Monday, March 12, 2007

Badgers Getting Overlooked?


If you watched any of the bracket shows last night or read any of the analysis on any of the various sports web sites today, you will notice that many people think Wisconsin could be out in the 2nd Round of the NCAAs. The theory being that without Brian Butch, the team can't score and they don't play good enough defense to win on D alone. The Badgers going out early to Georgia Tech seems to be a trendy pick.
While the offense has struggled lately and does miss Butch, have these pundits noticed that the Badgers have played Michigan State 3 times, OSU 2 times and Illinois in their last six games? MSU and OSU are very good defensive squads and Illinois is no slouch. How many points per game would Florida average against these teams?
Also, people are saying that teams playing a zone will do in the Badgers. Well, take a presence like Oden (aka the father from Boyz in the Hood according to my wife) out of the middle and the offense will run better. The offense really seems to work well when Steimsma gets the Ball at the elbow.
One final thing I noticed at the BTT this weekend, at times, the Badgers offense runs better when Tucker (aka cool Urkel according to Tone Loc) is out. This was most evident in the Illinois game. With Tucker in, guys were afraid to shoot and deferred to Alando. When Tucker went out, Kam started lighting it up. The guys seemed more relaxed and looked for their own shot. Now, I would rather have Tucker in the game, it just appears as if the team can get tentative to shoot at times when he is in the game.

4 comments:

wv23 said...

I'm not sure what Florida would average against OSU, MSU and Illinois, but they did score 86 points against Ohio State - a number Wisconsin hasn't put up since December 17 against Gardner-Webb:

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/gamecenter/recap/NCAAB_20061223_OHST@FL

Goldy said...

2 weeks after florida dropped 86 on OSU, Wisconsin scored 72. 14 points is a lot of points, but it isn't like Wisconsin didn't have a decent offensive showing at home against OSU, much like Florida. Outside of Florida, UNC and Kansas, do you think many teams would put up a ton of points against MSU OSU and Wisconsin. You must remember OSU only scored 49 against Wisconsin in their win in Columbus.
I think Wisconsin's offense looks pretty bad right now. Not much flow, looking to Tucker to do everything. However, some of the talk I heard yesterday made it souns like Wisconsin was stil playing Bennett type basketball.

wv23 said...

two whole touchdowns...

i don't know, i'm just skeptical. then again, i finished next to last in my pool last year.

Anonymous said...

The Dave Mader photo needs to get more love!