Time to sit Weeks?

I have broken the seal. Here it is, a baseball post.

I am not a Rickie Weeks fan. His defense is not good. He is a career .249 hitter. He has had only 2 seasons in his 8 full years with the Brewers that he has played in more than 130 games. Yet he makes over $10 million per year.

The options are limited at this point. With his high salary the Brewers would likely have to pay a large chunk of his salary to any team that would take him in trade. Why give him away and pay his salary unless you have some young talent you want to try out, or a vastly superior player to play there which the Brewers don't have.

Rickie was able to turn around his season last year after spending much of it hitting under .200. He finished at .230, so I kind of understand the Brewer's patience. There is no way they can trade Weeks at his current production level (hitting .187) , and he still has time left on his deal.

There is a clause in Weeks' contract that will have to make them think about the bench at some point. This is from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

If Weeks accumulates 600 plate appearances in 2014, or 1,200 plate appearances combined in 2013 and 2014, the option vests for $11.5 million in 2015. If he does not reach those levels, the Brewers can void the option. Weeks also must be healthy at the end of 2014 - in other words, no disabling injury - for the option to vest.

As of now there is no way the Crew want Weeks option to vest for 2015. At least that way they only have him for one more year at his exuberant salary. I guess if they want to make sure Weeks does not reach the 1200 vesting option they can always bench him next year to make sure he doesn't reach the number of at-bats, but it's never too early to start guaranteeing he can get there.

I am reminded of the Bill Hall contract the Brewers practically had to buy out so they could trade him after he lost it.

Dick

I'm not a racing guy, but even I know Dick Trickle. Dick killed himself. Part of a growing trend of middle age to older men who take their own lives.

He was 71, and I guess it would be hard to say he didn't live a full life.

Goodbye Dick.

Basketball Schedule Developments

A couple items of news on the Badger basketball team's '13-14 schedule.

1) They will open the season against St. Johns in Sioux Falls, SD. Apparently there is a new sports complex there called "THE PENTAGON!!!" built with money from a health care organization run by Joe Krabbenhoft's dad. Small world.

2) The Big Ten conference season match-ups have been released. Wisconsin's four single-game opponents are MSU, OSU, @PSU and @Nebraska.

3) Going back a bit, the "bracket" for the Badgers' Cancun tournament have been released as well. They will play St. Louis in the first game, and then the winner of West Virginia vs. Old Dominion. As with last year's matchup against Creighton in the pre-season "tournament," the SLU / Wisconsin game is clearly the championship game.

On the game against St. Johns, I like it. This will be in place of a home game for Wisconsin, so it takes the place of a terrible game against the Little Sisters of the Poor. St. John's hasn't been great under Steve Lavin, but they're decent. They'll be a top-150 team, which means this will likely be good for the RPI.

I like the Badgers' Big Ten schedule. I prefer to have the tough games at home and the cream puffs on the road in those no-return-game matchups because it increases the chances of going 4-0 in that slate. Last season the Badgers were set to go 4-0 after winning at Indiana, at Northwestern, and home against Michigan, but they laid an egg against Purdue at home. I like the Badgers' chances to go 4-0 next year, and would be very surprised if they don't go 3-1. (Though PSU figures to be somewhat tougher next year.)

More on NCAA rules, sorry I just can't do baseball yet

The NCAA rules committee came out with their recommendations and they did not include the change to the 35 second clock. This pretty much means that the clock will remain at 35 seconds for another season. The proposed changes are outlined in Eamonn Brennan's column.

The best suggestion in the article is not from the NCAA committee, but from Brennan himself regarding timeouts. Basketball has too many. There are already official timeouts at each 4 minute mark, do we really need many more?

The rule change to 5 timeouts a game instead of 3 per half was sort of a move forward, but it hasn't helped. Since teams lose a timeout at halftime if they don't use it, teams often use one at the end of the first half to set up a play rather than lose it at halftime. This is totally unnecessary and slows down the game.

Teams also don't need to have 4 timeouts in the 2nd half. They already get one every 4 minutes, why do we need to have a half of basketball with potentially 8 team timeouts plus the 16, 12, 8 and 4 minute timeouts.

Brennan brought this up because the NCAA committee proposed to expand the ability of refs to review plays to the last 2 minutes which will slow down games even more. I'm OK with the extra review as long as there is an NFL like time limit on the review, but there should be fewer timeouts.

