UW draws Tarheels in Big Ten/ACC Challenge

The powers that be have apparently decided that Ohio State and Wisconsin will battle it out for top dog in the Big Ten this year. Wisconsin will play at #1 UNC for the marquee game of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge on November 29. Ohio State will take on Duke. Evidently the honeymoon is over for Tom Izzo and the Spartans as they get unremarkable Florida State as their opponent.

My thoughts: mark this one down in the loss column, in pen, right now.

2008 Badger Football -- a very early look at the offense

The preseason college rags are hitting the shelves at the local stores, and with the Stanley Cup Finals over, another middling effort by the Brewers, and the unwatchable NBA doing what it does worst, a guy's mind focuses solely college football season, due to start less than three months from now.

If you thought last year was a big question mark for the Badgers, (1) you were right and (2) hold on to your hats this year. Much like last season, the Badgers are going to rely on an unproven senior at quarterback with Allan Evridge becoming the starter. Thus far, some have deigned to term him "horrific" based on his completion percentage over twelve tries -- that's what the best analysts do, right?

But more likely, the former Kansas State starter will be the latest in a line of Badger quarterbacks that competently hand off to PJ Hill and make the safe throw to Travis Beckum while occasionally lobbing a bomb (and even more occasionally completing said bombs). I don't expect Evridge to cost the Badgers any games but I don't expect him to steal any extra victories either.

So it goes with this program until we get back to having multi-year starters. Caretakers at QB is the story of the recent very-good-but-not-great Badgers. Maybe this Jon Budmayr kid is the answer to that problem.

NCAA Tournament: Pod Preview

#3 Wisconsin vs. #14 California State-Fullerton: the Badgers will tip off against the Titans of Cal State-Fullerton at about 8:40 pm (Central) on Thursday night. So you don't need to take the day off of work in order to see Wisconsin play! (Operative word being NEED, of course. Go ahead and do it anyway. I am.)

With any luck, baseball power CSF won't be much of a challenge on the hardcourt for UW. They're not going to get much of a preview here. They've made it to the NCAA tournament just once, in 1978. And guess what? That year they made it all the way to the Final Four. They were the Big West champs this year, and they boast a 24-8 record -- but those 8 losses include defeats at the hands of Pacific, Wright State, Central Michigan, and two to UC-Santa Barbara. CSF was a midmajor team that avoided scheduling major powers and as such wasn't much of a punching bag. They did put up a fight against St. Mary's, the ten-seed in the South, leading by five in the second half until the Gaels came into their own and wound up taking over en route to a ten-point margin of victory. Nittany White-Out is doing the cheering-for-the-conference thing and has compared Cal State-Fullerton to Wisconsin:

This is an easy game to predict. Wisconsin has a knack for slowing down fast-paced offenses ... 70 would be a good benchmark for CS-Fullerton to aim for. Unfortunately for them, 70 against Wisconsin’s defense would be like running into a brick wall blindfolded. Mark it down. A blowout unwatchable game for the Badgers in Round 1.

#6 USC vs. #11 Kansas State: Much has been written about this matchup. As Colin Cowherd stated yesterday on his occasionally-decent radio show, it's good TV: Mayo vs. Beasley. Two mercenaries who could be commanding NBA money at this time next year. (In Mayo's case, of course, since he's at USC there's a chance he's pulling in an NBA-style salary right now. But that's neither here nor there.) I know next to nothing about this matchup, but you ought to read what people who might have some idea what they're talking about with regard to this matchup. As an added bonus, here's a piece on a hypothetical matchup between Wisconsin and Kansas State.

My bracket says: Take the favorites through the entire pod. UW to the Sweet Sixteen via two school from SoCal.

Post-season awards and tournament projections

When the two groups conflict, choose the media over the coaches. It holds true in polling, unfortunately -- the Badgers are #6 in the eyes of the coaches (or whoever's actually submitting ballots on their behalf) and #8 in the AP. Those single-digit numbers have been deemed "glorious" by most.

Wisconsin's a major conference champ that's ranked in the top 8 by everyone, so that should be a #2 seed all the way, right? Wrong:

The Sporting News' Ryan Fagan has Wisconsin as ... a 3 seed, of course.

