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Dialing Down the Badgers
A month ago in this space I wrote that the expectations for this year’s University of Wisconsin basketball team seemed out of proportion to reality. After watching them lose their last three conference games (including two in overtime), I fear it may be time to lower those expectations even further.
Following the Badgers this season figures to be an exercise in frustration. UW’s work ethic and defense will keep them competitive in most games but their inexperience and talent level will make it hard for them to beat better teams. It’s become painfully clear that this Badger team has some serious deficiencies that will ultimately limit how successful they can be. The lack of a physical low post presence has hurt them now that they’ve entered Big(11)Ten play. Their disturbing inability to handle pressure defenses has resulted in an uncharacteristically high number of turnovers. As of this point in the season, no one on the team has demonstrated the ability to be a dependable ”go-to” scorer. And they have yet to replace Michael Flowers as a tenacious on-ball defender.
My previous post detailed how coach Bo Ryan was forced this year to rely on a number of players with relatively little experience in Division I play. It might be time for him to bite the bullet and give those players even more minutes in an effort to develop them for later in this season or even for next year. Apparently Ryan, like myself and many other Badger fans, has already lost some patience with point guard Trevon Hughes, whom he pulled from the game with over 5 minutes left in regulation in Wednesday night’s loss at Iowa. Backup Jordan Taylor performed capably in replacing him, hitting a 3-point basket to send the game into overtime and, perhaps more importantly, committed no turnovers in 20 minutes of play. Fellow freshman Rob Wilson and sophomore Keaton Nankivil have also shown enough promise to merit more consistent floor time.
Wisconsin’s holdovers simply aren’t good enough right now to carry them where they want to go. Forward Marcus Landry’s strength is in the post-up game but he struggles to finish against bigger defenders. Joe Krabbenhoft isn’t a consistent enough shooter to keep defenses honest. Jason Bohannon is miscast as a starting guard and would be better served coming off the bench as a “zone buster”. Jon Leuer could eventually be the Badgers star player but needs to get stronger. And point guard Hughes simply isn’t as good as he thinks he is, which often leads him to try and do too much on his own to the detriment of the team. So, while it is way too early to write off the rest of this season, it seems that the Badgers best chance for improvement comes from the development of their younger players. Hopefully, that would give them a fighting chance by the time the confernence tournament rolls around.
5 Comments
I agree. I’ll go farther, and say that unless Bo can pull off a miracle with this team, The NIT is in their future.
Mike’s analysis is, as usual, spot on. But there is whiff of panic about the situation that I fully understand, but am not willing to accept at present. I see all the shortcoming Mike has accurately laid out, but I note that despite all of these flaws this team is right on the cusp — a close loss to a Top 10 Texas team at home and a couple of OT conference losses are not good, but to me they show how close this team is to being strong.
As this is a young team I have reason to believe there is a chance that they will be able to raise their game as the season wears on, and — given how close I believe them to be — even a slight improvement might be just enough to get them into the first division of the Big(11) Ten and into the tournament.
My point was not to automatically dismiss them from the NCAA tournament but to point out that this team, while still having some ability, may not be quite good enough to satisfy many people in Badgerland.
You are never as good as you think you are or as bad as you think you are. A win over Illinois would be huge. At 3-3, if they can go 7-5 the rest of the way they are in the tourney and that is very doable. Taylor’s play late in the Iowa game is something they can build on…Hughes needs to work through his problems quickly or he will warm the bench. Time to start Leuer…how about for Bohannon and bring Jay-bo off the bench?
You’re wrong, Jon. I’m as good as I think I am. (It’s just not very).