Wisconsin Badgers Thread

[Bernman]

Unless you are counting Duke, this is insanely false.

The team that just beat us to go to the sweet 16, both their double-digit scorers were their recruits.

There’s still room to develop 2-3 guys in your own rotation like Blackwell, Winter, Hepburn of old…but putting all of your eggs in like 100th ranked recruits and sticking out the duds or developmental one just isn’t a viable strategy anymore.

If you have to rely on a straw man, it doesn't speak well of your position.

[Kerb Hohl]

Unless you are counting Duke, this is insanely false.

The team that just beat us to go to the sweet 16, both their double-digit scorers were their recruits.

There’s still room to develop 2-3 guys in your own rotation like Blackwell, Winter, Hepburn of old…but putting all of your eggs in like 100th ranked recruits and sticking out the duds or developmental one just isn’t a viable strategy anymore.

If you have to rely on a straw man, it doesn't speak well to your position.

Yeah, we should focus on our own recruits that stay until age 24 like the Mormons.

They’re an anomaly. Either you have to dump cash into the elite guys like BYU next year or Duke, or you ignore most HS recruiting.

I do think there is a slight lane for UW to develop more guys than transient schools, but your logic of “in-state kids” is just not how college basketball works, especially in the modern era.

Iowa State other than one guy is all transfers or not HS recruits from Iowa.

In another post you’re freaking out about losing a PG to Nebraska who was worthless as a freshman on a **** team and is probably going to be told to go elsewhere.

[Diggr14]

I’m not a fan of Gard. Think they needed to move on three years ago. But am willing to concede the portal game is a mess. If they replace him, the new guy has to be able to play it well.

I think this year shows us Gard can adapt. If they move on from Gard, Kirk Penney should be the next coach. The two kids from New Zealand, specifically one of them sound fantastic. But that is not until 26. The international flavor of it all is going to be good, because Penney is essentially a medium lock on players from New Zealand and Australia going forward for us. Tonje and Storr provide us the "hey they did well, so can you narrative" for the portal as well.

The problem with Gard has been, and ill beat this until its more dead than dead.. is in-state recruiting. We recruit Minnesota like they are all alumni. Here they go to Duke, Kentucky, or Iowa State!

[Kerb Hohl]

I’m not a fan of Gard. Think they needed to move on three years ago. But am willing to concede the portal game is a mess. If they replace him, the new guy has to be able to play it well.

I think this year shows us Gard can adapt. If they move on from Gard, Kirk Penney should be the next coach. The two kids from New Zealand, specifically one of them sound fantastic. But that is not until 26. The international flavor of it all is going to be good, because Penney is essentially a medium lock on players from New Zealand and Australia going forward for us. Tonje and Storr provide us the "hey they did well, so can you narrative" for the portal as well.

The problem with Gard has been, and ill beat this until its more dead than dead.. is in-state recruiting. We recruit Minnesota like they are all alumni. Here they go to Duke, Kentucky, or Iowa State!

I think people can admit the Milan mistake and there was a decent process in it. Hunter is decent but also a flawed player and has now played for 3 different teams. Nobody really wanted him and he can’t shoot.

Beyond that - welcome to an issue for every coach in America. Top 10 national recruits take a giant bag of cash to play for Duke or Kentucky. This isn’t a “recruiting” thing. This is one of the more insane takes I’ve seen on this board.

Gard’s problem somewhat now and definitely before has been too much of an obsession with and inability to move on from lesser talented guys, whether they were from Wisconsin or not.

[MikeIsGood]

Unless Wisconsin is going to start paying for actual Freshman stars, the play should be letting other teams develop guys as Freshman and Sophomores for us to swoop in and pay more as Juniors and Seniors. Take small gambles on some HS recruits (or internationals - great move with the Kiwis IMO), and hope one or two turn out to pay "internally."

We are not a brand. We never have been. This is how non-brands need to operate. You can't point to Blackwell or Winter and say "but look," either, because it's different than it was two years ago. We know more now.

College sports currently sucks in this way. I don't like it at all. It's just the reality of it.

