UW BYU

After last week I'm 7-3 (3-2 on picks and 4-1 o/u).

BYU got off to a weird start this season losing to a bad Virginia team on the road in a rain soaked, and weather delayed game. Then they followed it up with a win over a #15 Texas team that got of to a similarly horrible start but then righted the ship. Against Virginia, BYU ran 93 plays but scored just 16 points (13-40 passing 175 yards 4.4 yards per pass, 53 rushes for 187 3.5 yards per rush). Against Texas they were unstoppable running the ball and ran 99 plays for 697 yards and 40 points (9-27 passing 129 yards 4.8 yards per pass, 72 rushes 550 yards 7.6 yards per rush). BYU then failed to cease the momentum of the big Texas win and laid an egg against Utah running 95 plays but scoring just 13 points (18-48 passing 260 yards 5.4 yards per pass, 47 rushes 183 yards 3.9 yards per rush). Hard to ignore the completion percentage of under 35% (40-115) and no games over 5.4 yards per pass.

BYU has since run off 5 straight wins against perhaps lesser competition, and their sophomore QB Taysom Hill has performed better in those wins going 106-161 65.8%. Hill is also the teams leading rusher on the season at 142 rushes for 841 yards, 5.9 yards per carry and 8 touchdowns. BYU has a decent defense, but their offense lives and dies with Hill.

It's possible that at the end of the year we look back and realize BYU was the 3rd best team UW played this year. That's more a result of lucky scheduling in the Big Ten (no MI, Nebraska, MSU) than an endorsement of BYU. UW is an 8 point favorite, and the o/u is 55.5.

UW has been covering spreads all year, so I'm riding them like a hot craps roller and taking UW minus the 8 points. I'm torn on the o/u. BYU has only given up more than 21 points in one game all season, a 47-46 shootout at Houston. I don't think they can hold down Bucky in a tough road environment, so I'm going to go with the over in a 45-13 blowout.

Bo Ryan Stat of the Day

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.

UW vs Iowa

This is a tough one. First of all the point spread is all over the place. When I looked earlier in the week UW was a 10 or 9.5 point favorite everywhere, but by today the spreads vary from 9.5 down to 8 depending on where you look. The o/u has stayed pretty much the same at 48.5. Who knows where the spread will be by tomorrow. My guess is that the injury to Borland has something to do with the variance. If he plays then UW's defense is vastly improved. For the purpose of this exercise I will use 8.5 as the spread, as that is the most common, by a little.

I'm now 5-3 overall (2-2 on picks, 3-1 on o/u). I like UWs chances to shut down Iowa, even on the road. If Borland doesn't play then that goes out the window though. Iowa's defense will be one of the better UW has faced. They rank 12th in the country in scoring defense at 18.1 per game. I think at home they will do enough to slow down UW's offense. If I were putting money on this game I would pass, or at least wait until I knew if Borland was playing. For the purposes of this exercise I'm taking UW minus the points, and the under. I'm going to bank on Borland playing which allows the UW defense to dominate, and UW wins 24-10.

Why do I do this to myself

I had other plans last night, but I still DVRed the Bucks opener so I could watch it when I got home. The only thing worse than watching a mediocre Knicks team that did not play very well  was watching the Bucks. I'm not sure why I keep torturing myself by watching this terrible team.

The Bucks problem this year will be scoring, and that was evident last night as the Bucks scored just 83 points for the game. The first half was especially disastrous, as the Bucks scored just 31 points, had 16 turnovers, and lost Brandon Knight to a hamstring pull. The new face of the franchise Larry Sanders got 3 early fouls in the first half, then he collected his 4th and 5th a few minutes into the 3rd quarter and didn't see the court again. Sanders played all of 12 minutes and Knight played just 2. The Greek Freak played just 5 minutes and scored just one point on 1-2 FT with 0 Reb, 0 assists, 0 blocks or steals, and had a turnover and 2 fouls.

The game was about as ugly as they come with the Bucks committing 23 tunrovers and the Knicks committing 22. With Ridnour also out with a back injury I was treated to 30 minutes of play from 2nd round pick Nate Wolters. The overall talent level on the floor for the Bucks was sad. Of the 240 player minutes, 135 were played by players who were drafted in the 2nd round or not at all.

It's going to be a long season.

Finally

College basketball is finally here. I got to watch a bit of Indiana's exhibition game tonight. Indiana was pretty sloppy as you may expect from a team with so many youngsters, especially on the defensive end. The game was tied with 6 minutes to go in the first half, but Indiana pulled ahead by 9 at the half. IU probably won't be quite as good as last year, but they flashed some pretty impressive athleticism.

The 2 freshman Noah Vonleh, and Troy Williams stood out. Williams may jump out of the gym at some point this year. Vonleh generally dominated inside on the glass with his length, but had 2 plays that stood out in my mind. The first was when IU went to a 1-3-1 zone and had Vonleh at the top of the zone. Pretty intimidating to have a 6'10" guy with a wingspan like a condor at the top of a zone.

