Wisconsin Badgers Thread

[ReginaldDwight]

The Talent just isnt there and the coaching is just okay makes it hard to win and its only going to get more difficult next season. Probably the time to move on if they keep in this nosedive.

[Kerb Hohl]

#LetHimLaunch3s #Toddler #Meatball

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[chonestown]

Kerb is the tart-tongued Maj Wm Rawls in this scenario, which I guess makes me Landsman and everybody else is McNutty. I will not be fielding questions.

Watch on YouTube

[Kerb Hohl]

Kerb is the tart-tongued Maj Wm Rawls in this scenario, which I guess makes me Landsman and everybody else is McNutty. I will not be fielding questions.

Watch on YouTube

I hope to be season 2 and beyond Rawls where he lightened up and was a likable character. I'm working on it. Even the bar scene where in 5 seconds you learn the interesting side of him.

[midranger]

[humanrefutation]

These last few pages are giving me some flashbacks.

[TroyD92]

College basketball is basically unwatchable. I tried watching the game vs Indiana and good god

[ReasonablySober]

These last few pages are giving me some flashbacks.

I would just like to point out that I've sat out the Gard discussions for the last two seasons and I'm now perfectly content to let others call for his head

[buckboy]

You guys are reliable, I'll give you that.

[Kerb Hohl]

These last few pages are giving me some flashbacks.

I would just like to point out that I've sat out the Gard discussions for the last two seasons and I'm now perfectly content to let others call for his head

Don't worry...they'll randomly shoot 40% from 3 again (Crowl's 70% included) for part of March and make a run and it'll be right back in the sweet spot.

[DingleJerry]

Very frustrating the way this has gone. But just like several seasons, going 20-10ish is not grounds for firing. Things can be much worse than being a solid mid level winning team, firing comes with tons of risks. We are WI, not UNC. Folks have a skewed memory of the Bo era due to the last two years, records like this happened tons of times under him too.

With how bad last year went, we all called for improvement and addressing certain weaknesses. He did exactly that showing he saw all the same issues we did. and the team has improved and barring historic collapse will make the tourney. Its basically the goal we hoped for to start the year. Its just happened in a weird way by tricking us to thinking they were better than they were. Now, improve more next year, get more athleticism etc. Wahl will be gone so hopefully the O can be fully fixed by having 5 capable shooters on the floor and get rid of the post up bs. If there's a big regression next year in spite of having almost the whole team back (assuming just Wahl/Essegian gone from rotation) I think that could be a convenient time to move on since after next year there would be lots of player turnover coming regardless.

[Kerb Hohl]

Very frustrating the way this has gone. But just like several seasons, going 20-10ish is not grounds for firing. Things can be much worse than being a solid mid level winning team, firing comes with tons of risks. We are WI, not UNC. Folks have a skewed memory of the Bo era due to the last two years, records like this happened tons of times under him too.

With how bad last year went, we all called for improvement and addressing certain weaknesses. He did exactly that showing he saw all the same issues we did. and the team has improved and barring historic collapse will make the tourney. Its basically the goal we hoped for to start the year. Its just happened in a weird way by tricking us to thinking they were better than they were. Now, improve more next year, get more athleticism etc. Wahl will be gone so hopefully the O can be fully fixed by having 5 capable shooters on the floor and get rid of the post up bs. If there's a big regression next year in spite of having almost the whole team back (assuming just Wahl/Essegian gone from rotation) I think that could be a convenient time to move on since after next year there would be lots of player turnover coming regardless.

Here's my issue. I've done a deeper dive and this is turning into football post-2020, only Gard is actually trying a little harder.

Gard is using the portal to fill an occasional need and that's great. And we're grabbing our usual 3-star recruits and by their sophomore year they are solid players, some develop into very good ones by their senior year.

There are just so many teams out there now doing this:
-Recruit 5 (yes, 5) players that are all top 100. If one of them leaves for the NBA or greener pastures or is a bust, great - you have another opening for a high-end recruit or transfer.

If you tried this strategy 10-15 years ago, you'd be left with holes all over your roster. See: Shaka Smart at Texas.

Now non-traditional powers like Alabama, Tennessee, Baylor, Auburn are doing this with a key caveat when they misfire on some of these elite freshmen: They can do what we did with Storr...but they can do it 3x/season. Alabama should've gone in to the dumpster after their entire team left after last season, but their entire rotation this year is built with elite transfers. As for the next few years? They have like 10 4 and 5 star recruits still around from the past 2-3 years to pick from.