Joe Lunardi had the Badgers in as a #2 before his last update, when he bumped them to a #3 in favor of Georgetown. I guess that's what a season-ending win over the second-place team in the Big East to secure an outright conference title will do for you. Still no explanation (outside of the ESPN premium channels, anyway) for why the Big XII gets two #2 seeds in Kansas and Texas, especially when Texas (1) has 5 losses to Wisconsin's 4 and (2) was beaten head-to-head by the Badgers. It would be nice for UW if Kansas, Texas, or Duke would bow out really early in their respective conference tournaments.

The all-conference teams are out, and as you might expect from a championship team without a superstar, the accolades are numerous but spread out, with Brian Butch garnering first-team standing from the coaches and the media. (And again, this is another opportunity to pound home the sentiment that the media's opinion trumps the coaches; where the coaches put Drew Neitzel of MSU on the first team, the media picked Jamar Butler of Ohio State. Badger fans will still insist that such a thing is not exactly right but the post-season award that actually means something is already sitting in a trophy case at the Kohl Center, and that wasn't up to a bunch of half-interested voters.)

Is Bo Ryan the class of the Big Ten? Possibly, but that's not going far enough for John Gasaway -- he taps Bo as National Coach of the Decade!

Hockey Badgers lose home ice

Just like last night, North Dakota and St. Cloud State skated to a tie on Saturday, giving St. Cloud one point and putting them in a tie for fourth place in the WCHA with Minnesota State. Since MSU-Mankato went 2-0-0 against St. Cloud, the Mavericks will be the #4 seed and St. Cloud will be #5. That means Wisconsin will be #6 ... and will be riding a bus to St. Cloud, Minnesota, next weekend. If you want to follow the team, just hop on I-94 west and keep going till you're about an hour past the Twin Cities.

The Badgers lost their last meeting with the Huskies but were unbeaten in the previous fourteen games in the teams' series. They'll have to win two of three on the road to advance to the WCHA Final Five in St. Paul which will wrap up two weeks from tonight.

Big Ten Champs!

Wisconsin 77, Penn State 41 means that Wisconsin has clinched at least a share of the Big Ten title. A win over Northwestern on Saturday means Bo and Co. don't have to share the trophy.

More tomorrow when we plead for more playing time for the master of the monster triple, Tanner Bronson.

Photo: UWBadgers.com

Badger Hockey loses, home ice in doubt

The Badgers picked a bad time to lose their first game in fifteen tries to St. Cloud State. They lost 3-2 after being up by a goal to close out their regular season. They sit precariously in fourth place in the conference, just one point ahead of St. Cloud and Minnesota State, the latter of which came up with an overtime upset victory over Colorado College last night. Since each of the two fifth-place teams have two regular season games to go, the Badgers could conceivably fall to sixth place in the conference. If that happens, they'll find themselves on the road for the conference tournament.

However, there could be a bright spot for Badger fans this afternoon if Michigan State manages to beat Indiana and keep Purdue and Wisconsin as the only two first-place teams in the conference. Go Spartans!

Badger basketball takes on Sparta tomorrow

Wisconsin meets Michigan State for their only meeting of the year on Thursday. The game tips off at 8 pm Central at the Kohl Center and will be broadcast on ESPN2, not the Big Ten Network, so you can actually, y'know, watch it. Speaking of the BTN and MSU, head coach Tom Izzo is a bit nonplussed about the whole arrangement:

"I think it has been a PR nightmare," Izzo said Monday. "And, I think it has hurt all of us."

It has, but we're not ready to write that post again.