On the other play Vonleh picked a up loose ball in the lane on defense and dribbled coast to coast driving the lane and getting fouled on the shot. This was not against any pressure, but still, pretty impressive for a freshman big man.

I won't be able to watch UW's exhibition game live Wednesday, so at least I got a little basketball fix today. Can't wait for St John's.

Preseason Ratings Bowl

Okay, here it is: the final preseason ratings I will offer. Unless I change my mind.

I've expanded this from a top 40 rating to a top 50. Because I care. I also confirmed that I rated every team that received votes in the preseason coaches' pool, and every team that appears in Ken Pomeroy's preseason top 75, and Dan Hanner's top 70 teams.

There are some significant differences from the previous top 40 I posted. First, I fixed a lot of mistakes and added a bunch of new information. For example, Vanderbilt was previously rated highly, but I've since learned that two players who I expected to play major roles have left the program. I'm sure there are still mistakes, but whatever.

Second, I've changed how I account for freshmen. Previously, I'd given extra credit only for top-10 recruits. This led, in particular, to my model rating Kentucky and Kansas significantly lower than the conventional wisdom. So I decided to rejigger this to add extra credit for top-20 recruits. Now Kentucky is number 1 and Kansas moves up to 8th from 18th or so. Kentucky's recruiting class is absolutely ridiculous.

Of course, I also changed the source data from Kenpom 1.0 to Kenpom 2.0

So, below are the Torvik Top 50. I've also included comparisons to Pomeroy's top 50 and Hanner's top 50. As Chorlton mentioned before, it is interesting to look for outliers and variance. In my ratings, the outliers of are:

Saint Louis at 13 (high)
Missouri at 27 (high)
Syracuse at 31 (low)
Marquette at 36 (low)
Utah State at 34 (high)

Syracuse and Marquette are rated low mainly because they will be relying heavily on freshman (and, in Syracuse's case, a transfer) who don't get any credit in my system. Time will tell if they deserved any credit.

Utah State is an interesting one because I didn't include them in my original ratings. But I added them after seeing that they rated 58th in the Hanner ratings. They return virtually all their minutes, and have a number of young, efficient players. It will be interesting to see how they do.

Overall, there is a lot of agreement in the ratings. Of my top 50 teams, 43 appear in Hanner's top 50, and 40 appear in Pomeroy's. Of my top 20 teams, 16 appear in both Hanner and Pomeroy. Overall, there are 38 consensus teams in the top 50 and 14 in the top 20.

Anyhow, at the end of the season I'll compare these ratings to the tournament S-Curve and we'll see who gets the best of it.

Team	T-Rank	Kenpom	Hanner
Kentucky	1	5	1
Florida	2	3	5
Louisville	3	1	2
Duke	4	6	6
Michigan St.	5	2	3
Ohio St.	6	7	7
North Carolina	7	10	13
Kansas	8	8	4
Gonzaga	9	18	18
Connecticut	10	11	25
Virginia	11	19	11
Michigan	12	12	12
Saint Louis	13	31	24
Wichita St.	14	40	23
Georgetown	15	14	31
Wisconsin	16	22	10
Arizona	17	23	8
Memphis	18	16	15
Oklahoma St.	19	4	9
Creighton	20	13	19
Villanova	21	26	36
Oregon	22	56	33
Iowa	23	15	16
Stanford	24	29	38
Baylor	25	28	35
Indiana	26	25	29
Missouri	27	49	52
Saint Mary's	28	52	42
Purdue	29	30	46
Notre Dame	30	32	26
Syracuse	31	9	14
VCU	32	21	22
New Mexico	33	17	21
Utah St.	34	78	58
Harvard	35	51	27
Marquette	36	24	17
UCLA	37	27	20
Pittsburgh	38	20	28
Boise St.	39	42	41
Kansas St.	40	43	54
San Diego St.	41	64	49
Texas	42	80	67
Dayton	43	68	66
La Salle	44	55	43
Providence	45	41	50
Tennessee	46	34	34
Alabama	47	33	40
Maryland	48	44	45
Iowa St.	49	38	62
Vanderbilt	50	70	79

*Update: Made two small adjustments: (1) Akron, formerly #45, drops out after I learned last year's starting point guard was kicked off the team; and (2) Arkansas, formerly #47, drops out after I learned that Hunter Mickelson transferred to Kansas. Vanderbilt sneaks back in at #50.

Solving the Wisconsin Problem

The big news among college hoops nerds today is that Ken Pomeroy has changed his formula to deemphasize the effect of blowouts over bad teams:

The result is that games perceived by the system as big upsets get the most weight, while the influence of expected lopsided wins is minimized. For instance, last season’s non-conference games involving Grambling would be largely ignored. Whether a team beat the Tigers by 30 or 60 would make little difference in its rating.

