Bucky Hoops - NIT Bound?

Seth Davis, Badger hater, on SI.com in a story posted on Friday:

I know it's folly to underestimate a Bo Ryan-coached team, but I just don't see how Wisconsin is going to score enough points (especially on the perimeter) to reach the NCAA tournament. The good news is, this is a good time to have a down year in the Big Ten.

So Seth is on record that Wisconsin won't reach the NCAA tournament, because they won't score enough points. Although the season is only 4 games old, and the competition has been lackluster, to say the least, let's take a look at UW's scoring (and in particular, perimeter) stats to see if there's anything to Seth's concerns:

• They are shooting 36.1% from the 3-point arc as a team (not too shabby). Travon Hughes is shooting 50% (10 for 20). Jason Bohannen is shooting 43.8% (7 for 16).
• Travon Hughes (who, as the PG, must be considered a perimeter scorer) is leading the team in scoring at 19.8 ppg.
• The Badgers are scoring 82 ppg as a team.

Clearly, it's way too early to say that UW is definitely a NCAA tournament team. You can be assured that UW won't end up averaging 82 points per game on the season. And Travon Hughes won't shoot 50% from downtown, and he won't average 20 points per game for the year.

But I think Davis is going to end up disappointed at the end of the year when the tournament brackets are unveiled and Bucky finds itself in the field. I'm not saying this is a great UW team, but I think it will be better than the experts think...