In the NBA there are 82 games and a need to make that huge number of games as competitive as possible so they entertain. The NBA allows a team to move the ball to half court after a time out to get an advantage in end game situations and allow teams a better chance to come back. NCAA games don't allow the movement of the inbound, so the only real advantage is to set up a defense after a made basket. I don't think getting rid of timeouts will lead to a ton fewer steals on inbound plays, as teams usually just foul anyway. Just think if teams only had 1 or 2 timeouts at the end of games. Fouling slows down the game enough, do we need all the time outs?

I also think the foul out timeout needs to go. Why should a team get to huddle and talk to the coach just because a guy fouls out. If the coach needs 30 seconds to make a decision about a sub, why does he need to huddle with his players to do so.

I'll stop bitching now.

Bruiser's Gash

In case you want to see photographs of Mike Brusewitz's leg all sliced open, click here. It's kind of amazing.

Where do the Bucks go from here?

The Bucks just finished a season that was pretty much what everyone expected. They had enough talent to play about .500 basketball and get into the last playoff spot. For the first time in a while the Bucks will have some roster flexibility when free agency opens this summer. The Bucks only have salary commitments to 7 players beyond this season including 6 forwards/centers- Ilyasova, Gooden, Sanders, Udoh, Mbah-A-Moute, and John Henson. Monta Ellis has an 11 million player option for next season that you would assume he will opt out of in favor of a long term guaranteed deal. Jennings is a restricted free agent and the Bucks can match any offer he gets. I see basically 3 ways forward for this team.

1) Blow it up. The Bucks have no chance of winning a championship in the next 2-3 years unless the Heat team plane goes down in a crash, or their big 3 all suffer major injuries. Neither of which seem very likely. Championships should be the goal, so why not go in the tank yet again, hope for a couple top picks in the next couple years and hope you hit on a superstar in the draft you can build a roster around for a decade. The Bucks can clean up their salary cap even more and then spend in a few years when they Heat will be older and Lebron may have opted out of his contract and moved to L.A.

Seems simple, but it's not. It's harder to land a superstar in the draft then it seems. Not every team is lucky enough to land Durant, Westbrook and Harden in consecutive drafts, let alone one player of their caliber. A team has to lose a lot to get those high picks, and fan support can fade a lot in that time. As you may recall Seattle lost the Thunder in 2008 in the midst of all that losing. The losing wasn't the only issue, but it was a factor.

The Bucks have a less than stable ownership situation as Kohl isn't getting any younger and he has been trying to sell the team to someone who will keep them in Milwaukee for a decade without success. The Bradley center is old and the Bucks and the city are still in the process of finding a long term stadium solution. All of this means that tanking the team just isn't good business, unless your goal is to move out of Milwaukee. I don't see Kohl going that way, so I put the chances of the Bucks Blowing it up at about 2%.

2) Go big. With the flexibility the Bucks have they could take some chances and try to pull off some big moves to make this team a contender in their division. This would mean taking some risks and moving some of the young talent they have acquired. The Bucks could start by resigning their two best players in Ellis, and Jennings. They could find a team looking to dump a big salary and bring in some talent by trading some of their young players. Think if the Lakers blow up their roster and dump Pau Gasol's 2 years for 40 million, and the Bucks give up Ilyasova (a nice stretch 4 to play next to Howard) and throw in Udoh (center depth) and Mbah-a-Moute (a replacement for Artest). Yes, I used the ESPN trade machine and this trade would work within the NBA rules. I doubt the Lakers would do this, but you get the idea.

Don't see this happening, but it's more likely than Blowing it up. It would fit the business model of winning now and trying to get in new ownership and a new stadium. Kohl wants his team to win now to sell more tickets which makes the team more attractive to potential buyers. If the team is winning and draws local support it becomes easier to sell public financing of a stadium than a team that is losing and no one cares if they leave. There is still the possibility the big contract player gets hurt, or gets old and sucks, then they are back to blowing it up in a couple years. Chances- 8%.