This issue of how to treat non-conference blowouts is sometimes called "the Wisconsin problem," because it is one of the explanations for why the Pomeroy system always seems to overrate the Badgers. (Other explanations for this phenomenon include: the Badgers are usually actually better than people are willing to believe.)

An interesting aspect of Kenpom 2.0 is that he's gone back and retroactively changed all the ratings to from 2003 to present to reflect his new formula. Since my recent project of producing a model-based preseason top-40 relied heavily on historical Kenpom data, I decided to go ahead and rerun the numbers with the new data.

No surprise, Wisconsin drops. In my most recent update to the Top 40, Wisconsin had been projected 9th. Using the new Kenpom data, they drop six spots to 15th. (I will do another post with the "final" top 40 right before the season—I'm still tweaking it with more info about injuries, transfers, fixing mistakes, etc.)

I also put the new data into my model for predicting the final Big Ten standings, and they are now projected to win 0.5 fewer games. (My previous post on the Big Ten projections is actually obsolete because my Wisconsin data originally double-counted Gasser's return. After fixing that, Wisconsin was projected to win 12.1 games; now they're projected to win 11.6 games and tie with Michigan for third place.)

Wisconsin is by no means the only team affected. Here are the upper-level teams whose projected ranking changed the most:

Losers
Belmont: -10
Indiana: -9
Syracuse: -8
Marquette: -8
Iowa State: -8
Kansas: -7
Alabama: -7

Winners
Akron: +10
Harvard: +6
Oklahoma St.: +6
No. Dak. St.: +6
Boise St.: +6

As you can see, most of the "winners" are mid-majors and most of the "losers" (with the notable exception of Belmont) are major conference teams who probably had their previous kenpom ratings juiced by non-con romps over really bad teams.

My poor Bucks

NBA season will soon be upon us, and this year looks to be a dismal one for the Bucks. NBA talking heads seem to think that Hammonds has signed enough competent veterans that this team will end up where most Bucks teams have recently, picking in the late lottery. I'm not so sure the talent they added will get them there, which isn't all bad. A high draft pick in what could be a very good draft could give this team a young building block for the future.

After injuries to Bogut destroyed this teams strategy to build around him, and Jennings didn't develop into the All-Star player he showed glimpses of becoming, the Bucks have gone into rebuild mode. Hammonds contract was extended to give him this opportunity, and he responded by drafting Giannis Antetokounmpo who has been dubbed the "Greek Freak". Giannis has all the physical tools to be a very good NBA player, but that does not mean he will be one. Even if he does become one, he is not ready now and will probably not be a major contributor for a couple seasons. That leaves this year's Bucks playing a bunch of journeyman veterans, and developing a few young assets. Hammond did not sign anyone to a long term deal (more than 3 seasons) except Larry Sanders who is now the most marketable player on the Bucks. This preserves salary cap flexibility for the next couple years if Hammonds hits on a star in one of these drafts, or wants to make a deal.  

 

Here is a quick roster breakdown into 3 categories. Players that have a chance to be long term starters in the future. Veterans that may help this year, but won' play with the Bucks beyond their contracts, and roster fillers. I'm not going to spend much time on anyone but the youngsters.

 

Larry Sanders got a 4 year contract extension which paid him about 10 million per season. Seems high for a guy who has only started 67 NBA games and has never averaged double figures in points or rebounds for a season, (he was 9.8ppg and 9.5 rpg last year) but 10 million a year is the going rate for a passable NBA starting center these days so the contract is not outrageous. What is outrageous is that Larry Sanders is going to be burdened with being the face of a franchise at this point in his career with very little talent around him. Larry developed into a defensive force last season blocking shots, but he is not even close to an all-star level talent. He fouls too much on defense and he is too slight to match up on true centers like Marc Gasol, Hibbert, etc. and not get bullied. He did himself a favor last year by giving up on his long range jumper and his shooting percentage jumped to 51% last season. He doesn't have the ability to get his own shot yet, and without Jennings and Ellis drawing defenders and leaving him easy baskets my guess is his offense will regress this season. Sanders is good enough to be an important piece on a playoff team so his 4 year extension is an OK move. I just worry the pressure of being the face of the franchise will be too much for young Larry.

 

John Henson enters his sophomore season looking to build off a solid rookie season in which he averaged 6ppg, and 4.7 rpg in 13 minutes. He should be part of a frontcourt rotation with Sanders, Ilyasova, and Pachulia. Henson is not quite the defensive force that Sanders is, but he is a good shot blocker. His offensive game is pretty good already and seems to have lots of room for improvement. He can shoot down low with his right or left, and he shows good touch and passing ability. He has not shown a ton of range on his jump shot yet, but if he can develop this he could become an all-star type player. He will always be criticized as too slight and he doesn't look like a guy that will ever fill out, so the question is if he will become a Camby or just another tall skinny guy.

