Refs Steal One From Bucky.

https://www.espn.com/mens-coll...cap?gameId=401263324

On Wisconsin's next possession, Wisconsin's Brad Davison and Iowa's Keegan Murray got tangled up under the Badgers' basket — Murray was called for a common foul and Davison a flagrant foul for a hook-and-hold after a replay review.

The call angered Wisconsin coach Greg Gard.

"It appears to have become the ‘Brad Davison rule,'" Gard said. "It's become a joke."

Gard said a "spotlight" has been put on Davison, and called it unfair.

"The kid's a great kid," Gard said. "I'm just tired of him constantly being put in that light. I'm tired of it. I'm calling it out when it happens. And I'm calling it out today."

Potter saw no ill intent.

"He's not a dirty player," Potter said. "He does nothing maliciously. It's not who he is."

Gard said the rule has become a "weapon" against Davison.

"It's become sickening, really," Gard said.

Don’t get behind on the road.

Block out on free throws.

If you think I'm rong then read this:      https://badgerswire.usatoday.c...referee-officiating/

I’d be way more upset about this if it mattered.

But Greg Gard bares a degree of responsibility for how or why officials fuck him over. He let Davison get out of control when he was nut-shotting guys, and now the consequence is that he’s getting fucked over by the response of other coaches complaining.

Part of the importance of holding the reins of what was once a power collegiate basketball program is to ensure you’re respected, the least of which needs to be the officials and your peers. Sorry to say, but Izzy talking about how nice a guy you are isn’t going to help your program. If anything, it proves you’re fucked. They don’t say nice things about rivals. Not in the Big Ten, not nationally. His post-game rant is pretty much too little, too late.

I tuned it to watch about 5 minutes of this game.  That’s about all I could stomach.  Say what you want about the refs and the final score, but Iowa is and was a much better team.

This is not a good basketball team folks.  And Gard is not a good coach.  At least not at this level.

The Badgers basketball program deserves better and it’s about time to pull the trigger and get a real coach that knows how to recruit and develop guys.

The foul called on Trice was about as bad as you see in a game.  The last 3 minutes took 4 1/2 hours

The last two weeks of Badgers basketball are about as bad as it gets.    I’m sorry, this isn’t a ranked team and not sure they are even a tournament team at this point.  

Yes they battled against Iowa and got a bit hosed at the end.  But I’m sure the Hawkeyes weren’t pleased their second best scorer went down early in the game.  The Badgers also got destroyed on the glass.  

Good to decent teams know the Badgers are a lightweight.   It’s shocking how far they have regressed since the Bo Ryan days when they were the bully on the block, legit top 12-15 program in the country.   Now?   A solid mid major program looks more appealing than UW hoops.  

It’s too bad Greg McDermott got into trouble by virtue of his comments recently as he’d look good in Madison.  I doubt Tony Bennett leaves UVA and Shaka Smart hasn’t exactly torn it up at Texas.  

Gard can recruit. The players love him. But that ain’t enough... you gotta be able to motivate, coach, and make guys better.

The same as it was for Ryan when he wasn’t recruiting but was a helluva coach. You wanna be a power? Ya gotta have both. Once he did that- BTB FF.

The program was heralding this year’s recruiting class as the best we’ve seen at UW, maybe ever. Meanwhile, the guys that caught fire last year ALL regressed. The year before they rallied around Coach Moore, inspired them to play above their level. That’s gone now. All that’s left is what was there before- a program stuck in the mud.

How does that happen? It’s the same reason the ‘15 class sputtered and died. The Program doesn’t help kids get better. That’s Gard’s legacy. Alvarez cannot allow this to continue, or they lose more talent and standing nationally. It’ll be the return of the 80’s... cute little underdog story winning NIT games in the Fieldhouse.

Sorry... the program should set their sights a little higher. And by that I mean a lot higher...

@Tschmack posted:

The last two weeks of Badgers basketball are about as bad as it gets.    I’m sorry, this isn’t a ranked team and not sure they are even a tournament team at this point.  

If you think they don't deserve a tournament spot then you are smoking crack. Sure they have several losses in a row but all to highly ranked teams. And non of those games was a blowout.  They can get hot shooting just as fast as they got cold.

a couple of those teams might be # 1 seeds in the ncaa tourney.

G.Gard show starts at 6:05 pm  Monday.

I feel like we had this exact discussion around January last year, and yes, I still believe that Gard is a good basketball coach.  Has this year been disappointing?  Absolutely.  Does he deserve some blame?  Absolutely.  Is he Bo Ryan?  No, but he is still pretty good.  In his six years, the Badgers have finished in the top 4 of the conference 4 of those years, and his average finish over those six years is third in the big ten, behind only Michigan State and Purdue.  That said, this year has been tough, and Gard deserves his share of the blame.  The big ten is really good, maybe the best ever, but it would have been nice to get at least one of those wins down the stretch.  Last year, after the Kobe King fiasco, you guys started on the fire Gard rant, and they proceeded to win the Big Ten Title.  I'm hoping that your rant this year will lead them on a nice long tourney run.  

