Why do the Badgers recruit these 7-footers who never play? Do they need someone to get the ball out of the gutters or something? Put the star on the team Christmas tree?
@ammo posted:I'm not saying this is the case but what if it leads to NCAA sanctions?
And all I hear is Bo Ryan this and Bo Ryan that. But he walked away, no one fired him. And Greg Gard was his hand picked replacement. If Ryan couldn't see Gard's shortcomings after working with him for years how good of an evaluator was Bo Ryan?
Well... he is the guy that lead the program from being the cute little try hard team to a perennial top tier big ten program with two FFs. No one else in the history of the program achieved that success- so yeah, he’s the standard.
Ryan owed a lot of the recruiting success to Gard- who brought in a fair number of the guys that elevated the program. He owed him the chance to coach the team (in his view, anyway). And then he took Ryan’s teams to BTB Sweet 16s, so everyone thought it was ok. I did. Everyone did.
But over time, we watched the program start to collapse. We’ll never know what would have happened last year, but we know they laid a big fat egg this year, and this graduating class has lost over 50 games- something that hadn’t happened since before Ryan. That’s not good enough. It’s just not good enough!
Two guys the Badgers may want to pursue to replace Gard are Greg McDermott at Creighton, and Darian Devries at Drake. Not sure of their buyout situations, but if the Badgers pulled the trigger on Gard after May 31 there is no buyout money owed to GG.
Shaka Smart to be named as next head coach at Marquette
Pretty good get for the Golden Eagles
I really do enjoy Kevin Harlan’s voice and announcing.
Michigan is the only team from east of the Mississippi River left.....
I was wondering why I didn't give a flip.
@Pikes Peak posted:Michigan is the only team from east of the Mississippi River left.....
CBS must hate that for ratings.
This just in....the Zags are pretty good. I hope Michigan wins tonight, they may be a good test for them as will Baylor if they meet.
Oh come on Michigan.......seriously?? The last Big 10 team and they down at the half.
What a win by the Zags. Almost unbelieveable 3 to win it.
Should’ve been UCLA vs Baylor. Could’ve had the last team in the tourney win it all.
Great basketball game, won on a lucky shot.
Baylor just manhandling Gonzaga to start. Up 23-8 after 9 minutes.
Ass kickin'
Baylor is in their shorts on every possession.
Zags played about as poorly a half as possible. Lucky that it's only 10 the way Baylor's shooting the ball.
Officials seem to want to keep Gonzaga in this game
Just not a good matchup for the Zags
Baylor gets away with a lot of contact when they’re “aggressively defending”. Hand-checking, reaching, contact on shots... kinda bullshit, really...
@Tschmack posted:Officials seem to want to keep Gonzaga in this game
Just not a good matchup for the Zags
The officials did make an impact against Gonzaga to start. The first call of the game was a very questionable charge call against Suggs. Shoudn't have been a big deal, but he picked a up a really dumb foul reaching with 16:56 left in the first. Gonzaga already was having a rough start and then he had to sit and play timid the rest of the half. Suggs is really the only guy they have that has the athleticism to hang in there against Baylor's defenders. Suggs had to be great in this game and he's only been OK.
It looks like Wisconsin lost to the national champion. The Badger defense held up pretty well in retrospect.
This is going to end ugly for the Zags. Down 20 with 10:39 left is something I didn't see coming.
Gonzaga all ball on the block- Baylor goes to the line.
Other than Suggs it’s obvious the Zags cannot guard the quickness or match the athleticism of the Baylor guards.
Kispert is a really good college player but he’s basically a non factor in this game.
@Tschmack posted:Other than Suggs it’s obvious the Zags cannot guard the quickness or match the athleticism of the Baylor guards.
Kispert is a really good college player but he’s basically a non factor in this game.
Suggs is a lottery pick, but these other Zags that were showing up in mock drafts in the first round are guys that can't play in the NBA. They are great college players like Nwora and Merrill that will have to fight to be end of the bench guys in the NBA.