 

I have already discussed Giannis so I won't go over him again, but he is the last player in this category. The Bucks are hoping to build a team with a frontcourt of long, defensive minded players. If all goes to plan, then in about 3 years Sanders, Henson, and Giannis will be starting at the 3,4,5 for the Bucks. If that turns out to be that case, then the Bucks will need some scoring punch from their backcourt, so look for them to draft a guard sometime in July. In case you didn't notice that means the other 12 roster players are just place holders.

 

The Bucks backcourt got a total makeover and the results don't look good. They let Jennings, Ellis, and Reddick leave, and did not replace them with equal talent. The backcourt rotation will be filled with Brandon Knight, and 3 veterans- Luke Ridnour, OJ Mayo, and Gary Neal.

 

Knight will probably be a better defender than Jennings, but he doesn't have the offensive game. In his 2 seasons he has shot about 41%, and 37% from 3. He doesn't get to the free throw line, and doesn't create much for his teammates. He has averaged less than 4 assists per game despite averaging over 30 minutes a game. Some see him as the point guard of the future, but unless he drastically improves in year 3 he has the look of the other 3 members of the Bucks backcourt- a decent NBA journeyman. Good enough to play in this league, but not good enough to make any team want to keep you around very long.

 

The Bucks did a decent job of replacing the small forward tandem of Mbah-a-Moute and Dunleavy with Caron Butler and Carlos Delfino. Not a significant upgrade or downgrade, and both players have short term deals so that if Giannis develops as planned, he can move into their minutes as they move on to other teams. Ilyasova will start at power forward and hopefully he will continue to play like he did at the end of last season. If he does then he could be quality trade bait for a team in need of a stretch 4, and could net the Bucks some future draft picks. Udoh seems to have maxed out where he is, which is a decent defender but no better than a 10th man in the rotation type player. Pachulia will give the Bucks some added bulk for those games when Sanders is getting bullied around by a true center, and he should give the coach less attitude then Dalembert. The rest of the roster is filled with guys that probably won't be playing for the Buck beyond this year.

So what does this all add up to? What can I hope to see from the Bucks this year?

 

Best case scenario is this team just plays well together, and plays some entertaining basketball winning about 30-35 games in the process. The young players all develop and give the Bucks some hope for the future. The Bucks are able to swing a trade with either an expiring contract or a player like Ilyasova and are able to get another young talent for the future.

 

Worst case scenario is Sanders implodes under the pressure or gets hurt and his contract turns into a drag on the franchise. The Bucks don't have anyone that can score, so they play low scoring, grind it out games but still lose almost all of them. The young players don't develop and the Bucks are left with a 20 win season and a top 10 draft pick.

 

Maybe next year will be better.

UW vs IL

I'm starting out this year reverse of last season, poor on the picks, but good on the o/u. After 3 weeks I'm 3-3, 1-2 on picks and 2-1 on o/u. This week UW is favored by 14 and the over under is 56.5.

IL has a horrible run defense so UW should rack up big yards and points again. I think IL will score at home, but not enough to keep up with UW so I'm taking UW -14 and the over.

Toughest Big Ten Basketball Schedule: Iowa

As I mentioned in my "projections" post, the unbalanced Big Ten schedule creates winners and losers. This year the biggest loser is Iowa.

Iowa's single games are home against Nebraska and Purdue, and at Indiana and Penn State. On the face of it this might not seem so bad, since they've got a decent shot of going 3-1 in those four games. The problem is that this means they face OSU, MSU, Wisconsin, and Michigan twice each, and these are the top four teams in the conference in my model. Their only break is that they have to face Indiana (ranked fifth) just once, but that's on the road, and almost certainly a loss. They also are robbed of an easy road game at Nebraska.

As a result, my Model projects them to win just 9.3 games, which rounds to a 9-9 record and 7th place in Big Ten play. That puts them behind Purdue (which happens to have the easiest Big Ten schedule), even though the Model says Iowa is going to be a superior team. In a true round robin, the Model would have them winning 11.9 games, which rounds to 12-10, and puts them in a tie with Indiana and Purdue for fifth place. That's an extra win against par—potentially the difference between making and missing the tournament.

For what it's worth, the Badgers have the most statistically fair schedule. Compared to the true round robin, they have a projected winning percentage of just .18% higher. By contrast, Iowa's is 2.49% worse and Purdue's is 1.7% better.

As you can tell, I am very excited for college basketball season to begin.

Northwestern Prediction -- Torvik

Looks like the Badgers are 10 point favorites with an over/under of 57.

I'm taking Northwestern to cover, probably backdoor. Final score: 35-27, Badgers. That's the over, if you don't have a calculator handy.