Over the past half-decade, the Badgers have positively owned the Spartans, sporting a 9-3 record against the guys in green and white. It's been over seven years since Wisconsin dropped a home game to MSU, despite the Spartans' relative strength during that stretch. Actually, the best summary of the Wisconsin-MSU "rivalry" (such as it is) comes from Joe Rexrode of the Lansing State Journal (link found via the excellent Spartans Weblog). Some of the better bits:

2003: For the second straight season, the teams meet once, this time in Madison. MSU needs it to stay in the Big Ten race. It's a competitive contest but Wisconsin pulls away late. With seconds remaining, sophomore Devin Harris gets a loose ball, pushes it and throws a lob to freshman Alando Tucker, who dunks right before the buzzer. Izzo is incensed as he approaches Ryan for the handshake. I can still see it clearly.
Izzo: "I'll ****ing remember that!"
Ryan (almost shrugging): "OK."
Wisconsin wins its second straight Big Ten championship. Preseason favorite MSU finishes third.

Looks like Izzo's memory hasn't done much to will the Spartans to victory over Wisconsin.

2004: This is where it really gets nasty, and painful for MSU. The Badgers rout the Spartans in Madison in the Big Ten opener, despite a 17-5 start for MSU. That drops the Spartans to 5-7 on the season. But MSU recovers from that low point, going on a tear and setting itself up to win the Big Ten. All it needs to do is beat Wisconsin at home in the regular-season finale. The famed "banner game" (because MSU had its Big Ten title banner rolled up in the rafters, and Wisconsin's coaches spotted it and used it to motivate their team) is also the best game I've ever seen Paul Davis play. He has 26 but sits the final seven minutes with painful cramps. Wisconsin comes back to tie it on a Harris 3-pointer. Chris Hill misses two free throws in the waning seconds. Wisconsin wins in overtime. No championship.

Now THAT is good stuff. Don't expect Bo to have a banner made for this Thursday's game; Indiana is still in the title hunt after downing Ohio State last night.

The Spartans are a talented but error-prone team, and unless both Drew Neitzel and Raymar Morgan get hot and stay hot with regard to their field goal percentage, I don't see a Wisconsin loss. It's impossible to predict how this game will go as the Badgers tend to win a different way every night, but hopefully we'll come out 14-2 and ready to win out during the season's final week.

Eight days to go ...

The anticipation is building! Just eight more days till kickoff.

It's tough to sit still long enough to write anything substantive. Jeff Potrykus has a better look at the depth chart than most and lays out the storylines at many positions particularly well. He also gives a prediction in the form of a bottom line:

UW can't match the offensive firepower of Michigan, the favorite to win the league title, mainly because the Badgers are breaking in a new full-time starter at quarterback.

However, the Badgers could have the best defense in the league and the special teams should be better than 2006.

Not matching Michigan's offense is OK. Having the best defense in the league is paramount. That's what gets a team a title. Thankfully there are only eight days to wait before we get to see whether these predictions -- and all of our college football predictions -- come true.

The CapTimes has a fluff article on Tyler Donovan, which doesn't reveal anything interesting or embarrassing. But it's about football, dammit! So read!

Finally, the first preseason Blogpoll is out. The bloggers of the nation appear to have less esteem for the Badgers than do the sportswriters and the coaches, ranking the Badgers #9. I wouldn't expect sixty-odd bloggers to do much to alter the college football spreads, but it's great that a group of people who put so much thought into analyzing the game gave the Badgers top-ten props.

We've also made a new friend -- the Enlightened Spartan gave the Badgers his #1 vote. I wish I had that kind of confidence!

Badger links for moving day

It's moving day here in Madison, which means chaos in the streets. It's also pretty funny, since (a) it's raining and (b) I don't have to move, so ... HA HA!

Also, it looks like UW-Madison is going to get a little more annoying, as they're making the place more accessible to parents:

Amy Smith is anxious. She's known for years this time would come, but now the day when she and her husband, Stan, will deliver Alynna, their oldest child, to UW-Madison for the first time is almost upon them.

"We're sending our child into unknown territory," said Smith, of Darlington. "She's been under my wing. I know all of her friends, I know what she's doing during the day, I know what she's doing at night. We're very close."

Uncharted territory indeed -- except to the 356 THOUSAND LIVING ALUMNI OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. Get a grip.

Anyway, onto the sports. That's why you're here, right?

* Tom Dienhart of the Sporting News can't wait to see Bret Bielema match coaching wits with Penn State's Joe Paterno. He doesn't specify whether the Joe Paterno he speaks of is the one who actually coached the team a decade and a half ago or the one who appears on the sidelines today.