Who got better and who did not? 

Reuvers clearly did not get better.  Davidson is not much different now that when he was a freshman.  Potter hasn't improved.  Ford? 

I'd like to see players improve under Gard's watch

@"We"-Ka-Bong posted:

I'd like to see players improve under Gard's watch

It’d be nice if that touted Badgers “recruit and develop” program followed through on the second half of that...

The problem with the past is well, it’s the past.  I’m more about what is happening now and what we think may happen in the future.  

Illinois, Ohio State, and Michigan aren’t going anywhere, and you know it’s a matter of time before Michigan State snaps back into form.   That’s not good news for Gard and the Badgers unless they are satisfied being a mediocre team in a decent conference.  That’s not what Dick Bennett and Bo Ryan had in mind.

As for the tournament, hey who knows maybe they get hot and win a game or two.  But when is the last time they beat a decent team?  The trend doesn’t look very good right now.  

Gard will always have his fan boys because of the try hard mantra he pushes non stop and that’s great.   But he operates in a results driven business in what was a top 15 program.  They need a good showing in the conference tournament and the Big Dance because he’s absolutely on the hot seat and if he isn’t then BA isn’t doing his job.  

@Tschmack posted:

The problem with the past is well, it’s the past.  I’m more about what is happening now and what we think may happen in the future.  

The trouble with this viewpoint as it pertains to this topic is that if you ignore the past, you’re doomed to repeat it.

In 2015 they had a heralded recruiting class. Thomas, Illikainen, Pritzl, Iverson... they were the guys that the torch will be passed to after Hayes, Showalter, and Koenig were done. You had a post guy, a classic Badger tweener F, one of the greatest shooters in WI HS history, and a superior athlete who could do everything. And by the time this class graduated, they lost over 50 games- more than any class since the early Dick Bennett era in the 90s.

The 2020 class comes with similar hype. All we heard about last year was how good the 2020 class was going to be. Carlson, the Davis brothers, Crowl, Bowman... size, athleticism, inside/outside game. But after the disaster of the 2015 class, where they didn’t win a tournament game after Hayes/Koenig graduated (and with an All American on the team!!!), I would say they need to look to the past to know where the future lies... if Greg Gard is the Badgers head coach going forward, a similar fate lies ahead.

The Badgers lost out on two guys that would have made a huge difference in the last 3-4 years because they got commits from two guys that either didn't come or left early. Tom Oates article from a couple of years back sums this up well.

It was probably a domino effect of having so many scholarships tied up in that 2015 class that didn't pan out as expected. When 5 of your 13 scholarships are tied up in one class, that class has to be good. They got 3 role players and no lead guy out of it.

They had limited scholarships to use during the next 3 years because of that. Committing to Kobe King over Jordan Poole was a move we all thought was a good one, but it ended up the other way. The other one was obviously Tyler Herro. Because Herro committed early and they got enamored with Joey Hauser, they couldn't recruit Haliburton. Haliburton would have been the perfect player for the swing offense and is an elite defensive player. Herro, as good as he has been on offense, would have actually been asked to try to play defense in Madison (or at most other Big 10 schools) and probably was never a good fit for the program. Herro didn't do anything illegal obviously, but the decision to recruit him really cost the Badgers.

https://lacrossetribune.com/to...66-183f102a69e8.html

This year’s class was sabotaged by Whitnall wing Tyler Herro, who was committed to Wisconsin for 13 months before backing out shortly before the signing period and going to Kentucky. Since the Badgers had only two open scholarships and had been holding one for Joey Hauser, they stopped recruiting Oshkosh North’s Tyrese Haliburton, who they liked. By the time Herro decomitted, Haliburton was off to Iowa State.

My point about the past was specific to how they finished within the conference.  It’s a reference point we like to use to support our position, but it doesn’t mean much today.   So much has changed since Bo Ryan departed.

Wisconsin and Maryland and Indiana have regressed.  Ohio State and Illinois and Iowa have improved.  Michigan has become a real force.  The Spartans have been consistently dominant (except this year) and Purdue has been decent.  

People will say “but they won the Big Ten last year.”   They were 21-10.  Hardly anything to write home about.   It’s the body of work that matters.

I also don’t think it helps that they’ve had guys like Tyler Herro decommit and the Hauser brothers choose to transfer elsewhere and obviously the whole Kobe King debacle.  Jalen Johnson isn’t going to Madison and Patrick Baldwin Jr is heading down a similar path.  

In the end, other good players and top prospects pay attention to stuff within the program including what the head coach says and does and how the team performs.