3) Stay the course- you can do the math. Chances- 90%. The Bucks have the right to match any contract offer Jennings gets, and he is the only marketable player on the roster so he will almost certainly be back. Sorry frontcourt fans, but no one is coming to games to see Ilyasova or Sanders play even if they are more efficient players by some measures. The Bucks may try to bring back Ellis or JJ Redick, or they may just sign a couple other free agent guards. The Bucks are high on their front court and all the young players, especially Sanders and Henson. Seems likely they give those guys another year of seasoning before they start making decisions about trading them or making long term commitments to them.

This is not a super exciting path, as it likely leads to another season of about .500 basketball and maybe a last playoff spot. Not very exciting, but probably in the long term interests of keeping a team in Milwaukee, so I guess it may be the best path for now.

Cha Cha Cha Changes

The Bucks are almost out of the playoffs, so I will soon have to turn my attention to the Brewers. I promise I'll start to post some baseball stuff, or at least comment on Brett's posts.
Until then I have one more post on NCAA basketball.

Bo Ryan had some interesting comments about the proposed NCAA rule changes to the shot clock and practice start. The full article is on Andy Katz's blog.

On starting practice early:

You will have 30 days between Oct. 4 and your first game, so they would be expanding the time to get your 30 workouts in so you can give guys more days off. You can spread it out a little bit better. (Wisconsin's Bo Ryan)

On shortening the shot clock to 30 seconds:

I'm OK with 30 seconds. [But] when they say go to 30, they'll think 'Oh man, the points will go up.' People are much more sophisticated on defense, bodies stronger. There is a lot more than the shot clock on why scoring is down. (Wisconsin's Bo Ryan)

The practice rules don't seem like a huge change. Practice would start 2-3 weeks early, but the amount of time coaches can spend with players would still be regulated. As Bo states, it would allow kids to have fewer back to back practices and give bodies more time to recover.

I imagine his response to the shot clock changes will surprise those who still believe UW to be a run the shot clock down and chuck it team. Bo is dead right that shortening the shot clock will increase possessions but may not necessarily significantly increase scoring. Contrary to what many may think, if anything I think the change may benefit UW. UW will still run the same offense and 5 less seconds won't force any big changes to their system. However teams that play good defense like UW could gain an even bigger advantage if teams don't have an extra 5 seconds to get a good shot.

The best quote in the article was from Steve Alford about the Cuse D:

I don't buy the argument that shooting will go up or scores. Seems college kids struggle enough knowing how to get good shots in 35 seconds. The shorter clock helps better defensive teams, though. Have fun going against the Syracuse zone with five less seconds. (UCLA's Steve Alford)

The Streak Lives

The Brewers have now won nine games in a row.  It is the first streak of such length since 2003 when they racked up ten straight W’s.  Tonight, staff co-ace Gallardo hurled 6.2 IP giving up 3 ER.  Command issues nearly cost him in the 7^th inning when with no one on base and needing just one more strike to close the inning Gallardo suddenly lost his stuff and ended up walking the bases loaded.

Southpaw Tom Gorzelanny entered in relief and needed just three pitches to fan lefty Yonder Alonso and extinguish the threat.

Jean Segura (.377) continues his climb to stardom going 3-5 and flashing some serious leather at short stop.  His unassisted double play in the 4th bailed Gallardo out of a major jam.  That Greinke trade is looking like a pleasant surprise right now.  Despite my eternal optimism, I must admit feeling like trading a former Cy Young winner for some prospects would take a while to pay dividends.  If I weren't so naturally optimistic, I might have thought offloading Greinke for AAA and AA farmhands would certainly doom the club to a decade of mediocrity.

Thankfully, I am a glass half full kind of guy.  (Full of what, who is to say?)

John Axford pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning touching 97 on the gun and flashing a tight breaking ball on the black.  If he rights the ship the one-two punch of Axford and Henderson could prove lethal.  He still owns an ugly 9.35 ERA, but tonight’s performance was Ax’s sixth straight scoreless outing.

Jim Henderson earned his 5^th save of the season, sealing victory with a swing and miss strikeout on a 96 MPH fastball.