--Bart Torvik

Big Ten Projections

For what it's worth, here are the projected final Big Ten standings based on the Torvik Model:

Michigan State, 14-4
Ohio State, 14-4
Wisconsin, 14-4
Michigan, 11-7
Indiana, 10-8
Purdue, 10-8
Iowa, 9-9
Illinois, 7-11
Minnesota, 7-11
Penn St., 4-14
Northwestern, 4-14
Nebraska, 4-14

As always, the unbalanced Big Ten schedule plays a role here. For example, Wisconsin benefits greatly by not having to play road games against Michigan St. or Ohio State (the best teams in the conference, according to the Model), and getting relatively easy road games at Penn State and Nebraska instead. As a result, the Model actually has Wisconsin favored to win 17 out of their 18 games (all except at Michigan).

Just to reiterate, this does not reflect my subjective opinions (although I must say I don't have a lot of argument with it).

Torvik's Pre-Season Top 40

Here it is, my first annual (and likely last annual) preseason top 40 college basketball ranking extravaganza.

This ranking was created with a spreadsheet, and I did not exercise any discretion or judgment in coming up with the rankings. Of course, I did exercise a lot of discretion in coming up with my "model." The model was the result of a lot of research I did on the Badgers last spring, using the KenPom data as a starting point. This is the result of taking that "research" and universalizing it to college basketball as a whole. I also added in some adjustments for big recruits (top 10 RSCI) and transfers. I'm sure I missed some transfers, but I did my best.

One caveat: I did not rank every team. I took last year's final top 75 teams from the Pomeroy ratings, adding in major conference teams ranked 75-100 and then, just for fun, added Harvard. It may be that there are teams outside last year's top 100 that my model would have in the top 40. I doubt it, but it's possible.

Well, here it is:

UPDATE: I found a few errors and a couple other significant transfers, which effect the list somewhat. Most notably, Louisville moves up to #2 after accounting for a JUCO transfer. (Note: as other mistakes or transfers are discovered, I'll just update this version below.)

Rank Team 1 Florida 2 Louisville 3 Duke 4 Michigan St. 5 Ohio St. 6 Kentucky 7 Gonzaga 8 Connecticut 9 Wisconsin 10 North Carolina 11 Michigan 12 Virginia 13 Wichita St. 14 St. Louis 15 Georgetown 16 Missouri 17 Vanderbilt 18 Kansas 19 Indiana 20 Villanova 21 Memphis 22 Syracuse 23 Arizona 24 Oklahoma St. 25 Baylor 26 Iowa 27 Purdue 28 Stanford 29 St. Mary's 30 Notre Dame 31 VCU 32 Creighton 33 New Mexico 34 Pittsburgh 35 UCLA 36 Marquette 37 Oregon 38 Texas 39 San Diego St. 40 Harvard

*Update: another significant error I discovered that affects Wisconsin, because I had essentially double-counter Josh Gasser's return. Oops. Drops them from 7th to 10th.

Original rankings:

Rank	Team
1	Florida
2	Duke
3	Michigan St.
4	Ohio St.
5	Kentucky
6	Louisville
7	Wisconsin
8	Gonzaga
9	Connecticut
10	Georgetown
11	North Carolina
12	Michigan
13	Virginia
14	St. Louis
15	Vanderbilt
16	Kansas
17	Wichita St.
18	Indiana
19	Villanova
20	Memphis
21	Syracuse
22	Arizona
23	Missouri
24	Oklahoma St.
25	Baylor
26	Iowa
27	Stanford
28	St. Mary's
29	Notre Dame
30	VCU
31	Creighton
32	New Mexico
33	Marquette
34	Purdue
35	Pittsburgh
36	UCLA
37	Texas
38	San Diego St.
39	Harvard
40	Alabama

Teaser

College basketball season has begun -- well, practice has begun, anyhow -- and I am working on a pre-season top 40. This ranking will be 100% model-driven, with no subjective input from me. There will, however, be numerous data-input errors, and innumerable conceptual mistakes, which should keep things entertaining.

Watch this space in the coming days for the unstoppable excitement.

Torvik's Prediction: 28-27, Badgers

Excellent work this week, Chorlton, explaining all the reasons that the Badgers could beat Ohio State on Saturday night. Too bad you lost your nerve when it came to prediction time.

I actually agree with you that this came is a tough "nut" to crack. I could certainly see OSU winning by two or three touchdowns. I can also think of a lot of ways the Badgers can win, although not by two or three touchdowns. To me, when you've got so many options, this is like trying to read a putt and you can't even tell which way it will break, much less how much. I learned long ago what to do in that situation: aim at the hole. Translation: I think this will be a close game.

Like you, I went 2-0 on last week's predictions, although I won the mini-battle by almost nailing the final score (I predicted 38-10; actual score 41-10.)

