Badgers Win Opener

The Badgers won their opener despite not playing a very good game. This was a big wake up call that the Badgers may not be as good as what everyone in the Big Ten and Wisconsin think. Trailing most of the first half, Wisconsin was able to get the lead late in the first half and pull away late in the game to end up winning by 20 plus. In the second half the defense of guards Michael Flowers and Trevon Hughes allowed Wisconsin to get the big lead.

As of right now the Badgers are really lacking that go to guy that Alando Tucker was last year. At times last night, specially in the first half, no one wanted to shoot the ball they were just passing it around the perimeter. One guy that was willing to attack the rim and take the shoot was Trevon Hughes. I had question his great play in preseason due to the fact that they were against division three teams but, in his first start against a division one team he was the most impressive player of the game. Hughes had 25 points to lead everyone and as in preseason was able to get to the rim at will. Hughes also displayed some great pressure defense that caused turnovers and led to some easy buckets. Hughes is really not the prototypical point guard at Wisconsin. Usually Bo Ryan point guards just bring the ball up past half court and pass it but, Hughes is more of street ball player being that he likes to keep the ball in his hand and try to penetrate to the lane for the layup or dish off to a teammate. The only trouble spots of his game that I see is that he takes some wild shots at times which I can live with cause no one else is looking to score and he takes some bad threes which do bother me a bit. With some more game experience and some work on his outside shooting Trevon will easily be one of the top guards in the Big Ten if not country.

Brian Butch also impressed me a lot in the fact that he did most of his scoring on the inside and not standing at the three point line. He did miss some bunnies but, worked hard to get second and third chances to score. Butch really looks like he's ready to except the leadership roll. Michael Flowers seems to be his same self he was last year. Playing great great defense and scoring from time to time. I would like to see him become more aggressive on the offensive end which I believe he will become more aggressive once he gets back into the flow of things after missing much of spring practice.

In a game where Wisconsin didn't play well there was a lot of things that disliked about the game of course. It looks like Greg Stiesma looks like he'll do nothing on offense like years past and will just be the big man defensive stopper. Joe Krabbenhoft only played 16 minutes which kinda bothered me. This kid needs to be playing 20 plus in every game. He's a high energy guy that does a little bit of everything and they need him on the court. Marcus Landry really needs to be more aggressive. In my opinion I believe Marcus is the best player on the team and needs to except that position and try to score more. Jason Bohannon struggled in preseason and continues to struggle now that the regular season has started. He's not dropping the threes and he's turning the ball over. Their going to need Bohannon to step up being that Wisconsin really only has three guards in the rotation. The only coaching move that really bothered me is the fact that Keaton Nankivil hasn't been redshirted and is probably not going to play significant minutes. Last night be played about two or three minutes in garbage time. If this is going to be the only minutes he's going to see then why not redshirt him and give those garbage minutes to Gavinski or Gullickson instead of wasting a season for Nankivil.

I'm really looking forward to this season because I have seen the majority of these players play in high school and am curious to see if these guys live up to their high school expectations.

As a side note I just watched the last 15 minutes of the UW Green Bay game against Ohio State. GB really looked bad. There point guards were really struggling against OSU's height and turning the ball over, they were settling for three point shots and they were not dropping, and the Buckeyes were able to pound the ball inside for easy baskets at will. That all said I still think the Phoenix will have a very good season in Horizon League play. They will not see teams with this height or athleticism and should be just fine for the rest of the year.

Things may be a little slow on the blog for the next few weeks until the high school basketball season actually starts. I will try to post every other day with thoughts about some game or team though which may be a Wisconsin team or not.