The Brewers currently have 4 players in the top 20 in WAR:

• Jean Segura: 1.2 WAR (6^th in NL)
• Ryan Braun, Carlos Gomez: 1.1 WAR (9^th in NL)
• Norichika Aoki (or “lazy river,” in Japanese): 0.9 WAR (16th in NL)

Bryce Harper, 8th in NL WAR, is getting a lot of hype in the media again this year for his hot start—much like last year when he was all but declared a hall of famer but ended the season mired in a funk that saw his average dip from a season high of .307 in June all the way down to .270.  (Also, Kemp had sealed up the MVP with his .417 average through April.  Oops.  It’s a long season.)  No doubt the #phenom Harper is deserving of superlatives given his age and supreme talent, but Jean Segura is rivaling if not outperforming the young stud in many ways so far this year and deserves more national recognition.  It must be true that chicks—and the media—dig the long ball.

Freak Injuries Continue

Up 7-1 in the 6th inning against the lowly San Diego Padres, appearing likely to extend a winning streak to eight games following a 2-8 start, the Brewers' best starting pitcher to date attempted a sac bunt.  Hit too hard, the sacrifice turned into an out as the Padres gunned down the lead runner at second.  Kyle Lohse, who was throwing a gem, jogged out the fielder's choice and, in the process, somehow injured his left pinky finger against the first baseman's body. There was no throw on the play. He was immediately taken out of the game after it appeared the trainer attempted but failed to pop the possible dislocated digit into place.  Now, the announcers are speculating Lohse's left pinky finger -- on his non-throwing hand -- might be broken.

I am biased, to be sure, but it sure seems like the Brewers have been stung by an unusual number of injuries the past couple years.

Last year, Mat Gamel, who was supposed to be the replacement for Prince Fielder, tore an ACL chasing down a routine pop fly in foul territory.  Jonathan Lucroy, on pace to make the all-star team (in my humble opinion), broke his hand in a hotel suitcase incident when, as legend goes, he reached under the bed in search of a sock at his wife's behest and a suitcase just happened to fall on his hand.

For certain, that excuse is cleverer than "I just fell down."

But (possibly) breaking a finger jogging to first base by having your hand brush against the first baseman's body as your foot touches the base?

C'mon, man!

Lohse has a 2.52 ERA, four quality starts, and, if the Brewers can hold a 7-1 lead after 7.1 IP, is going to move to 1-1 on the year.  Suffice it to say, losing their best starting pitcher on top of Hart and Ramirez would be a major blow.  The likely candidate to replace Lohse would be Fiers, the rookie standout from last year in the midst of a major swoon who was just sent back down to the minors.

If that worst case scenario occurred, the Brewers would have three starting pitchers who began 2012 in AAA or lower.

UPDATE: A little birdie told me Lohse only suffered a dislocated pinky finger and he hopes to make his next start. The Brewers caught a break there. Er, avoided one. Ha ha, get it?

Improbable Surge to .500

After winning the first game of the season in walk-off fashion, the Milwaukee Brewers lost five games in a row.  They then lost three of the next four to fall to 2-8.  They played 60% of those games at the friendly confines of Miller Park.

Even for me, ever the eternal optimist, this looked pretty grim.  

By this point, the Brewers had been decimated by injuries—key injuries.  So many that they extended Corey Hart’s ride on the pine to the dreaded 60-day DL to make room for Blake Lalli, a player few of us had ever heard of (he hit a walk-off sac fly in his first home plate appearance).  

This move pushed Hart’s return back until May 30^th at the earliest, about a month later than expected—wishful thinking, perhaps—when the injury occurred.

In addition to former all-star Hart, the erstwhile potent Brewers lineup that led the league in homers in 2012 also found itself without all-star caliber cleanup hitter Aramis Ramirez, who is not expected back even when eligible to come off the 15-day DL.

The slew of injuries forced the Brewers to reunite with a much maligned player who some claim is the worst player in major league baseball, a guy who was waived in 2012 by the KANSAS CITY ROYALS: Yunieski Betancourt.  At one point, rumor had it Betancourt was to replace Aramis Ramirez in the cleanup spot.  

Hell, folks, had just frozen over.  

(Not that he could have done any worse than Rickie Weeks, who has turned the four spot into a black hole, going 5-46 with 22 strikeouts; worse, prior to moving to the cleanup spot, Weeks had been one of the Brewers’ hottest hitters, batting .467 in the club’s first four games.)

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Ryan Braun had missed three games of his own during the 2-8 start and showed clear signs of a nagging neck injury, slumping in very un-Braun like fashion going 1-12 with 6 Ks in a series against the rival St. Louis Cardinals.  One can almost hear the chants: urine sample!

