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March 2009 - Posts
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For the third straight year, Thad Matta is losing a seven-footer to the NBA after just one year at Ohio State. B.J. Mullens, the Big Ten's Sixth Man of the Year this past season, decided to declare for the NBA Draft yesterday. Mullens follows Kosta Koufos (2008) and Greg Oden (2007) as talented big men to leave the school after their freshman season. On the surface, it might seem a bit of a strange move. Mullens started only two games for the Buckeyes all season and averaged 8.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, not exactly the types of numbers that are going to open any eyes. But that's okay, because Mullens does have the one number that does open eyes, and that's seven, as in seven feet tall. And if I've heard it once, I've heard it 500 times: You can't teach height My thoughts on Mullens: The three times I saw him live, he didn't seem to have too much of an offensive game outside of three feet. That's fine, if you can just dunk all day. You'll have a great shooting percentage like he did (64.2 percent). When you're playing a team who's best post defender is 6-foot-7, you should be in good shape. When you're getting d-ed up by Dwight Howard? That could be a different story. By the way, DraftExpress.com's prospect profile of Mullens projects him as the 18th pick in this year's draft. Among Mullens' 24 listed weaknesses? Turnover prone, work ethic, Basketball IQ, likelihood of reaching potential, not ready to contribute immediately. Who wouldn't want to draft this guy?!? But in all seriousness, best of luck to B.J. Hopefully with the fat paycheck he'll be cashing in short time, he can clean up that 'stache.
Coming up today: We'll have the next season look ahead up a little later, I promise. In the meantime, if you want to read about Bromance and man-dates from a dude dunking on a FisherPrice hoop, click here.
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I love the NCAA tournament. I am a red-blooded American male, after all. But there is one thing that gets me about it every year.
It's the end.
On a personal level, that means the end of six months of something to distract me from doing something constructive on the four nights a week I'm not drinking. On a "professional" level, the end of Uncle Bo's fireside chats.
But neither one of those bother me; replacements can and will be found.
No, what really pulls at me are the shots the shots of the senior who just fouled out with two minutes to go and his team down nine or clanked a free throw that would have kept his team's comeback hopes alive. It really sucks, what that guy is going through. For the last four years of his life — or, seemingly, 15 if you're Levance Fields — he's been a college basketball player. As soon as that final horn sounds, that chapter is up.
That's got to be tough to come to terms with, I can only imagine. But every year it happens, and every year I kinda feel bad for those guys.
And I guess I'll segue from that to looking back at this UW basketball season, because Joe Krabbenhoft, Marcus Landry, Kevin Gullickson and Morris Cain — all classmates of mine, further driving home the point my college invincibility is coming to an end — have played their last game as Badgers.
Coming off consecutive 30-win seasons, you figured there would be some letdown this year. That sort of success just isn't sustainable at UW. There were some early-season struggles that weren't all that surprising, but things just never seemed to get better.
About the time UW lost in Iowa City on Jan. 21, that letdown was on its way to a free fall. The losses kept coming after that and you could tell it wore on everyone a bit. Bo got testy with the media. Krabbenhoft and Landry, the senior leadership of the team, both walked — heads down, eyes averted — right past a handful of reporters waiting for them after the loss at Northwestern. For a team that had known so much success and so little failure the last two years, January was a difficult month.
But as we all know, things eventually came together, enough to at least make the NCAA tournament as a 12 seed. That extended UW's dance streak to 11 years and gave it a nice season-defining win over Florida State in the first round.
So now that I feel like I just emceed half an end-of-season banquet, might as well hand out a couple of awards. Since all awards end in "-ys", we'll call these the "Buckys." Original, I know. So, without further ado, the 2008-09 Wisconsin Basketball Buckys.
Song of the season
"Stuck Between Stations," The Hold Steady
I've come up with an analogy I think works fairly well. It seems like watching the Badgers early in the season is almost like listening to a radio that is just slightly off its frequency. You can kind of hear the song and the station comes in and out. As the new class of seniors figure out how to be the on-court leaders and everybody sort of settles into their role, it's almost like the radio dial gets bumped and station comes in clear. At least that's how it has happened in the past. This year, for whatever reason, it seemed like the Badgers were staticy all season.
Does that make any sense?
By the way, this comparison has a shelf life of about two years before everyone only iPods, Pandora and satellite radio and no one will ever need to tune a radio again.
And if this is your first introduction to The Hold Steady, maybe consider sending Russell Westbrook or JaJuan Johnson a card or something. They guys (The Hold Steady, that is) rock.
Most improved
Jordan Taylor
Gotta go with the freshman on this one. Early on, it looked like Rob Wilson would be the freshman to shine this year, but as the year went on he plateaued and Taylor steadily improved.
Taylor showed the coaching staff enough that he was even counted on to contribute big time minutes at the end of the opening-round win over Florida State. Big things are waiting in the coming years for him.
MVP
Marcus Landry
Wisconsin’s lack of frontcourt size haunted them most of the season. Think of what it would have been like without Landry.
The senior consistently took a beating guarding the opponent’s best post player and still managed to contribute on the offensive end.