* The WSJ reports that Allan Evridge still isn't fully comfortable with his role on the team yet. Evidently, though he was comfortable enough to smoke the defense in practice on Monday, turning the tables on that unit from this weekend's action.

* It's probably nothing, but Travis Beckum, Jack Ikegwuonu, and DeAndre Levy sat out of practice on Monday and Tuesday due to minor injuries.

A bit of Ikegwuonu clarification

Yesterday's post about Jack Ikegwuonu's non-statements to the media was pretty widely linked. Before I move on to addressing the fact that OMG OMG ONLY THREE WEEKS TILL FOOTBALL I feel like I ought to talk about a couple of things.

First and foremost, Andy Baggot had a good column in the Wisconsin State Journal about how the student-athlete discipline process appears to work:

A vital member of the UW football team is arrested. He is suspended by the school in accordance with its student-athlete discipline policy. He is reinstated just in time to suit up for the next big on-field assignment.

It's happened three times since last September, which makes you wonder: The powers-that-be at UW have to know how this looks, don't they?

It looks calculated and dubious. It looks like powerful people are playing the privacy angles, all in the name of making sure UW Athletics runs at optimal speed.

And importantly, we get commentary from Barry Alvarez on the issue:

UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said he isn't worried about how it looks to us.

"I know the facts," he said. "We're not making the decision (based) on timing or concerned about how it appears. We're doing what we think is right and what we think is fair for the kid."

Baggot goes on to list the details of the incidents involving Elijah Hodge, Jack Ikegwuonu, and Lance Smith. And here's "how it appears:" it appears that the police were involved every single time!

Now, Barry's been around the game a long time, and one thing he ought to know is that appearances matter. They matter a whole hell of a lot! College football is mostly about the results on the field, yes, but it's also in large part a fashion show. Remember back in 2004 when Auburn was left out of the title game? Why was that? In part, because their preseason ranking did not compare well to that of USC or Oklahoma ... it was all perception.

And what about the case of a recruit who's considering Wisconsin? Is the concerned parent of a star player going to want his or her son to attend UW if it looks like the players can get away with whatever they want? Or is the parent of a middling recruit going to hesitate when they see that the star players get off easy, but if their son makes a mistake that the coaching staff might just sell them out?

Anyway, the whole situation stinks. It reeks of "Just Win, Baby," and that's not what college football -- and in particular, Badger football -- ought to be about.

My other post received a couple comments earlier today; they make good points, so I'm going to address them:

Ummm.... no. Here's what I predict is going to happen. The charges against Ikegwuonu are going to be dropped after he wins a suppression hearing. He and his brother are good students. I'm almost positive this was some big misunderstanding.

Lance will enter some first offender program, complete a bunch of counseling and community service, and his charges will also be dropped.

Compare this to Florida's offseason. I think they've had three or four people arrested for things like DUIs and bar fights.

Jack and his brother Bill (also arrested on the criminal trespass charges) might well be good students and are probably very good people. I have only minimal doubts about this. Good people do stupid things. Some very good people are capable of doing very stupid things. If this was just a matter of Ikegwuonu being in someone's apartment, I can see it just being a "big misunderstanding." But the dude had an Xbox in his hands. That looks like attempted theft, and that's not good. Additionally, if this had been a "big misunderstanding," I severely doubt that it would still be a legal matter. Finally, there is no joy in winning a suppression hearing. Woohoo, he was sprung on a technicality! Validation at last!

And of course, it is unwise to to talk to the press about active legal proceedings. But there's a right way and a wrong way to address the situation. The wrong way is what Bielema did: to be antagonistic and standoffish to the press, lecturing them about what they can and cannot ask, acting like there is something to hide. What Bielema did goes way beyond the laudable goal of protecting a player. The right way is to prep Ikegwuonu before his media time, telling him, "You know the off-the-field stuff is going to come up. Tell them it's an unfortunate situation, it's not going to affect your preparation for the season, and you can't comment because the legal proceedings are ongoing."