But, heading into the 8^th inning of the series finale against those Cardinals, down 0-4, the Brewers amidst a franchise record in futility with 32 straight scoreless innings, Ryan Braun blasted an opposite field home run.  One hit wiped out the scoreless streak and began a stirring extra innings comeback that halted a five game losing streak and, importantly, avoided a sweep at the hands of the Cardinals.

As far as early season games go, it was a huge win.  But it was just one game, and the Brewers were sort of lucky not to be 1-10.  And was Braun really back?  (The next game, Braun went 0-5 with 4 strikeouts.)  Could a lineup missing two of its top three power hitters from 2012 prop up a middling starting rotation led by Yovanni Gallardo who at that point sported a not so sterling 6.61 ERA?

The off day following this victory slash glimmer of hope, Yovanni Gallardo was arrested around 2am for a DUI.  This was rock bottom.  It had to be.  For both Gallardo and the Brew Crew.

That remains to be seen.  But so far so good.

Since starting 2-8 the Brewers have won six straight games becoming the first team to win six games in a row after a 2-8 start since the 1977 world champion Yankees.  In Gallardo’s first start after the DUI arrest, he threw 6 dominant innings, earned his first victory, and crushed a two-run homer off San Francisco Giants ace Matt Cain.  Braun isn’t quite the Braun we know and love, but he has drawn five walks in his last four games.  Jean Segura is second in the National League with his .386 batting average.

Corey Hart is still out another 5 weeks.  Aramis Ramirez is shelved for another couple weeks.  But with a stunning winning streak that includes a sweep of last year’s World Series champs, the Brewers have discovered what to do when you find yourself with a shovel in a deep hole.

Just dig up, stupid.

Question

Has any Badgers team ever gone 2-0 against the eventual national champion?

I believe the last time the Badgers beat the national champion was 2010, when they beat eventual champ Duke in the Big Ten / ACC challenge.

The Badgers also beat eventual champion Michigan back in 1988-89, but split the season series. Same with Michigan State in 1979. Obviously, Wisconsin went 0-4 against MSU in 2000. Pretty sure Wisconsin never beat any of Bobby Knight's title teams, and certainly never swept them. Indiana '53 and OSU '60 swept the Badgers, and they lost to Marquette in 76-77.

Other than Duke in 2010, I don't know if the Badgers have ever beaten an eventual champ in the non-conference, but surely they've never gone 2-0 against an eventual champ from another conference.

Assuming this has never happened, this is another good reason to root for Michigan tonight.

Bo Ryan Really Should Have Been to a Final Four By Now

Another successful season has come and gone for the Wisconsin basketball team. In some ways, it was a surprisingly successful season. After Josh Gasser's injury, my expectations for this season plummeted. But they were still a good team. They had the ability to make a run in this year's tournament. Instead, they lost in the first round—for just the second time in Bo Ryan's 12 trips to the tournament.

Based on the current Ken Pomeroy ratings (including all tournament games played so far), this year's Badgers were expected to win 1.58 games. They were big favorites against Ole Miss, and would have been favored to win in the second round, too, even if Kansas State had beaten La Salle. Their performance of -1.58 is the lowest of the Bo Ryan era—even worse than the 2-seeded 2008 team that lost to UNLV in the second round. (That team was expected to win 2.3 games and won one, for a -1.30 performance.) Indeed, it was one of the most disappointing results of the past 11 seasons. Here are the worst tournament performances (as compared to expected wins) since 2002-03:

One thing you'll notice about that list is that it is a who's-who of college basketball. Kansas has had three of the six most disappointing seasons. Georgetown is (unsurprisingly) on it twice, as is Duke. And Pitt shows up (though not this year's Pitt team, despite its disappointing first-round exit). The lesson is: high expectations mean bigger disappointments. Indeed, this is is one of life's core insights, which is why I try always to keep expectations low.

