and Bucky’s ranked 5th.
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They all are. Glad to see it is a Friday game
Filed a quick #Badgers story: No. 5 in South. UW opens Friday vs. No. 12 Oregon (23-12) in San Jose. Ducks finished 10-8 in Pac 12 but won tourney title last night.
— Jeff Potrykus (@jaypo1961) March 17, 2019
The dreaded 5-12 match-up. And so does Marquette. Who is more likely to lose? I say Marquette.
Marquette, way too many turnovers.
Badgers, can't shoot.
Flip a coin.
Reuvers and Happ need to not suck, along with Davison and Trice.
Not sucking would be a good place to start.
Bet the farm on Oregon! 😆
I'm a Badger homer and have them in the Sweet 16. But Marquette and Auburn are my 5-12 upsets. Not sure about M S and Liberty.
I want them to win a couple, don't have a lot of confidence right now. I think they will look better out of the Big 10, seems that after 4 yrs the Big 10 coaches finally figured out how to slow down Happ. As we know he is one of a kind with great footwork and a million move, Oregon hasn't seen anything like him.
It would be nice to see them get to Virginia.
Oh, guys need to hit some shots too.
Marquette? Howard makes way too many turnovers, if he cleans that up they are a load. Their bigs are steady and deep.
The braketmeister, Joe Lanardo just put the Badgers on upset alert too. littlejoe said, " BUCKY, one and done " 
No doubt Bucky got hosed, most mock brackets had WIS on the 4 line, look at these weaklings. St Louis, Vermont, UC Irvine, NorthEastern, wow!!!
Instead they face an Oregon team that won the Big 12 championship, and more importantly have won 8 straight games. Oregon also has 5 players 6'9 or taller to throw at Ethan Happ down low.
The surest way for a favorite to avoid an upset is to limit turnovers. any how Oregon is just another pot-hole in the road, the big prize is next weekend, Tony Bennet and Virginia F'UM BUCKY!!!!!!!!!!
Nervous as usual......would love Bucky to get by the ducks.....and, I don’t have any nails to bite so they gotta win.
I am the biggest Bucky homer there is but I think they just feel like a one and done team this year. Hope I am wrong but they seem to be struggling too much on offense to go very far.
Good Luck to the Badgers. If they can all wake up together, they could win a couple. Happ, Trice, and Iverson have all had their moments this year, unfortunately not all at the same time. Iverson seems to be just finding his game so good timing for him. Hope Brad Davison finds his mojo. I'm not sure what happened to him. Did his critics take the wind out of his sails? F'em, go Bucky!
I have this lingering vision of the Badgers being down 1 with about 5 seconds left with Ethan Happ standing at the line for 2 free throws.
And he shoots both of them differently!
Actually I think beyond lacking a specific FT shot he uses every time, his biggest problem at the line is he doesn't look at the rim until the last second.
Watch him: he looks all over the place and doesn't look at the rim until he has already started his motion. IOW, after it is already too late.
ammo posted:I'm a Badger homer and have them in the Sweet 16. But Marquette and Auburn are my 5-12 upsets. Not sure about M S and Liberty.
fantastic start AMMO, Auburn beat N.Mexico by one, and Murry State is up on Marquette by 11 early in the second half.
Oregon defense really giving Bucky problems.
Just can't make shots.
This team is ****ed next year. No one can shoot
Totally not surprised. Their offense has been so inconsistent all year. One and done just like Marquette.
They can save the program of Alvarez has any courage...
Marquette ran out of gas later in the season and drew a terrible matchup in the tourney. Ja Morant is a modern day Dwayne Wade.
Wisconsin struggled to shoot and score all season. Against teams that can defend they have a difficult time. Oregon took it to them today.
Tyler Herro would have been the perfect guy to help their woes.
I guess I should have seen this coming.
That was about as embarassing as ive seen Bucky
Music City posted:They can save the program of Alvarez has any courage...
Never was a fan of Gard. I don't think he can elevate the program any further. I would be all up for a change.
