With Aaron Rodgers's injury, I think it's safe to say that we can now turn our full attention to Wisconsin Basketball. The season starts Friday, with an odd neutral court opener against St. John's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I'll try to get some exciting content up before then, but I can't make any promises.
I've been thinking about recruiting a little, though. The other day, 2014 five-star prospect Kevon Looney picked UCLA over Wisconsin, MSU, Tennessee, Florida, and Duke. While the recruitment was active, it was fun to daydream a little about what Bo Ryan could do with two five-star recruits on his roster at the same time, but that dream is dashed. We'll just have to make do with our rag-tag assortment of all-conference and all-america players, as usual.
Speaking of which, here is the titular stat of the day:
In his 12 seasons as coach, Bo Ryan has coached three consensus first- or second-team All-Americans (Tucker,* Taylor,* and Harris) and seven first-team all-conference players (add Penney,* Wilkinson, Butch, and Leuer). To put that in perspective, between 1953 and 2001, Wisconsin produced just four first-team all-conference players (Joe Franklin ('68), Patrick Thompkins (91), Finley ('93 & '95), Rashard ('95)*) and zero All-Americans. Prior to Bo, the last All-American to play at Wisconsin was Don Rehfeldt in 1950.
Bo has failed to place a player on the all-Big-Ten first-team just three times: 2009, 2010, and 2013. In each of those years, however, there was a Badger on second team (Landry, Hughes, and Berggren, respectively).
*Two-time all-conference players
**That's right: Stan Van Gundy coached two first-team all-conference players to a losing record.
Not sure I'll get much up before the St John's game either. I'll try to post something about that game, and get up my Big Ten predictions once were a few preseason games in and I've got a look at the teams rotations.
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