Yet the question arises, after so many years of very good Badgers teams that couldn't make a run in the tournament: what should we expect from the Badgers? To answer this question I used the final Kenpom numbers from every year since 2003 and ran 10,000 simulated tournaments for each year. Here are the results for the Badgers:

What you see is several years where the Badgers had a decent chance (greater than 10%) to make the Final Four.* (Ironically, they made their deepest run, to the Elite Eight, in one of the years (2005) when they had their lowest chance at the Final Four.) Overall, the number suggest that in the average universe the Badgers have been to 1 or 2 Final Fours over the past 11 seasons. Their chance of making at least one Final Four (that is, the inverse of the chance that they would have missed the Final Four every year) in that period is 76%.

The numbers don't lie. Bo Ryan's Badgers deserve to have gone to a Final Four. Why haven't they? Dan Hanner asked this question last week, and proposed a number of possibilities:

Does a system based on making fewer mistakes than your opponent fail when you get into the tournament and every opponent is playing fundamentally sound basketball? Is Top 100 talent more important in the tournament than in the regular season? Does the slow tempo mean that even if Wisconsin is better, they do not have enough possessions to pull away from their opponents? Does the dependence on outside shooting make the Badgers less consistent? All of these things are probably true to some degree. But it is also quite possible that Bo Ryan has just had a string of bad luck.

I will consider (and debunk) these hypotheses in my next post.

*Of course, this data leaves out Bo Ryan's first year. But it's safe to assume that team had basically no chance of making a Final Four—probably 1% at best, which is the average for 8-seeds in my data.

Where have the champions gone?

Much has been made of the Big Ten's lack of NCAA tourney champions over the past 20 years. In watching Iowa tonight I was thinking that the Big Ten sure seems to do well in the NIT. Turns out that is right. Since 1997 the Big Ten has won 5 NIT titles (97 and 98 titles by MI and MN were vacated later), and Iowa has a chance at number 6 if they win 2 games in New York. No other conference has won more than 2.

Who says the Big Ten can't win the big one?

Another coaching change for Bucks

There wasn't much chance Bucks' interim coach Jim Boylan was going to hang around past this season, but you would have to think any chance is now gone after his benching of Brandon Jennings, and continued issues over playing time. Jennings is a restricted free agent after this season and his minutes and production down the stretch and in the playoffs will have some effect on his next contract. I don't mean to say all he cares about is the money, as NBA stars are rarely happy about benchings regardless of their contract status. Some of Jennings' quotes can be found on the Journal-Sentinel's Buck's Blog. 

Jennings was benched after being beat for a layup in the 3rd quater against Philly and did not play the rest of the game. The MJS quoted him "This is the third time I've been benched in the second half and it hasn't been under (former coach Scott) Skiles".

The drama continued in a blow out win last night when the Bucks won 131-102, but Jennings played just 24 minutes. Jennings was quoted after the game saying "From where I was looking at, it looked like it was fun," and when asked by the MJS if this is the way the Bucks want to play, at such an up-tempo pace, Jennings said: "You would have to ask (coach) Jim Boylan."

What's going on here is hard to say. If this was an established coach I would think they were sending a message to the team and Jennings. Boylan certainly knows he has no chance to return as Buck's coach, so why the benching if there is no long term reward to the team. Is there a personal score to settle? I doubt it. Boylan doesn't seem the type and management wouldn't have any problem dumping him if there was. If you want more conspiracy theories then maybe management knows they have no option but to match whatever offer he gets a restricted free agent, so devaluing him now could save them some money. This seems even more unlikely than the Boylan score settling.

It will be interesting to see how the minutes get divided up down the stretch, and especially in the playoffs.

In the Zone

With Syracuse in the Final Four, attention turns to its vaunted—and it is always referred to as "vaunted"—2-3 zone defense. Louisville, which might get to the Final Four again today, also plays a fair amount of zone defense.

Most coaches, including Bo Ryan, play a man-to-man defense, and play it exclusively. Many fans, and some sportswriters, gripe about this. They say it'd be good to have zone defense as an option, since it clearly can be played well. Why would a great coach like Bo Ryan turn up his nose at a defense that clearly works?

When Mike DeCourcey broached this topic on Twitter last night, the consensus among the philistines seemed to be that most coaches don't play any zone because it's not manly enough, or something. As if guys like Bo Ryan care about anything other than winning. And does anyone actually believe that Bo Ryan cares people's perception of him? Of course he does not. All he cares about is winning.

