Funny how this season ended with a Trevon Hughes injury... it's been marked by them!
Our signature wins were against Texas (Hughes injured) and Michigan State (came back with Hughes out), but we finally played a team that pressured us into turnovers once he was out of the game.
I mean, his impact on the game was obvious - tied at 36 WITH him, lose by 17 without him. He played great defense when he was in, and probably could have hit some big shots to keep it close in the second half.
Losing Butch and Flowers will hurt for next year, but hopefully we'll be able to make a nice run again... I just have this feeling that the game would have been very winnable without a major injury in our backcourt. Flowers was dog-tired at the end of the game - stuff really got messed up.
part of being a great team is having the depth to overcome injuries during the course of season or game. That has been a big problemt of ours in recent years with Bo only going 7, maybe 8 deep in these games. Look at NC, UCLA, etc. and they have had more injuries than us by a landslide, yet are finding ways to win games. It is what the best do. You should be fortunate that besides Hughes minor injuries, we have had a pretty much perfect health season from our other contributors. Had we ran into injuries during they year we would have lost a couple of more games here and there, and would have had a worse seed and probably a much less favorable draw. Under Bo Ryan expect the reality that without athleticism and good star power, we will not almost 100 percent of the time advance past the sweet 16 and most likely be out the first weekend. It is a condusive style for the grind it out big ten, but out of conference our play is really mediocre at best. That Texas game was so special, because when the game ended I felt like 99/100 times they would have beaten us anywhere in the country, they were just really off that afternoon. I love Wisconsin but we really need to take the next step in both our football and basketball programs, i don't like this every year scenario of being good, but not great. My philosophy is its championship or bust every year but maybe that is because I am a Laker fan. Either way its good to be greedy
just a little foresight on the Badgers year against NCAA competition..
14 seed- beat georgia 68-49
2 seed- lost to duke 82-58
6 seed- lost to marquette 81-76
2 seed- beat texas 67-66
6 seed- lost to Purdue twice 72-67, 60-56
8 seed- beat indiana 68-66, 62-49
5 seed- beat mich st. twice by 2 pts and by 15 pts.
14 seed- csu fullerton beat by 15 pts.
11 seed- beat ksu by 17 pts.
10 seed- lost to davidson by 17 pts.
so our record versus teams seeded 1 through 6 was 3-4 during the year and 7 to 14 seeds was 5-1. This proves that we are not quite there yet as being considered an elite program. Beating up on Big ten opponents who play very similar styles to us is nice, but I want to go to a final four again. This has been a problem of Bo Ryan's teams during his tenure. He has had no problem beating inconsistent, high seeded teams during the course of the year during the ncaa tournament, but really has trouble against the top tier teams as evidenced by the less than .500 winning percentage against them (which is why I really thought we would beat Davidson but it is clear a team with that schedule and a 24 game win streak should not be seeded 10th). The selection committee I believe for the most part gets the seedings correct except for the mid majors which are really hard to evaluate. With Davidson being ranked in both polls you would think the committee would have given them more respect and maybe we could have avoided them this tournament. Either way, I am thinking that maybe our record was indeed a lot better than it should have been, and it gives some truth to the critics who have said the big ten was down this year. I am guessing had we been in the big east or pac 10 we would have had a more similar record to that of Washington St., somewhere around 27-10 or wherever they finished (I am guessing more losses to the likes of wash st, ucla, usc, louisville, west virginia, notre dame, etc).
" mean, his impact on the game was obvious - tied at 36 WITH him, lose by 17 without him. He played great defense when he was in, and probably could have hit some big shots to keep it close in the second half. "
You have to be kidding me, he was doing them a favor the way he was playing. Did you see him chucking up 3's off the side and top of the backboard.. brutal... then not paying attention he gets stripped for a layup... just playing lazy at that point. I was calling for him to get pulled before he was even injured because his head was clearly not in the game. It was disgusting.
Quit being ridiculous Udub. The sight lines in that arena were very difficult for ALOT of players. Alot fo players on both teams (save Curry) were chucking up bricks in teh first half. Trevon was creating and playing very good defense on Richards in the first half. You saw the results in the second half without him. You see SOMETIMES the swing isn;t effective even when it is being run properly, that is when you need someone who can create their own shot, Hughes is really the only player on the team who has shown consistantly that he can do that. Trevon wasn;t playing lazy, that statement is obsurd. Without Trevon;s creative ability the Badgers folded liek a two dollar bill. The game sucked, the whole team sucked but if Trevon plays the second half the Badgers may or may not have won but I guarantee the game would have been ALOT closer
PS, when he got stripped on that in bounds play, Landry is responsible for call that out. Trevon had the ball secure with two hands, he didn't know the guy was coming, that is LANDRY's responsibility to let him know the guy is coming, Landry didn't do that, that isn;t the guards fault it is the guy in bounding the ball.