This week I'm taking the Badgers with the points and the over, while you're taking the Buckeyes to cover and the under. (I'm curious if you have a final score prediction?) So we might get some separation. (More likely is that we'll both go 1-1, one way or the other.) Given that the Badgers haven't lost by more than 7 points since ... well, I can't remember ... I think the 7.5 spread is an absolute gift.

Other than my golf analogy, I have a few other equally squishy reasons for picking the Badgers in this one:

• The law of averages. The Buckeyes have won 16 in a row, including a lot of lucky, close wins. How long can this continue? The Badgers have lost heartbreak after ridiculous heartbreak. How long can that continue? I'm betting those streaks come to an end.

• Overconfidence. I see it in the Buckeye fan base, and I suspect it in the players. They think that Wisconsin has been lucky to go three straight Rose Bowls, and don't properly appreciate how good the program is. This very entertaining piece says it all, calling Wisconsin "the most mediocre tyrant the Big Ten has ever seen." It's fair to put a big fat asterisk next to last year's Rose Bowl. But to deny the quality of the previous two teams is nonsense. Remember: one of those teams had JJ Watt and the other had Russell Wilson, Montee Ball, and Nick Toon. In fact, here's a ridiculous stat: 9 of the 11 players who started for the Badgers on offense in the 2011 Rose Bowl made an NFL roster this year (the other two were Ike Anderson and Jacob Pederson, who will get a shot next year).

• Stave. I agree he hasn't played all that well this year. But we know he can throw the ball. He has made some terrible throws when he's had wide-open receivers. But he's also made some very good throws. Other than the dropped snaps, he's made really only one boneheaded play all year. (Last week's interception was Wozniak's fault, as was obvious and has been admitted by everyone involved.) I'm betting we see at least one more great half out of him on Saturday. Probably the first half.

• Melvin Gordon III. Stars shine when the sun goes down. Gordon really looks like something special, and I think he will continue his scintillating season with a huge performance on national television. I think we will look back at this year (and hopefully next year) and marvel about that time when Melvin Gordon and Sam Dekker were on the UW campus at the same time.

• Defense. We agree that the Badgers defense is for real. It will win this game with a goal line stand. Or two.

So there you have it: Badgers 28, Buckeyes 27.

--Bart Torvik

Prediction time

I am off to a good start this year going 2-0 in the first week (1-0 vs. spread, and 1-0 vs. o/u). Nowhere to go but down from here. Both Torvik and I were wrong about this week's fantasy matchup as my general indifference to fantasy didn't prevent me from getting a win vs. him. On to this week's game.

Line is OSU by 7 1/2, and o/u is 54 1/2

My week long efforts to convince myself that UW will win this game have ended in a stalemate. I just don't know where this game is going. It will not surprise me if this game is a 38-35 shootout, a 13-10 grinder, or a 42-7 blowout. I think I have a good handle on UW, I just don't have any idea how good this OSU team is. These have been two of the highest scoring teams in the country this year against bad defenses, but the o/u of 54 1/2 follows the historical trend that defense will prevail in this matchup. OSU is averaging 52.5 points per game and UW 41 so this o/u appears low, but only twice in the past 12 matchups have these teams been over 54 1/2, (59 both times in 1999, 2011) so I'm picking the under.

When I think about UW winning this game I can see a game where UW is dominant running, OSU just can't stop Gordon and White and UW outscores OSU. I can see a game where Borland racks up 20 tackles with 10 of them on Miller who just can't bust loose and UW gets a close win by holding OSU to 10 points. When I see them losing I see a game where the running game and defense do enough to keep UW close, but special teams and Stave's turnovers cost UW the win.

I'm sure Squishy Torvik will disagree with me, but I just don't see Stave leading this team to a win. All the hope about Stave basically stems from 2 good halves of football, the first half against Nebraska and the first half against MSU last year. He was very good in those 2 halves, but hasn't been very good otherwise. In 3 of his 4 starts this season he has thrown an interception and he threw an interception in 2 of his 4 full games last season. It's not like UW is chucking the ball around, and Stave rarely throws under pressure so this is a lot of picks for a team that just needs a QB to hand off, take care of the ball, and throw a few deep balls each game.

The injuries bother me too. Anderson is holding all his cards close to the vest, but if several of UW's guys can't play then that will greatly hamper UW. So all my efforts this week have gone for naught. I am picking OSU to win and cover. I was surprised to see the spread at 7 1/2, and I am tempted to pick OSU to win, but take UW and the points against the spread. In case you haven't noticed I have very little confidence in this pick, and in that case one should probably just not bet at all. Since this is just for pride and not for dough, I'm still making picks. I can stand to lose some pride anyway.

Last try to convince myself

This is a twofer. #3 is the UW defense and #4 is UWs track record of recent success against OSU.

I believe the UW defense is very good. Others who watched ASU score 32 points against them could reasonably disagree with me, but I think over the course of the season this defense will prove me right.

