Long Overdue Pub

Cnnsi.com's Luke Winn elevates Wisconsin to #1 in his college basketball power rankings. In choosing between UW and UNC for the top spot, Winn choose the Badgers because they have two good road wins (Marquette, Georgia) vs. UNC's one average road win (St. Louis). Wisconsin also beat OSU with Oden (who didn't play against the Tarheels), even if he still shot FTs with his off-hand.

Winn's colleague Seth Davis also checked in with his thoughts on Wisconsin and three other title contenders. Davis gave props to underappreciated "point" guard Michael Flowers and pointed out that because of frontcourt depth, the Badgers have 35 fouls to give each game.

As has been detailed here before, Davis identified Wisconsin's weaknesses as FT shooting and three point shooting. Wisconsin ranks 7th and 9th in the Big Ten in those two categories. As we witnessed in Tuesday's game, the three point shot is a great equalizer and a team that can makes threes is never out of it. Wisconsin's inability to consistently make threes also means that the Badgers cannot pull away from teams as easily as a team that shot threes better.