These teams have all jumped Wisconsin on a consistent basis on top of obvious teams like Kansas, Duke, UConn, UNC, Kentucky that we all know already were better. I think the ceiling is just drastically lower now.

[chonestown]

Now non-traditional powers like Alabama, Tennessee, Baylor, Auburn are doing this with a key caveat when they misfire on some of these elite freshmen: They can do what we did with Storr...but they can do it 3x/season. Alabama should've gone in to the dumpster after their entire team left after last season, but their entire rotation this year is built with elite transfers. As for the next few years? They have like 10 4 and 5 star recruits still around from the past 2-3 years to pick from.

These teams have all jumped Wisconsin on a consistent basis on top of obvious teams like Kansas, Duke, UConn, UNC, Kentucky that we all know already were better. I think the ceiling is just drastically lower now.

What's interesting is that nobody from the Big Ten has made that sort of jump. I dunno, I feel there's a void on the top. Purdue is worthy of their spot, but they've never felt like a Goliath to me.

I do think the conference is there for the taking for somebody who can replicate the non-trads you list above.

[Kerb Hohl]

Now non-traditional powers like Alabama, Tennessee, Baylor, Auburn are doing this with a key caveat when they misfire on some of these elite freshmen: They can do what we did with Storr...but they can do it 3x/season. Alabama should've gone in to the dumpster after their entire team left after last season, but their entire rotation this year is built with elite transfers. As for the next few years? They have like 10 4 and 5 star recruits still around from the past 2-3 years to pick from.

These teams have all jumped Wisconsin on a consistent basis on top of obvious teams like Kansas, Duke, UConn, UNC, Kentucky that we all know already were better. I think the ceiling is just drastically lower now.

What's interesting is that nobody from the Big Ten has made that sort of jump. I dunno, I feel there's a void on the top. Purdue is worthy of their spot, but they've never felt like a Goliath to me.

I do think the conference is there for the taking for somebody who can replicate the non-trads you list above.

Illinois is the team that's doing it in the Big Ten. In 2022, Illinois had Cockburn + a bunch of busts/developmental guys. In 2022, Wisconsin had Davis and a bunch of guys they may want to develop. Guess what? Illinois hammered the portal for 2 years and backfilled with big-time recruits, so they're set and also have been better than UW each year since.

There's still room for an elite coach to develop better players than Wisconsin does (Painter at Purdue). They turned Loyer and Smith, who are not far off of what Wisconsin recruits, into great players.

Purdue's got 6 freshmen coming in next year. I'm sure they're going to get 2-3 pretty big transfers. Painter gets it.

Gard kind of does. But I don't think it's totally in his DNA to oversell some spots to top-100 guys and not give a **** if one of them is gone before he can develop them.

[DingleJerry]

Very frustrating the way this has gone. But just like several seasons, going 20-10ish is not grounds for firing. Things can be much worse than being a solid mid level winning team, firing comes with tons of risks. We are WI, not UNC. Folks have a skewed memory of the Bo era due to the last two years, records like this happened tons of times under him too.

With how bad last year went, we all called for improvement and addressing certain weaknesses. He did exactly that showing he saw all the same issues we did. and the team has improved and barring historic collapse will make the tourney. Its basically the goal we hoped for to start the year. Its just happened in a weird way by tricking us to thinking they were better than they were. Now, improve more next year, get more athleticism etc. Wahl will be gone so hopefully the O can be fully fixed by having 5 capable shooters on the floor and get rid of the post up bs. If there's a big regression next year in spite of having almost the whole team back (assuming just Wahl/Essegian gone from rotation) I think that could be a convenient time to move on since after next year there would be lots of player turnover coming regardless.

Here's my issue. I've done a deeper dive and this is turning into football post-2020, only Gard is actually trying a little harder.

Gard is using the portal to fill an occasional need and that's great. And we're grabbing our usual 3-star recruits and by their sophomore year they are solid players, some develop into very good ones by their senior year.

There are just so many teams out there now doing this:
-Recruit 5 (yes, 5) players that are all top 100. If one of them leaves for the NBA or greener pastures or is a bust, great - you have another opening for a high-end recruit or transfer.

If you tried this strategy 10-15 years ago, you'd be left with holes all over your roster. See: Shaka Smart at Texas.