The other 3 offenses UW faced this year were awful, so while UW shut out 2 and held Purdue to 10 points and 180 total yards, it's hard to judge them based on those performances. Even with Braxton Miller back I think UW will slow down the OSU offense which is currently 6th in the nation at 311 rushing yards per game, and 4th in scoring at 52.5 points per game. OSU like UW scores based on a great running game, and only ranks 76th in passing yards at 218 per game. UW's strength is stopping the run, and they should be able to keep OSU under control. UW is big, experienced and physical in the front 7 with 7 seniors likely to start this game.

The recent run of success I am referring to started in 1999 in the famous dancing on the horseshoe game when UW blew out OSU 42-17 in Columbus. Since that time UW is 5-7 vs OSU, which is still a losing record, but is as many wins as any team has had against them over that same span. Over those 12 games UW is 3-3 in Columbus, hardly an intimidating record. OSU has only averaged 21.7 points per game over the 12 game span, and the most points they have scored is 38. In 9 of the 12 games OSU has failed to reach 24 points.

The point spread in this game is OSU by 7 1/2, and the over under is 54 1/2.

We'll see tomorrow if I have come around on a road win for UW.

#2

In my week-long series trying to convince myself that UW will win at OSU this Saturday, reason #2 will be the UW running game.

The UW running game looks to be picking up right where it left off last season despite the losses of Monte Ball, Ricky Wagner and Travis Fredrick to the NFL. After rushing for 388 yards against Purdue, UW ranks 3rd nationally in rushing, averaging 349.8 yards per game. UW is getting big plays out of the running game and has a running play of at least 50 yards in each of the first 4 games. The average yards per carry in the 4 games are 8.1, 7.2, 7.6, and 8.9. None of the first 4 opponents have a defense anything close to what UW should see at OSU, despite what I wrote yesterday.

I had thought OSU did a good job shutting down UW's running attack last year at Camp Randall, but that's not entirely true. UW ran the ball 56 times for a net 206 yards rushing and a 3.7 YPC average. That average includes 4 sacks of Phillips for 36 yards. The 2 running backs both had solid days -Monte 39 rushes for 191 yards, a 4.9 YPC average, and James White had 8 carries for 33 yards and a 4.1 YPC average.

This production was despite a total lack of respect for the passing game due to UW starting Phillips, their 3rd string QB who in his only previous start in 2012 against Indiana was a less than prolific 4-7 for 41 yards. That's right, 7 passes and 41 yards for the entire game against Indiana in his only start in 2012 prior to the OSU game. Even with OSU selling out to stop the run Phillips was completely ineffective against OSU until the final tying drive. He completed 5 passes for 48 yards on the final drive, and was 9-20 for 106 yards the rest of the game.

While UW rushed for over 200 yards, they only scored 14 points. UW will need to score more than 14 points to win Saturday. UW did waste a few scoring attempts in that game when Monte fumbled inside the 5 yard line, French missed a 40 yard FG attempt, and UW opted to punt from the 30 yard line instead of attempting a long FG which resulted in a touchback and 10 net yards. The running game did enough to win if UW hadn't been crushed on special teams and Monte hadn't fumbled.

I know, I know, if and buts, candy and nuts. The point is that UW ran the ball on that defense, and they should run the ball on this OSU team.

First impressions on the OSU matchup

I am trying to convince myself that UW is going to win this game, so here is the first installment of reasons why I should pick UW in this game.

1) The OSU defense

OSU put up a shut out today in their last non-conference warm up game vs. Florida A&M. As you may expect, this is not very impressive as Florida A&M's best offensive performance was 27 points at home against Miss Valley State. Florida A&M also scored a paltry 7 points at home against Tennessee St. Enough said.

OSU also had a dominant performance against San Diego St beating them 42-7. At first this seems impressive as SDST has been a good team of late going to a bowl for 3 consecutive years. In the process they also lost their head coach Brady Hoke to Michigan and more recently offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig to UW. SDST is 0-3 this year including a 40-19 home loss to Eastern Illinois.

In OSU's first game of the year they jumped on Buffal0 23-0 after the first quarter, however Buffalo climbed back in the game and got it to 30-20 in the third quarter. This was due to 2 Buffalo TD passes, but also a defensive score. 2 things struck me about this game. The first was from the ESPN recap which stated that OSU came into their season opener with 10 of 11 new starters on defense. Any team replacing that many people is vulnerable to a drop off regardless of the talent base they recruit from. The other is that while the Buffalo offense only accounted for 14 points, this was their highest offensive output of the season. Buffalo scored 13 against Baylor, and just 10 in regulation against Stony Brook (They won that game scoring 26 points in regulation plus 5 overitmes).