So why would a coach who cares only about winning refuse to even practice zone defense? There's an easy answer, and I think I'll let Chorl—er, Jim Boeheim explain it:

The short history of our zone is we started out as a man-to-man team with some zone and over the years our zone got better, but we still played man. The problem when you play man, you have to spend an hour on your man defense every day and when you play your preseason games, your non-conference games, if you're playing man your zone isn't getting better. 

So finally it dawned on me, after about 27 or 28 years, finally, takes me a while, that if we played zone all the time and didn't waste time playing man to man and put some wrinkles in the zone because we had more time to practice it, that our defense would be better.

The reason most coaches play only man-to-man is the same reason Boeheim plays only the vaunted 2-3 zone: because practice time is limited. If you don't specialize in a particular base defense, your chances of playing really good defense go down. That's the full story.

Just like Boeheim adds "wrinkles" to his zone, Bo Ryan adds wrinkles to his man-to-man defense to account for personnel and game situations. For example, a "man-to-man" defense that switches all screens looks a lot like a ... zone defense. And that's what the Badgers did all year this year.

It was amusing to me that while this conversation was happening on Twitter during the OSU - WSU game last night, OSU was on a 13-2 run—fueled almost exclusively by nervous turnovers (bad offense) from WSU. But suddenly WSU switched to a zone defense. Literally seven seconds later, OSU got a wide-open three pointer from the corner. It missed, but there was no box-out and OSU got an offensive rebound and putback attempt. That missed too, but there was another missed box-out and OSU got another offensive rebound and scored. WSU didn't play any more zone the rest of the game.

So you have to wonder—how much practice time did Gregg Marshall waste teaching his players how to play that awful zone defense that he used for one awful defensive possession? However much it was, it was too much.

Can a player goaltend his own shot?

I saw one of the more spectacular plays I have ever seen in the KU vs MI game the other night. Kansas's Kevin Young did what would be considered a goaltend if he wasn't a freak of nature. On a fast break he went up for a lay up and lost the ball as he was going up. In the same play as the ball was traveling down he tiped the ball which then went into the basket. Since this was all in one crazy freak of nature motion, no ref even thinked to call a goaltend, but the shot left his hand and was going down when he touched it and directed it into the goal.

Look at it again and tell me this isn't a goaltend.

Separated at birth?

Boeheim

Chorlton

The Majik Man ...

... has become the Trajik Man. Paul Imig's article has some really brutal details of how playing football destroyed parts of Don Majikowski's body (back, shoulder, and ankle) and damaged his brain.

An All-Big-Ten Final Four?

Eamonn Brennon writes that all four Big Ten teams making the Final Four is not out of the question:

Yes, those four remaining Big Ten teams aren't just the league's four best, they also happened to be conveniently spaced into each of the tournament's four regions, meaning it is entirely conceivable all four could find themselves on the way to the Georgia Dome by this time next week.

How conceivable? On the Official Eamonn Likelihood Scale of 1 to 10 -- with 1 being "Eamonn uses a treadmill in the next two weeks" and 10 being "The PR people in the Big Ten league office have spent all week doing the 'Florida Gulf Coast Manager Dance'" -- I'd put it at about a two.

That might be generous: The Las Vegas odds on an "all-Big Ten Final Four" have moved from a pre-tournament 250-to-1 to their current 62-to-1, which, for everyone reading this column not named Aaron Craft, is significantly less than my arbitrary scale above. Then again, those are the kind of odds Lloyd Christmas would have killed for.

He then goes on to make the case for each team. And he's right that each team has a legitimate chance to make the Final Four. The problem is that when you multiply their chances together, it's a very small number. That 62-to-1 bet Vegas is offering is—like all Vegas offerings—a sucker's bet.

Here's why. Earlier this week I reran my bracket simulator with the latest Kenpom data. This is just like Pomeroy's Log5 method, just somewhat less accurate and a little bit more fun. My results say that the four B1G teams have these odds of making the Final Four:

Indiana: 48.9%
OSU: 47.9%
MSU: 14.9%
Michigan: 16.4%.

To get the chances of all four making it, you just multiply those percentages together. The result: 0.5% chance. That's 5 out of 1000.

The problem here is that both MSU and Michigan will probably have to win two very tough games to make the Final Four. MSU will face Duke, then probably Louisville. Michigan will face Kansas, then almost certainly Florida. The chances of both teams winning both those games are pretty small. It could happen, but it probably won't. And, even if it does, IU and OSU are each more likely to lose a game than they are to win two.