Now non-traditional powers like Alabama, Tennessee, Baylor, Auburn are doing this with a key caveat when they misfire on some of these elite freshmen: They can do what we did with Storr...but they can do it 3x/season. Alabama should've gone in to the dumpster after their entire team left after last season, but their entire rotation this year is built with elite transfers. As for the next few years? They have like 10 4 and 5 star recruits still around from the past 2-3 years to pick from.

These teams have all jumped Wisconsin on a consistent basis on top of obvious teams like Kansas, Duke, UConn, UNC, Kentucky that we all know already were better. I think the ceiling is just drastically lower now.

Right, thus why beign what they are now isn't so bad. We are not some blue blood and we're not gonna be the team capable of pulling that kind of stuff out of the portal. The landscape has changed, we have to get off the thinking that its easy to be top 10.

Of course, we could fire and it works out. I'd doubt we see the consistency they've had with Gard but with it might come some higher upside seasons. But tradeoff might be some Michigan type seasons like now. I'd be fine with that. I'm fine with taking the swing on a new coach/system just like in football, but if I had to guess I think a drop off comes if we do. Of course, full 'guess' reserved to see who the new coach, but if I had to guess right now I think there would be a drop and a firing within 4 years again. ETA: Assuming the same standards of winning the B1G isn't good enough, have to win at least two NCAA games or you're a POS is in place

Regardless, the overall goal of the year is likely accomplished. Improved, more athleticism, better brand to watch, make tourney, etc. So seems odd to fire now, especially with so much of the team back. Next year the timing lines up well if there's another down year or bad vibe like this one is leaving. Much of the team will be gone after next year anyway, good time to do a transition.

[Kerb Hohl]

Very frustrating the way this has gone. But just like several seasons, going 20-10ish is not grounds for firing. Things can be much worse than being a solid mid level winning team, firing comes with tons of risks. We are WI, not UNC. Folks have a skewed memory of the Bo era due to the last two years, records like this happened tons of times under him too.

With how bad last year went, we all called for improvement and addressing certain weaknesses. He did exactly that showing he saw all the same issues we did. and the team has improved and barring historic collapse will make the tourney. Its basically the goal we hoped for to start the year. Its just happened in a weird way by tricking us to thinking they were better than they were. Now, improve more next year, get more athleticism etc. Wahl will be gone so hopefully the O can be fully fixed by having 5 capable shooters on the floor and get rid of the post up bs. If there's a big regression next year in spite of having almost the whole team back (assuming just Wahl/Essegian gone from rotation) I think that could be a convenient time to move on since after next year there would be lots of player turnover coming regardless.

Here's my issue. I've done a deeper dive and this is turning into football post-2020, only Gard is actually trying a little harder.

Gard is using the portal to fill an occasional need and that's great. And we're grabbing our usual 3-star recruits and by their sophomore year they are solid players, some develop into very good ones by their senior year.

There are just so many teams out there now doing this:
-Recruit 5 (yes, 5) players that are all top 100. If one of them leaves for the NBA or greener pastures or is a bust, great - you have another opening for a high-end recruit or transfer.

If you tried this strategy 10-15 years ago, you'd be left with holes all over your roster. See: Shaka Smart at Texas.

Now non-traditional powers like Alabama, Tennessee, Baylor, Auburn are doing this with a key caveat when they misfire on some of these elite freshmen: They can do what we did with Storr...but they can do it 3x/season. Alabama should've gone in to the dumpster after their entire team left after last season, but their entire rotation this year is built with elite transfers. As for the next few years? They have like 10 4 and 5 star recruits still around from the past 2-3 years to pick from.

These teams have all jumped Wisconsin on a consistent basis on top of obvious teams like Kansas, Duke, UConn, UNC, Kentucky that we all know already were better. I think the ceiling is just drastically lower now.

Right, thus why beign what they are now isn't so bad. We are not some blue blood and we're not gonna be the team capable of pulling that kind of stuff out of the portal. The landscape has changed, we have to get off the thinking that its easy to be top 10.

Of course, we could fire and it works out. I'd doubt we see the consistency they've had with Gard but with it might come some higher upside seasons. But tradeoff might be some Michigan type seasons like now. I'd be fine with that. I'm fine with taking the swing on a new coach/system just like in football, but if I had to guess I think a drop off comes if we do. Of course, full 'guess' reserved to see who the new coach, but if I had to guess right now I think there would be a drop and a firing within 4 years again.

Regardless, the overall goal of the year is likely accomplished. Improved, more athleticism, better brand to watch, make tourney, etc. So seems odd to fire now, especially with so much of the team back. Next year the timing lines up well if there's another down year or bad vibe like this one is leaving. Much of the team will be gone after next year anyway, good time to do a transition.