As for Smith, it's clear he did what he did. Nobody was seriously hurt, and in the end, what's the worst that happens? The girlfriend breaks up with him? He'll do community service, he'll undergo counseling, he's issued a public apology and seems sincerely sorry. That's all very good. So sit the guy for a while. Get by without him against Washington State, at least for the first half. Give the appearance of propriety if you're not committed to propriety itself.

Then there's this comment:

Didn't Coach Bielema kick Booker Stanley off the team as one of his first orders of business when he became HC? That's a hell of a lot more than five downs.

Let me be clear about something: Bielema's booting of Stanley seemed staged at the time and it looks even more so now. What I mean is that this was such an obvious move that Coach deserves almost no credit for doing it. Call me a cynic, but it almost looks like Alvarez kept Stanley on the team just so Bielema could kick him off. Kind of a "you can't fire me, I quit!" scenario in reverse. Of course I don't know whether that's the truth or not. But based on the type of disciplinarian Bielema has appeared to be since then, is it that much of a stretch?

Bielema is a very smart, savvy man. He showed this with the offsides kickoffs against Penn State; he was going to take advantage of a stupid rule and win based on that. He knows the number in W column is what most fans are going to remember long after the season is done. What he's expecting fans to forget is that his backup RB hit his girlfriend. And most of them will. Hell, most of the people in Camp Randall on game day will never even know that happened. They won't remember the final score of the game. But they will remember that the game was a Badger victory ... and that Bret Bielema was choreographing said victory on the sidelines.

Finally, this action has caused a Michigan fan to call Bielema unlikeable and a Penn State fan to declare him a disgrace. Remember, these are teams who have bigger fish to fry, usually, than Wisconsin. They don't care about Wisconsin football. They're not supposed to care about Wisconsin football. And if they do think about Wisconsin football, generally it's with a certain admiration; after all Barry Alvarez built this program from the ground up, did it with class and deference, and won three Rose Bowls. People love that! Bielema doesn't have the luxury of becoming a "builder." He must be a "sustainer." And thus far, he's getting the victories -- he's sustaining the program's success. But the image is starting to fade, at least among fans who once saw Badger football in a positive light. Hopefully that stops.

Thursday Badger Bullets

Four quick ones:

* I was contacted by the Big Ten Network to interview its president, Mark Silverman, but I declined. I honestly couldn't formulate any intelligent questions at all (I know what the programming's going to be, I'm very much in favor of being able to watch the station, and they don't have a deal with Charter yet, which pretty much makes up the entire spectrum of my concerns.) However, Brian of the oft-linked Mgoblog did, and flaunts his acumen here. Very much worth a read, including a list of stations that charge a whole lot more per subscriber than the Big Ten Network does (BTN is looking for $1.10 per customer, which was deemed ludicrous by some, including myself ... but then, I didn't know that Comcast Sports Chicago pulls an amazing $3.75 per!) And of course, your headquarters for this type of knowledge has always been the Hoosier Report, which, given the state of Indiana athletics, has managed to avoid the seemingly-inevitable hydrocodone addiction such fanship would bring by instead focusing on media matters.

* Bret Bielema does some good, promoting the Restoring Hope Transplant House in a new PSA. His personal experience with the importance of organ donation adds an incredible amount to this message. We're proud of you, Coach.

* Wisconsin has picked up a wide receiver transfer, but it's not something to get overly excited about yet: Chris Maragos is transferring from Western Michigan, where he walked on. He is leaving because he did not receive a scholarship from the Broncos. Who knows, maybe he'll be the next Jim Leonhard-esque story of triumph for the Badgers. Here's hoping.

* The predictions continue to pour in; this one, from the Prognostication Station, sees the Badgers finishing third in the Big Ten -- tied with Michigan. They believe Penn State and Ohio State will be co-champs, citing Michigan's weak run defense and an overwhelming road schedule for the Badgers. For what it's worth, they predict an undefeated home slate for UW, which means a win over the Wolverines, but I don't know how much weight I'd give a prediction that predicts a conference title for Penn State based on its favorable home schedule and one for Ohio State by virtue of the fact that "Tressel owns Carr."