@Tschmack posted:Other than Suggs it’s obvious the Zags cannot guard the quickness or match the athleticism of the Baylor guards.
Kispert is a really good college player but he’s basically a non factor in this game.
His release isn't quick enough to get shots off against guys that can close out like NBA players.
The issue with Gonzaga is they don’t take a lot of 3s. So unless Timme is getting a bunch of easy layups and dunks they get down by double digits and you see a game line this.
Competition matters as well
@Tschmack posted:The issue with Gonzaga is they don’t take a lot of 3s. So unless Timme is getting a bunch of easy layups and dunks they get down by double digits and you see a game line this.
Competition matters as well
Gonzaga plays a decent nonconference schedule, but they don't play anybody of note in their conference and didn't play any team higher than a 6 seed until tonight in the tourney.
They got lucky against UCLA and Baylor just dominated them.
Baylor was probably the worst team they could face because their bigs rebound well and could harass Timme and the Bears have 3-4 guards that are flat out better than anyone other than Suggs. If these teams played 20 times Gonzaga might win once or twice.
@Tschmack posted:The issue with Gonzaga is they don’t take a lot of 3s. So unless Timme is getting a bunch of easy layups and dunks they get down by double digits and you see a game line this.
Competition matters as well
The big guys for Baylor completely neutralized that inside threat. And they contested every shot by Gonzaga inside and out. Just a very impressive performance by the Bears.
Baylor was tougher physically and mentally. They made Gonzaga uncomfortable in the first 8 minutes. After that the Zags scored at a reasonable pace but aren't good enough defensively to get enough stops to make it a game.
The way the game is officiated matters. This game favored Baylor because they were allowed a lot of contact with no whistle. Meanwhile the Gonzaga star is on the bench in the first half with foul trouble on a ticky-tack call. The momentum switched, and Baylor maintained their stranglehold on the style of play.
This is the opposite of the way we have seen the Badgers get officiated- for example, against Duke in the Championship Game, where they were throwing themselves into the Badger defenders and getting the call. The Badgers had the more physical team, but they weren’t allowed to press that advantage. In contrast, Baylor was last night.
Baylor has the stronger, more athletic team, so of course this favors them. That’s how they busted out 29-10... their aggressiveness was not curtailed, it was allowed.
@Music City posted:The way the game is officiated matters. This game favored Baylor because they were allowed a lot of contact with no whistle. Meanwhile the Gonzaga star is on the bench in the first half with foul trouble on a ticky-tack call. The momentum switched, and Baylor maintained their stranglehold on the style of play.
This. That really terrible charge call on Suggs 90 seconds in completely changed the whole complexion of the game. At that point it was 4-0. It should have been either a no-call or a blocking call and it would have resulted in either a nice opportunity near the rim for his teammate or a side-out. Instead, Suggs got a bit rattled and it was 9-0 less than a minute later. Suggs then had to sit for about 7 minutes (as Gonzaga fell even further behind) after a silly reach-in foul and after he returned had to play passively to keep from picking up another foul for the rest of the half. He didn't score until he hit a FT with 6:47 left in the half when Baylor was already up 19.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1379244323657682952
After Suggs got going, it was a fairly even game (always between 10-19 point Baylor leads). Suggs was really their only guy that could beat his guy off the dribble and get Baylor's defense moving around to set up easy looks for others (either direct assists or some hockey-type assists). Baylor obviously outplayed them, but it's a lot easier to hit 3 point looks when you are up 15 and you can let it fly instead of in a close game when the pressure can get to you.
The FT disparity in the first half of the game was clearly in Gonzaga’s favor. Losing Suggs set them back, but even with him unless he has a monster game they don’t beat Baylor.
All season long Timme was able to basically do whatever he wanted inside and guys like Kispert made a killing because teams had to honor the big guy and Suggs. Not so much against Baylor who could throw multiple big guys at Timme and make him work and the 3 headed guard rotation was just too much for the Zags.
I feel bad for Gonzaga because much like Butler 15 years ago that is a program that should have won a title during their heyday. Suggs is legit and will be a top 5 pick.