The real enigma on this team has been Brad Davison's regression from inside the arc this year. Everything other than that has stayed the same or ticked up a little bit since his freshman year (3FG%, FT%, Assists, Rebonds, etc.). His overall scoring has dropped every year - from 12.1 to 10.5 to 9.9 to 9.2 points a game. And most of this is due to his struggles to finish when he puts the ball on the floor. Here's his 2 point shooting percentages over the years.

Freshman Year: 64 for 137 (46.7%)

Sophomore Year: 63 for 150 (45.0%)

Junior Year: 45 for 102 (44.1%)

Senior Year: 21 for 87 (24.1%)

Usually, you see the opposite trend. Young players lack the strength to finish in traffic and get better as they age. He's probably the worst shooter in the Big 10 from inside the arc this year. He's 8 for his last 52 from inside the arc over his last 15 games (and had a stretch of going 5 for 46 before he went 3 for 6 in the Iowa game).

What happened to him? It's not like he's a small guard. He's 6'4" and pretty solidly built.

I would also argue that in addition to Davison, much of this year's woes come from the regression of Reuvers, who hasn't had a very good year.  But, yeah, both have had disappointing seasons.

Back to the Gard debate, I'm not sure what this "try hard" mantra is that you're talking about.  Should a coach or team not "try hard?"  I tend to think that Gard is a pretty good coach based on the team's performance, and other people much closer to the program than you or I tend to agree.  You don't want to use the past, but the guy was Big Ten Coach of the Year last year.  It's not like we're looking 10 years back.  By your metrics, Duke, Kentucky, and Michigan State better be looking for new coaches when this season is over also.  Yeah, I'm concerned that some players have regressed this year, and it hasn't gone as well as I'd hoped.  I'm fine holding Gard responsible for some of that, and look for improvement moving forward, but he shouldn't be on the hot seat.  

My guess is that they have improved as much as they can.  The other teams have seen Davison/Ruevers for 4 years.  Know their strengths and weaknesses.  

You can’t get blood out of a turnip.  Most of the Badger players are at best, 4th on a good team, more like 5, 6 or 7.

They may get hot,  get their shooting back on track and win a couple.  I hope so.

And if last years team had been able to continue on and maybe make an Elite 8 or even better how much would that have helped future recruiting. It's not Gard's fault the season got shut down by Covid.

@MichiganPacker2 posted:

https://lacrossetribune.com/to...66-183f102a69e8.html

If there was an in-state miss in 2017, it was with guard Jordan Poole, who played at Milwaukee King, an Indiana prep school and now Michigan. Wisconsin liked Poole, but already had King committed and Brad Davison in its sights at guard.

This year’s class was sabotaged by Whitnall wing Tyler Herro, who was committed to Wisconsin for 13 months before backing out shortly before the signing period and going to Kentucky. Since the Badgers had only two open scholarships and had been holding one for Joey Hauser, they stopped recruiting Oshkosh North’s Tyrese Haliburton, who they liked. By the time Herro decomitted, Haliburton was off to Iowa State.

Herro has said himself... he de-committed because of the way the Badgers play. The Badgers can “like” anyone they want... if they want in-state talent to come to Madison, they need to get with the 21st Century. Bo Ryan did it... by the time he had his team assembled got BTB FFs, they were running open sets and motion, not swing sets. Gard reverted them back to swing offense as soon as he took over for Ryan in ‘16.

Bo Ryan deserves some blame, too. if he keeps Little Bo sheathed, maybe he’s around a few more years. He’s the one who forced the Program to hire Gard to begin with.

It’s disturbing how much talent the Badgers missed out on in the last 5 years... fucking disturbing. I did not know Haliburton was from Oshkosh... good grief.

In fairness to Wisconsin, Halliburton wasn’t really on the radar quite as much as Herro or the Hausers or even Kobe King.    He was basically a 3 star recruit vs those other guys that were much more highly regarded.  He was a bit of a late bloomer but is ascending and getting better as he develops.   He’s off to a nice career with the Kings.  

Looking back, the arrogance of those around the program is a little appalling.  They assumed Hauser would commit and didn’t have a plan B.  They let Kentucky waltz right in and pull the rug out from beneath them on Herro.  As for King?  That’s a whole different issue in how they kicked him to the curb.  

The cat is out of the bag.  Good in state prospects don’t want to commit to Wisconsin.   Bo Ryan and Dick Bennett had the credibility and reputation to get decent players.  Gard?  Not so much.  

You can say coulda woulda shoulda all you want about last year but again, they were 21-10.  They weren’t 27-4.  You think that team had it in them to make the Elite 8?    Not likely.

More evidence of bullshit reviews in in Rutgers vs Illinois flagrant 2 for an inadvertent no look hand to the balls called on Rutgers.

While cockburn on Illinois just beats the shit out  of everyone without a call