While I will stand by my assertion that Trevon Hughes was the make or break player for the Badgers this season, they’re not even in a position to have anything made or broken without Landry.
Season grade
B-
Before the season started, I thought 23 or 24 wins for this team was a reasonable expectation to have. While finishing with 20 wins is no longer an achievement to throw a party about in the Kohl Center, the fact that the Badgers were able to somehow dig themselves out of that six-game losing streak to win eight of their last 12 speaks to the resiliency of the program.
This season is also a great reminder about just how thin the line between success and failure (in terms of wins and losses) is. Six of UW’s losses were by four points or fewer, and if you want to extend the margin by a point you can add two more defeats to the list. In the end, it was experience, a lack thereof to be specific, that cost this team more than any real or perceived athletic shortcomings. With a lot of experience returning, that should bode well for next season.
But as we all know, things eventually came together, enough to at least make the NCAA tournament as a 12 seed. That extended UW's dance streak to 11 years and gave it a nice season-defining win over Florida State in the first round.
------------ Keep an eye out for a 2009-10 look-ahead in the next day or so. I'll try and talk a few Badger fatalists off the cliff.
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Wow, thanks to a good mid-afternoon nap, this day really kind of got away from me. Sorry for not getting something up earlier. Anyway, I promised a few thoughts about last nights game, so here we go: — While the Badgers won and did a good job closing out the game, one thing caught my eye as I was perusing the post-game stats. Of Wisconsin's final five shots in regulation, all five were three-pointers. That carried into overtime, where UW's first three field goal attempts were all threes as well. So from time time there was 3:12 left in regulation until Jordan Taylor made his layup with 48 seconds left in overtime, a stretch of 7:24 seconds, UW didn't attempt a two. Now, those shots went in and UW won, so it's all good. But if those shots don't go down, like they didn't against Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament, then UW loses again and "can't finish a game." This would be worrysome for me, if I were a UW coach. I'd like to see the offense get some quality looks from close range instead of settling for long-range shots. Now, of course, there's other factors involved. FSU was a big, long team that discouraged deep shots. Some threes were simply too open not to take. But to not even attempt a two-point shot for seven minutes at the end of the game just doesn't seem like a sustainable way of winning games to me. Like I've written before, threes are worth more for a reason: they're tougher shots. — When Trevon Hughes had the ball out top at the end of overtime, I'm sure you had a flashback. I did. There were plenty of times to flash back to, anyway. You could have flashed back to the Texas game, when Hughes drove and forced a tough shot that never really had a chance of going in. You could have flashed back to Minnesota, when Hughes drove and took another tough look. You even could have flashed back to Marquette, when Hughes forced a ridiculously tough three in an attempt to draw a foul. But this time, instead of forcing Hughes was able to drive the lane, spin and get a good look at the hoop. Not only did he make the shot, he was fouled and knocked down the free throw. That's maturity and leadership. For as much as people dog Hughes at times, that is exactly the type of play UW needed (and will continue to need) out of him for the rest of this year and next year. As evidenced by how many times he takes the ball in end-game situations, he has the confidence to play at the end. He just needs to be smart about it and make a good play. Last night he did just that. — I touched on it a little last night, but the significant contributions Nankivil and Taylor made to last night's win could carry over long past this weekend. Those are the types of confidence and swaggar building performances in big situations that can really launch a player. When both are counted on seriously next year, last night's game against Florida State could be something to look back on an see as their springboard.
— To be totally honest, I don't know that much about Xavier. I could lie and pretend I do, but I really don't. I have no problem admitting to that. What I do know is that they beat Missouri, Virginia Tech and Memphis consecutively earlier in the season, which is damn impressive to say the least. The Musketeers are just 7-5 in their last 12 games though, and that includes bad losses to Charlotte and Richmond.
Just from scanning the stats, it looks like Xavier is another long team, albeit not quite as long as Florida State. If the Badgers play the way they did in the second half, the game should be a winnable contest for UW. But that's a big "if."
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Even if I have no idea how it happened. Somehow a team that struggled to close out games all season figured out a way to finish off its most important game of the season. Gotta say I really didn't see it coming. While Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon will and should get a lot of the credit for tonight/yesterday's win, you shouldn't overlook the contributions of Keaton Nankivil and Jordan Taylor. Nankivil was huge for the Badgers midway through the second half as they got back into the game. Taylor was a solid, steady hand controlling the offense for most of the second half and overtime and did a decent enough job on Toney Douglas. Without those two, the Badgers don't win that game. I'm tired, so that's all you're getting tonight. Check back tomorrow for more.
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For those of you who were able to watch the games this afternoon, Dayton's Mickey Perry might have sounded like a familiar name. Perry was a UW recruit and spent a little over a year in the program before transferring to play for the Flyers. He scored five points and had four rebounds in 26 minutes in eleventh-seeded Dayton's 68-60 upset win over sixth-seeded West Virginia today (my first Sweet 16 team to bite the dust). Part of the same recruiting class as Joe Krabbenhoft and Marcus Landry, Perry redshirted his first year on campus and played in just seven games, scoring seven points, his second year before deciding to transfer. Perry and the Flyers will play Kansas in the second round of the tournament Sunday.
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