The Road Less Traveled

Espn.com's Pat Forde details Wisconsin's men's basketball rise to national prominence during Bo Ryan's tenure, including its pursuit of a Final Four appearence this year.

Forde credits Wisconsin's success to Ryan's blueprint for building a program like a football team, including the use of redshirting freshman to build experienced teams.

Forde also takes a shot at Indiana fans by comparing their rushing the court to Lance Armstrong pumping his fists after beating the neighborhood kid in a bicycle race (Indiana has won nearly 80% of the games between the two teams since 1950). Associate AD Vince Sweeney thinks Wednesday was the first time that an opponent's fans have ever rushed the court after beating UW.

The Badgers should be able to start a new winning streak against Northwestern today. But they should keep in the back of their minds the bad feelings after losing on Wednesday and not forget that the fans at their four remaining road games are chomping at the bit to dance on their home floor.

Hoosier Daddy?

Mike Royko, my favorite writer, often wrote about the state God created as an afterthought after the other 49. In one particular column he weighed in on the origin of the nickname "Hoosier." Some attribute it to the accent of the first settlers in the territory, namely hillbillies from Kentucky. They had a tendency to answer the door of their homes by saying "who's here?"

Another story that I choose to believe also relates back to the early days before statehood. Some of these same hillbillies would roam the state, coming upon individual homesteads occasionally. They were known as "hoojin," and the mere mention of the name was a signal to lock up your wife and kids for fear of the havoc these inbreds might inflict on a family.

Royko explained why Indiana was the worst state in the country. It has two big cities, Gary and Indianapolis. In one you die by gun shots, the other of boredom, hence the nickname "Naptown." The Hoosierdome, since renamed, was billed by their mayor when it opened as the sign of progress and great things. Royko, a lifelong Chicagoan, refused to see indoor football in such a way. Apparently the city agrees as the new stadium will have a retractable roof.

I'll end with a story of Royko visiting the state upon the invitation of a friend who sought to change his mind. He went along for the ride and ultimately was amazed by the beautiful scenery, rolling hills, and lush green landscape. His mind changed, he apologized to his friend for all of the Indiana-bashing, only to notice a road sign as they exited the state: "Thanks for Visiting Iowa."

ON WISCONSIN!

The Six

Only six teams have a chance to win the NCAA national championship on April 2nd: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Wisconsin, and UCLA.

How can I be so sure? Well, in three of the last four years the national champion (Florida '06, North Carolina '05 and UConn '04) has ranked among the top 15 in offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency.

Currently, the Badgers rank 11th in offensive efficiency and 6th in defensive efficiency. Here are how the other five teams rank offensively and defensively:

North Carolina (7th, 2nd)
Florida (2nd, 10th)
Texas A&M (9th, 4th)
Ohio St. (4th, 17th)
UCLA (14th, 8th)

Coincidentally, the Badgers' opponent tomorrow (Indiana) is one of the only other teams who could break into the top 15 in both categories (8th offensively, 24th defensively). It should be a great game in Bloomington tomorrow night.

Climbing the Charts

In case you haven't heard, a Madison area radio station has taken the ABBA song "Fernando" and made it a tribute to our POY candidate: "Alando".

To listen to the song, click here.

A Graph Is Worth A Thousand Words

On January 26th, the Big Ten Wonk displayed the first tempo-free offensive and defensive ratings for Big Ten conference games only.

This graph confirms what most experts having been saying since the beginning of the season: Wisconsin and OSU are the class of the Big Ten and MSU and Indiana will fight for third place.

Sports Illustrated used the same kind of graphic for the print edition of their tournament preview and those teams in the upper right corner usually comprise the group from which the NCAA champion will be crowned.

Livin in the past

I was fooling around on the net yesterday and found something that is kinda cool. The Journal-Sentinel has in their archives old Wisconsin basketball (and probably) football schedules that link to the front page stories from each game. Here is one such schedule for the 99-00 Final Four team. The cool thing is that for some seasons you can just change the number in the URL and it takes you to another season.

Of course since I am always more inclined to wonder "what if" when it comes to bad memories, I had to check out the following season. Check out Soderberg's team here. Talk about massive disappointment. I forgot that team started out 9-1 (10-1 after beating IU) before ending up 9-7 in conference. What killed that team was a tendency to blow 2 posession leads in the last 90 seconds of big games. That team blew such leads at Mich State, and OSU, at Illinois (where they were up 13 against the #4 team in the nation) and, of course, against Georgia State in Boise. They also lost by 30 at IU and again to them in the one and done performance in Chicago that March.
As much as any Badger team since the 98-99 team during my Freshman year I have the most vivid recollections of this teams on court disasters.

When he got canned many people thought Soderberg got a raw deal. Indeed that team did go 16-10 after Dick Bennett retired, which is not a bad record until you take into account 2 things: 1: The fact that team was a senior laden top 10 team. Mark Vershaw, Roy Boone, Mike Kelley, Andy Kowske, Mo Linton were the senior anchors. And that team could also count on Kirk Penney, Ricky Bower, and Charlie Wills to provide a solid punch off the bench.
2: They blew so many games that they should have won. In fact, you can take 5 games from that season that cost Soderberg his job: At Illinois, at MSU, MSU at home, Indiana in the Big 10 Tourney, and GSU of which winning just 2 of them probably would have saved Soderberg's job. In each of those games he either sat helplessly as his team got outplayed down the stretch or got outplayed from the tip, in all of those games he got badly out-coached. It wasn't just Lefty's triangle and two, it was also his decision to bring in the stiff Dave Mader to play defense on the last play at Illinois only to watch him NOT JUMP in that final sequence. It was not recognizing the fact that down 3 Charlie Bell was going to take the game tying shot.
To be honest, Pat Richter had an easy decision to move in a different direction the moment Penney's shot glanced off the rim in Boise.

Anyways, the point of this post was to let everyone know how you too can re-live Badger memories when bored at work, or wherever.

GO RED