thought, “man, if Iowa can get out of that first game, I love their chances to make it to the Final Four.” However, they did have to play that first game. End of story.
Without saying much more on the matter, unless you are one of the truly elite programs (and we’re talking about a very small number), there is just as much luck as skill involved in advancing deep into the tourney. In other words, using tournament progression as a benchmark for success is not the fairest way to assess coaching performance…unless you are Kentucky, Kansas, UNC, Duke or UConn.
Less memorable than Sam Okey's Hawkeye career.
by Kyle McCann't on Mar 24, 2010 1:27 PM CDT up reply actions
Good points.
Without saying much more on the matter, unless you are one of the truly elite programs (and we’re talking about a very small number), there is just as much luck as skill involved in advancing deep into the tourney. In other words, using tournament progression as a benchmark for success is not the fairest way to assess coaching performance…unless you are Kentucky, Kansas, UNC, Duke or UConn.
This really is true. Just look at some of the teams that everyone figured had no chance of getting past Kansas..Hell, Northern Iowa might be able to make a run now that Michigan St. is without Lucas. A lot of how far you can go in the tournament really depends on what the teams around do, or don’t do for that matter.
by packallday555 on Mar 25, 2010 12:14 AM CDT up reply actions
You give Ryan
DeJuan Blair and I promise he’s going farther.
Less memorable than Sam Okey's Hawkeye career.
by Kyle McCann't on Mar 23, 2010 11:10 AM CDT up reply actions
Dixon in Pitt is like
Roy Williams when he was in Kansas. Pitt seems to choke every year in the tourney
You know, as crushing as the last few years’ losses have been, I have a hard time complaining too much about any of them.
Losing Leuer for 9 games in the middle of the season this year, Butch getting hurt in 2007 – those are situations that would kill any team’s momentum.
The only loss I would really say was a bad one was to Davidson – even in that game, the Badgers lost their only guard capable of hanging with Curry. People forget that game was tied at halftime before Hughes got hurt.
If he can keep one of his decent teams healthy all year – no, last year’s squad doesn’t count as “decent” (and yet Bo still pulled off a 12 – 5 upset) and still lose early in the tourney, well, then we’ll have a problem.
Until then, just be happy with Bo brings to the table. No recruiting scandals, top 4 Big Ten finishes every year, the occasional run to the Sweet 16 and a 30-win season here or there.
Hughes's injury in that game hurt UW offensively, not defensively against Curry
Don’t forget Michael Flowers was UW’s No. 1 defender on that team and he guarded Curry the entire game. He was a much better defender than Hughes and even he couldn’t do anything to stop him.
Bucky's 5th Quarter. SB Nation's Wisconsin Badgers community.
I guess the bottom line is: Am I mad that Wisconsin is out of the NCAAs early? Again?
Yes and no. Last year, Wisconsin was…not as good as it could have been. To describe it unkindly, it was horrendous. So many ridiculous, fluky losses. The Gophers. The Boilermakers. And the Wildcats. And somehow, the Hawkeyes beat Wisconsin too. So was Wisconsin horrible last year? Yes. Did they pull off an upset in the NCAAs last year? Yes.
Fastforward to this year. Wisconsin is expected to finish 10th in the conference by some. That is just BS: the “contributors” people cite as the biggest reasons Wisconsin got anywhere in 08-09 could not, COULD NOT win a game until the long stretch run that got Wisconsin to the NCAAs that year. And people ignore the facts until…the Duke game. Single-biggest momentum booster ever.
Should Wisconsin have swept MSU, OSU or Purdue? ABSOLUTELY! Had Trevon Hughes not waited an eternity to fire the game winner, or had Nankavil been given the opportunity, Wisconsin WOULD have won that game. I think had Wisconsin had Leuer healthy for the OSU game, the Badgers WOULD have won in Columbus.
This was still a successful season in light of the previous year’s…catastrophe. I think sometimes people should look back on last year and see how much BETTER this year’s team was.
by OBrienSchofieldismyHero on Mar 24, 2010 3:23 PM CDT reply actions
I’m with ya, this year I am not totally disappointed, given the expectations coming into the year. However, the one thing that irks me is that looking back on this season in a few years we’ll see a good record at 24-9, but 4th place in the big ten, one and done in the btt, and a loss to a 12 seed in the tournament in the 2nd round. It is more of a bummer to me than anything, because after watching this team all year I really thought they had what it takes to make a good run in the post season, whereas last year I felt the badgers were lucky just to make it into the ncaa, let only beat a 5 seed in florida st.
But, with Bo’s coaching ability I think the Badgers can become an elite team, and make deeper runs in the tournament instead of bowing out so in the first weekend.
Yeah, looking at it it’s hard to be disappointed with our finish this year based on expectations coming into the year. At the same time though, you have to look at how successful we were this year and really, how good we were this year. When you do that, it’s hard not to be disappointed. Like you mentioned, we beat some really good teams this year, and for the most part always competed in our losses. I really thought if the draw was right, we could possibly win 3 games, and depending on luck, maybe win some more. In Hughes, Taylor, and Bohannon we had the guard play to do so. As well as having Leuer and Nankavil who are both pretty good big men.
And to add to that, we have one of the better coaches in the nation, who has the team playing a “tournament friendly” style. Wisconsin doesn’t live or die by the 3, and their scoring doesn’t come from 1-2 players like you see with so many teams. They play smart and efficiently on offense, and as a result turnovers are limited, and they take opponents out of their game.
The only thing is, they didn’t really do any of these things come tournament time. They didn’t execute on offense, and struggled on defense. It was just frustrating to watch cause it was like we were watching a whole new team or something. So I guess like you I look at it and find it somewhat hard to be upset but at the same time it was hard to see a good team, who could have and probably should have done much more in the tournament sneak by a 13 seed, and then get blown out in the second round.
by packallday555 on Mar 25, 2010 12:28 AM CDT up reply actions
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| UNLV | Thu 09/01 | W 51 - 17 |
Oregon St.
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Sat 09/10 | W 35 - 0 |
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Northern Illinois
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Sat 09/17 | W 49 - 7 |
| South Dakota Coyotes | Sat 09/24 | W 59 - 10 |
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Nebraska
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Sat 10/01 | W 48 - 17 |
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Indiana
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Sat 10/15 | W 59 - 7 |
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Michigan St.
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Sat 10/22 | L 31 - 37 |
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Ohio St.
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Sat 10/29 | L 29 - 33 |
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Purdue
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Sat 11/05 | W 62 - 17 |
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@
Minnesota
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Sat 11/12 | W 42 - 13 |
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Illinois
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Sat 11/19 | W 28 - 17 |
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Penn St.
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Sat 11/26 | W 45 - 7 |
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Michigan St.
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Sat 12/03 | W 42 - 39 |
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Oregon
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Mon 01/02 | L 38 - 45 |
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