Reuvers, Trice, Davison, Pritzl, Aleem Ford, and Kobe King next year.
Will adding Taylor Currie and Tyler Wahl (two 6'8", 200 pound guys) be enough to get back to the NCAA?
NIT next year?
Kinda surprised when they shut Happ down, no one else took control. Usually some kid comes out of nowhere and just has an awesome game, but no one came forward. Will be rooting all Big 10 now.
It all comes down to recruiting, not certain Gardo isthe guy for that. I believe he is a fine coach (the shots were open yesterday, can’t coach them through the net), but don’t see the recruits coming in and the bench is thin
They are still paying for the lack of development from the 2015 recruiting class and their response to it (not redshirting Reuvers and Davison last year). Iverson, Pritzl, Thomas, Van Vliet, and Illikainen were supposed to be the foundation to help the program stay near the top of the Big 10 after Hayes and Koenig left. Instead, they didn't meet expectations.
Iverson ended up being a big contributor, especially since he was the lowest rated of the 5 coming out of high school (2 star ranking). He never developed the ability to shoot outside of 5 feet as he was 7 for 55 from 3 during his career, but if the other 4 would have developed like he did (from a 2 star recruit to a solid Big 10 starter) they would have been in good shape.
Pritzl has been OK, but you'd have hoped a 4 star recruit could get onto the floor more as a redshirt junior this year. His weaknesses on defenses and in handling the ball will always limit his minutes.
The other 3 players (all who were 3 or 4 star level recruits and were all over 6'8") combined for 407 points and 283 rebounds in their 10 total years (225 games played) on scholarships. You can't miss that badly on 20% of your roster and not have it have in impact. Instead of redshirting Reuvers a year ago when it was clear he had a huge upside, but needed to get in the weight room for a year, they wasted a year of him having to play for a team that was under .500. Instead of Davison redshirting last year when he kept separating his shoulder, he had to play as well.
So instead of having Reuvers and Davison being 5th year seniors 3 years from now, they wasted a year for both of them. In retrospect, they should have both redshirted last year, but the program got desperate and played them both in order to go 15-18 and miss post-season. If they redshirt, the team probably goes about 11-22 (not really that much different). They made questionable decisions in response to a poor recruiting year 2 years before and they'll continue to pay for it 3 years from now.
Good discussion piece from Evan Flood:
https://247sports.com/college/...pp-Iverson-130377817
Floor spacing and Davison’s role is an interesting point- with Fs that will be able to stretch the floor, will the Badgers have better shot creation next year? Can Tai Strickland make a major leap to next year as a backup PG? Will Potter be eligible?
Depth at pg killed them this year.
I think in the article Flood mentions that Davison was more effective at PG, creating against smaller defenders and doing more with the ball. But where does that leave Trice? Trice is an off G, to me... not a facilitator. Davison is a facilitator...
Davidson was a better pg last year than off gaurd this year. Trice was a better player this year than Davidson, I can’t imagine switching trice to a 2 and Davidson to a 1 making this team anything other than worse.
They really don’t have a decent PG on the roster. Switching Davison or Trice won’t change that.
Gard seems to be a good Xs and Os guy, but if you don’t have talent there’s only so much you can do. Wisconsin is a top 20 destination program, but I’m not sure a lot of good prospects want to play there because of Gard. He simply doesn’t have the rep or pedigree that Bo Ryan had and you have to be an elite developer of talent to get the most out of 2 and 3 star guys which isn’t Gard.
The Badgers are an attractive program but if they want to get back to prominence they need to find a HC that can recruit some decent prospects in the area.
Being short handed at Point guard is a problem. Going 6 of 30 from 3 point range is a problem. Recruiting players for the style of game you play so they can get molded into what you want for the swing offense might scare real athletes away. I feel changes are coming for the Badgers. A new offensive scheme, maybe?
I think Gard, like Bo before him, does adjust to the talent he has on offence (defensive tenants seem to be the same, with Gard having a longer leash for players). They just were not deep this year and it showed