I saw a couple beat writers post that the Badgers White team at practice was made up of Hayes, Happ, Brown, Koenig and Showalter. Red team was Hill, Thomas, Illikainen, Van Vilet, and Iverson.
Rumor is that Showy has worked on his jump shot. He has never had much of one before and I have never been much of a Showy fan for that reason. If he can just be an OK shooter (maybe 30-33% from 3) and continue his effort on D, and fearlessness going to the rim, he could be OK. My hope was that Pritzl would be good enough to play right away at the 2 to give the Badgers more shooters, but that obviously is not the case. Maybe if he recovers from injury he could still be that guy by the end of the year, but who knows.
I hope they start Nigel at the 3, although I'm sure he will get plenty of minutes at the 4-5 too. I have not heard a mention of Dearing making any plays in practices, so it's not much of a surprise he is not in the top 10. We'll see if he looks any better against UW river falls. It will be fun to see the team get at it again this year.
Can't wait for Wednesday.
Agree on Showy.
ReplyDeleteShooting in basketball is kind of a strange thing. I'm sure Showy can shoot. But so far he hasn't shown any confidence in his shot, and confidence is crucial in shooting the three. He hesitates, and his is lost.
But I'm fairly certain he's go the ability to shoot 30% on threes. It's not like he's uncoordinated -- on the contrary, he's one of the more "athletic" guards I can remember the Badgers having. And he doesn't have bad form. His shot is a bit flat, so he's never going to be Ben Brust. But we've all been in pickup games where a confident idiot his five threes in a row. It's not among the more impressive feats in sports. Heck, I myself once hit seven three-pointers in a men's league game. (I think about it often.)
All of this is a long-winded way to say: I'm warming up to Showy as the starter. I too had hopes of Pritzl stepping in as a Day 1 starter a la Gasser, with a J-Bo stroke. We're not getting that. But Showy's got other gifts -- really intriguing gifts, actually -- and if he can hit an open shot (we don't need him attempting contesting shots, just open one) then I think he can be a real plus player for the Badgers as a 4th year junior.