[ReasonablySober]

Despite the ending, I'm more encouraged coming off this season than I have been since the Final Four run. This was a big year for Gard. I know the Badgers struck gold and you can't rely on just getting an All-American every year, but this season was proof of concept for any high level transfer who wants to show out. Scoring as many points as the Badgers did will also help.

Now it would help if Tonje could land in the first round (he should).

[Kerb Hohl]

Despite the ending, I'm more encouraged coming off this season than I have been since the Final Four run. This was a big year for Gard. I know the Badgers struck gold and you can't rely on just getting an All-American every year, but this season was proof of concept for any high level transfer who wants to show out. Scoring as many points as the Badgers did will also help.

Now it would help if Tonje could land in the first round (he should).

I could be wrong here, but with the Gard evolution + transfers just being normalized, I think we’ll be reasonable players for possibly a big name.

Last year, even with the losses of Chucky and Storr, there were ~4 assumed starters and 2-3 rotation guys and probably a spread of cash to keep them.

Maybe we’ll have to spend all we’ve got to keep Winter and Blackwell, but those 2 are the only assumed starters, maybe Amos. I think they may actually be attractive to 1-2 big names if they have the resources. I’m not really counting on much from Freitag or any other returning young guys.

[ReasonablySober]

BADGERS TIED IT UP ON A PENALTY WITH 18 SECONDS LEFT.

[trwi7]

Badger women's hockey headed to OT in the national championship

[trwi7]

BADGERS TIED IT UP ON A PENALTY WITH 18 SECONDS LEFT.

Dumb **** announcers wondering what the refs were looking at on the replay when it was obvious from the start.

[MikeIsGood]

I dipped out after OSU scored on a SHG early (later saw we countered within literal seconds), and flipped back over just in time to see the penalty shot.

[MickeyDavis]

Yes!!!!!

[trwi7]

BADGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ryan5UW]

**** yeah!!!

[ReasonablySober]

**** AND YES THIS WEEKEND WASN'T TOTAL ****.

[MikeIsGood]

What the fuuuuuck is a Buckeye, your mascot is a nut YOU SUCK.

[midranger]

Twas quite the nice palate cleanser tbh

[MVP2110]

Kirsten Simms is an absolute legend

[ReginaldDwight]

I called it, the talent tbh wasn't there this year and hasn't been in awhile. Feels like riding out Gard for this long is a mistake but tbh the job is a tough sell to a real top level guy. Its still a football school and it seems the instate pipelines have pretty much dried up due to wisconsin born coaches leading big time programs taking most of the elite talent. UW and MU haven't snatched any elite wisconsin guys in quite some time.

The in-state recruiting is a foundation & microcosm of what we may be able to do outside too. And there's no excuse to get beat to players by the likes of Iowa St., or even Nebraska. We got blue-chippers earlier in Ryan's tenure too. But that was reduced cuz of the bad rep of not developing players for the NBA and playing a constipated style. Gard had exacerbated this issue.

I just hope players saw the style UW played this yr, that's a permanent change, & Gard pledges that to prospective recruits. As for having players translating to the pros, it's going to take time, while we're dealing w/ the stigma giving us worse NBA prospects. Got to scout well then too. Winning the battle for this Vaughn Karvala guy in '26 looks like it would be a good start. Until then we're dining off transfers.

Guys, it’s not 2012 anymore. You’re paying far too much attention to HS recruiting unless it’s top 25 guys like Kneuppel.

Mitchell or Allen would both have been great gets for UW or MU. The fact they both left is wild to me. Iowa St. cleaning UW and MU's clock in recruiting. The portal is best used to fill the gaps. Using it to rebuild your team each season hasn't shown much success to be honest. Most of you will hate this but the fact most of the top instate guys play for Team Herro AAU isn't doing UW any favors. The collective meltdown the fanbase had when he decommited and went to UK is honestly still doing harm instate.

[CJTURT]

I am actually starting to like Gard again. We always overachieve he has a good system. Hopefully, we can get another couple of transfers that can contribute. Will be right back where we were this year. It sucks that we lost but the fact that we are in the position to be Big Ten champions is a good feeling.