Sure, maybe the timing isn't right.

I do think Gard is in the Chryst spot of playing a game that is antiquated by rules (football/basketball now heavily lean towards offense in how they are called), we've been caught up to in understanding of analytics that Bo pioneered, and just assuming that there will always be teams in down cycles we can beat with a stable roster.

I never complained about Bo Ryan other than at the very end getting annoyed that the tournament success felt like it would never come, even though I generally don't judge on that.

The problem is that I think the ceiling is that we will have spent all of this time to build to 2024-2025 and get a 4-seed where we know the season is fading. That used to be a ho-hum season for Bo Ryan.

This is because due to everything listed above, we can't just show up and be a top 15 team anymore. 20 new teams have used better resources and a more modern approach and will now always step in front of us.

[DingleJerry]

Spoiler:

Here's my issue. I've done a deeper dive and this is turning into football post-2020, only Gard is actually trying a little harder.

Gard is using the portal to fill an occasional need and that's great. And we're grabbing our usual 3-star recruits and by their sophomore year they are solid players, some develop into very good ones by their senior year.

There are just so many teams out there now doing this:
-Recruit 5 (yes, 5) players that are all top 100. If one of them leaves for the NBA or greener pastures or is a bust, great - you have another opening for a high-end recruit or transfer.

If you tried this strategy 10-15 years ago, you'd be left with holes all over your roster. See: Shaka Smart at Texas.

Now non-traditional powers like Alabama, Tennessee, Baylor, Auburn are doing this with a key caveat when they misfire on some of these elite freshmen: They can do what we did with Storr...but they can do it 3x/season. Alabama should've gone in to the dumpster after their entire team left after last season, but their entire rotation this year is built with elite transfers. As for the next few years? They have like 10 4 and 5 star recruits still around from the past 2-3 years to pick from.

These teams have all jumped Wisconsin on a consistent basis on top of obvious teams like Kansas, Duke, UConn, UNC, Kentucky that we all know already were better. I think the ceiling is just drastically lower now.

Right, thus why beign what they are now isn't so bad. We are not some blue blood and we're not gonna be the team capable of pulling that kind of stuff out of the portal. The landscape has changed, we have to get off the thinking that its easy to be top 10.

Of course, we could fire and it works out. I'd doubt we see the consistency they've had with Gard but with it might come some higher upside seasons. But tradeoff might be some Michigan type seasons like now. I'd be fine with that. I'm fine with taking the swing on a new coach/system just like in football, but if I had to guess I think a drop off comes if we do. Of course, full 'guess' reserved to see who the new coach, but if I had to guess right now I think there would be a drop and a firing within 4 years again.

Regardless, the overall goal of the year is likely accomplished. Improved, more athleticism, better brand to watch, make tourney, etc. So seems odd to fire now, especially with so much of the team back. Next year the timing lines up well if there's another down year or bad vibe like this one is leaving. Much of the team will be gone after next year anyway, good time to do a transition.

Sure, maybe the timing isn't right.

I do think Gard is in the Chryst spot of playing a game that is antiquated by rules (football/basketball now heavily lean towards offense in how they are called), we've been caught up to in understanding of analytics that Bo pioneered, and just assuming that there will always be teams in down cycles we can beat with a stable roster.

I never complained about Bo Ryan other than at the very end getting annoyed that the tournament success felt like it would never come, even though I generally don't judge on that.

The problem is that I think the ceiling is that we will have spent all of this time to build to 2024-2025 and get a 4-seed where we know the season is fading. That used to be a ho-hum season for Bo Ryan.

This is because due to everything listed above, we can't just show up and be a top 15 team anymore. 20 new teams have used better resources and a more modern approach and will now always step in front of us.

Right, that's why its much harder now so maybe we shouldn't be so quick to push out consistent borderline top 25/tourney team consistency for the hope the new guy is gonna be top 10. I don't see how that goes away with a new coach, I don't see UW being this big pull in the portal/recruiting to overcome that. But like I said, if they wanna take their swing I'm fine with it and will hope for the best, but I'm expecting it to be a miss. Unfortunately, I think we just had the glory years of both UW sports in our lifetimes from 98ish-2020ish.

And he did improve on those areas last offseason like we all demanded, well see how they can again this year. There should be tons of PF mins available for a legit high quality transfer to step in and take, he has to get someone good there (who can shoot) rather than hope winter/gus are good.