In fact, it's actually significantly more likely that none of the Big Ten teams will even make the Elite 8! The chance that each Big Ten team has of losing in the Sweet 16 is:

Indiana: 34.4%
OSU: 35.4%
MSU: 52.7%
Michigan: 47.4%

So, the chances of all of them losing in the Sweet Sixteen is the product of those percentages: just about 3%. More than five times more likely than all of them making the Final Four.

In most of my simulations, two or three Big Ten teams make the Elite Eight, and one or two of them make the Final Four. Crazy things could happen, of course. But if I was betting on something crazy, I'd be betting against the Big Ten, not for it.

Big Time?

UW recently committed to play Alabama in the season opener in September 2015 at Cowboy Stadium. Badger fans have been clamoring for years for the team to upgrade the non-conference schedule and now they have got their wish. On the face of it this makes sense. The new playoff format will look at strength of schedule, and if the Badgers hope to ever have a chance to make it in, they will have to play some quality teams. Playing in a big time game like this will certainly be a moneymaker, and the exposure could help recruiting. If the Badgers pull off the win then it should be a big boost to the program, while a loss isn't anything to be ashamed of, so there doesn't look like there's much to lose.

Here's where my pessimism takes over.

I understand wanting to challenge the best, but UW is just not on a level with the Alabamas, Ohio States, and Floridas of college football. In 2015 the schedule will already be getting tougher because UW will also likely be playing a 9 game Big Ten regular season schedule. This leaves only 2 cup cakes on the schedule. I know fans hate watching 3 non-BCS schools come to Camp Randle, but UW has made it to bowl games most every year for the past 20 years and those cupcakes wins have helped in several years.

The Badgers have only missed a bowl game in 2 seasons since Barry's breakout Rose Bowl win after the 1993 season. The Badgers went to only 2 bowl games in all the seasons from 1970-1993. UW has had a great run lately with 7 seasons with 9 wins or more in the last 9 seasons (with last years 8 win season resulting in a Rose Bowl). In the 11 seasons before that, the Badgers had 3 Rose Bowl seasons with at least 10 wins, but just one other 9 win season. They had 2 losing seasons, and made it to mediocre bowls in 5 other years.

So the question is will the Badgers be able to continue the run of unprecedented success they have had in the past 9 years, or will the be the up and down program they were most of the Alvarez years, or will they go back to a Big Ten bottom dweller. I doubt this program could be dismantled by any coach enough to return it to the pre Alvarez era, but look what Rich Rod did to MI. Can UW continue as a perennial 10 win program? I sure hope so, but I doubt it even if they continue to schedule cupcakes. With a tougher schedule I think this team will be OK in the years they have a good team, but in the down years this team could easily lose enough games to miss a bowl game.

Would you rather see your Badger team shoot for the stars, schedule like a champion, and maybe make the playoff, but probably flame out? Or would you rather see them win games (albeit against some cupcakes) and get to a bowl game every year, although it may be a mediocre one?

After Alvarez won a Rose Bowl and got the program going he shot for the stars on the recruiting trail and found that he finished 2nd and 3rd a lot on those big time recruits while also missing out on other good recruits he could have got if he weren't holding out for these big talents he missed on anyway. He paid a price but learned a lesson and UW has used a pretty good recruiting formula ever since and has had great success. I wonder if UW is starting to make another overreach and get away from the things that have made them successful in an attempt to join the big boys.

In the formative years of my Badger Fandom UW hired Don Morton who was a big hire at the time (1987). He brought in his veer option offense and expected to be a national power within 3 years. He scheduled like it too, bringing in powerhouse Miami for a home game in 1989. Morton was a disaster and I remember sitting at that Miami game as they just destroyed UW 51-3 in a half empty stadium. UW had kicked a field goal on the first drive of the game, and I remember the student section sarcastically chanting "We scored first" after UW was down by about 30 points and obviously out classed. Morton was fired that year.

Gary Anderson is taking over a much better program, and Alvarez is still there so I don't expect Anderson to be the next Morton. I'm just not sure if the changes being made to the offense, defense, and now scheduling are going to be for the better.