Also, the season they're having right now was also a season/record we had several times under Bo. Folks memories are skewed by the last two years, he had a bunch of 20-10ish blah years too where they lost in the 1st or 2nd round.

[Kerb Hohl]

Spoiler:

Right, thus why beign what they are now isn't so bad. We are not some blue blood and we're not gonna be the team capable of pulling that kind of stuff out of the portal. The landscape has changed, we have to get off the thinking that its easy to be top 10.

Of course, we could fire and it works out. I'd doubt we see the consistency they've had with Gard but with it might come some higher upside seasons. But tradeoff might be some Michigan type seasons like now. I'd be fine with that. I'm fine with taking the swing on a new coach/system just like in football, but if I had to guess I think a drop off comes if we do. Of course, full 'guess' reserved to see who the new coach, but if I had to guess right now I think there would be a drop and a firing within 4 years again.

Regardless, the overall goal of the year is likely accomplished. Improved, more athleticism, better brand to watch, make tourney, etc. So seems odd to fire now, especially with so much of the team back. Next year the timing lines up well if there's another down year or bad vibe like this one is leaving. Much of the team will be gone after next year anyway, good time to do a transition.

Sure, maybe the timing isn't right.

I do think Gard is in the Chryst spot of playing a game that is antiquated by rules (football/basketball now heavily lean towards offense in how they are called), we've been caught up to in understanding of analytics that Bo pioneered, and just assuming that there will always be teams in down cycles we can beat with a stable roster.

I never complained about Bo Ryan other than at the very end getting annoyed that the tournament success felt like it would never come, even though I generally don't judge on that.

The problem is that I think the ceiling is that we will have spent all of this time to build to 2024-2025 and get a 4-seed where we know the season is fading. That used to be a ho-hum season for Bo Ryan.

This is because due to everything listed above, we can't just show up and be a top 15 team anymore. 20 new teams have used better resources and a more modern approach and will now always step in front of us.

Right, that's why its much harder now so maybe we shouldn't be so quick to push out consistent borderline top 25/tourney team consistency for the hope the new guy is gonna be top 10. I don't see how that goes away with a new coach, I don't see UW being this big pull in the portal/recruiting to overcome that. But like I said, if they wanna take their swing I'm fine with it and will hope for the best, but I'm expecting it to be a miss. Unfortunately, I think we just had the glory years of both UW sports in our lifetimes from 98ish-2020ish.

And he did improve on those areas last offseason like we all demanded, well see how they can again this year. There should be tons of PF mins available for a legit high quality transfer to step in and take, he has to get someone good there (who can shoot) rather than hope winter/gus are good.

Also, the season they're having right now was also a season/record we had several times under Bo. Folks memories are skewed by the last two years, he had a bunch of 20-10ish blah years too where they lost in the 1st or 2nd round.

I hate to give in to the meatball crowd that always wanted to fire consistently top 10 (but faking it tell we were making it) guys like Bielema, Chryst (until things changed), Bo Ryan, Gard (until things changed)...but the game has changed.

We can probably find ourselves an ace recruiter that is going to recruit at a higher level and then just let Toledo and Cal State-Fullerton develop our other guys. I'm not expecting to become an NBA factory, but paying guys is now legal and we can probably do OK.

The limitation next year - unless they absolutely smack a home run with the PF transfer, is that they are still built around Crowl, Klesmit, etc...guys that are going to continue to get manhandled by all of the other teams building with 5-star freshmen and do the portal well.

[DingleJerry]

Well next year you'd still have Storr, hopefully more Blackwell. That is better than years past in terms of legit athleticism/talent. Is it as good as a Tennessee grabbing athlete after athlete, of course not, but its improvement and have to keep adding more again next offseason.

Yea the landscape has changed and might have no choice to try that route. But like I said, I'm just guessing its going to fail here. We are not gonna compete in that paying/transfer world with the top dogs. It seems Gard is attempting to be a middle ground on it, and last offseason was successfully moving in the right direction on it. Now, will this year be that as well. We'll see. If not, he's likely done. If he does succeed on it, well maybe they're onto something. But even if he is successful, the majority of the team is gone after next year so you have to start all over. I see why so many college coaches in both sports have said "F this" lately and quit. Take your money and go home and relax. Assuming he's saved his money, if I was him I might just cash out and call it a day after next year. Maybe even tell management that now to start planning.

[midranger]

“Greg Gard, a consistently top-10 guy”

At least the discourse is honest.