That leaves us with OSU's only real test of the year, the road game against Cal. OSU jumped on Cal early, getting up 21-0 6 minutes into the game, and won that game comfortably. Despite the early lead again, Cal was able to keep it interesting because the OSU defense gave up 20 points before halftime and OSU lead just 31-20 going into the 3rd quarter. For the game Cal put up 34 points, 28 first downs, and 503 total yards. In Cal's 2 other games this year they put up 37 points in a home win vs. Portland St, and 30 points in a home loss to Northwestern.

All the talk in Columbus is about who is starting at QB. Perhaps it's time someone started talking about the defense.

Thoughts on the Great Transfer Debate

Alas, it is still the offseason for college basketball. That means people are talking about things like transfer rules, which are in the headlines because Coach K staked out a public opinion

on the transfer rules and their exceptions:

"There should be no exceptions," Krzyzewski told ESPN.com. "Everybody should have to sit out, that includes a fifth-year player, just to make it equal. I think it's a farce, really." 

"Giving certain kids the right to play and others not the right to play, it should be done the same," he said. "If they want to let everybody play right away, then let everybody play right away. Everybody should be treated the same. I don't understand why there are exceptions to this rule."

Gary Parrish agrees with Coach K that everyone should be treated the same, but he takes a hard line in favor of everybody playing right away. His arguments proceeds in a negative fashion, by knocking down what he perceives to be the best argument in favor of the forced redshirt year: "The one I hear most often is that it would create 'free agency' in college athletics."

First, Parrish expresses doubts that free transfers would actually create free agency. He makes a good point that transferring colleges is a big pain in the ass, and few people will do it lightly. I agree with him that unfettered, chaotic free agency is unlikely to result from unrestricted transfers. It will affect only the very best players, really.

Second, Parrish plays down the "rich get richer" argument against unrestricted transfers. This is the objection that low and mid-major teams will see their best players get recruited away from them by the high majors. Parrish agrees that this will happen, although perhaps not as often as some think. He just doesn't care, for reasons I'll quote in full:

The scenario most envision is a scenario where high-majors would essentially recruit from mid-majors and low-majors, just pluck the best of the best each and every year. In fairness, I agree, that would probably happen. But guess what? It already happens! And, even if it happened at an accellerated [sic] rate, why is that necessarily a bad thing?
Are you about protecting schools or creating opportunities for young people? 

I'm about creating opportunities for young people.

So, for the sake of the conversation, let's say there's a kid who is just an OK prospect out of high school and can only muster an offer from Stony Brook. This is a kid who forever dreamed of playing at a high-major, and he thinks he's good enough to play at a high-major. But, for whatever reason, he hasn't yet been able to convince a high-major coach of that by the time he graduates high school. 

Consequently, the kid signs with Stony Brook. 

Then he grows four inches and develops a jumpshot. 

Then he's a legitimate All-American candidate after two years. 

What would be so bad about that kid at that point accepting an offer to transfer to Ohio State or North Carolina or Kansas to complete his eligibility? What would be so bad about that kid at that point, after two years of hard work and development, taking advantage of an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream? 

Why would you be against that?

These are good points, as far as they go. But it seems to me that Parrish is ignoring the elephant in the room: corruption. It's not free agency per se that is bad—after all, high school students are free agents—it's the particular incentives that are associated with inter-collegiate recruiting that are troubling.

Think about that Stony Brook All-American candidate, and the incentives created by that situation. If he's already an All-American, that means he's either going pro after his sophomore or junior year. So he's either transferring or going pro.

If he transfers, he knows he's one-and-done at his new school, so he has very little to lose by playing fast and loose with the rules and getting some while the getting is good. This is all similar to the situation with "one-and-done" high school seniors now, but I assume no one associated with college basketball is looking to expand that sordidness.

Of course, most recruitments will be clean. But with the amount of money at stake, and the egos involved, there will be also be many dirty recruitments.

Fine, you might say: so what?

Here's what. College sports are weird. And I don't think we have a great understanding of what makes them special. So we should take care when we change the things that make college sports unique.

The more corrupt college basketball becomes, and the more like a pro league it become, the less interesting it is for most of the fans. Don't get me wrong—this isn't about idyllic principles of "amateurism." It's about at least the illusion of a level playing field, which is an absolute, fundamental prerequisite to interesting sporting events. This is also why pay-for-play is dangerous. If people come to believe that the big, rich programs can essentially buy players, college basketball becomes a farce like major league baseball, but only worse—because there's no draft to get things started quasi-fairly and there's even more fundamental inequality of resources.

Transfer restrictions and enforced amateurism are, I think, efforts by the NCAA to keep college basketball and football special, because that ineffable specialness is why people care (and how everyone makes money). If college sports become just a second-rate semi-pro league, there's a chance interest will wane, and profits will fall. And when that happens, eventually the opportunities for young people diminish as well. Who wants that?

By this way, this explains why transfer restrictions exist only in basketball and football—because those are the only wildly popular college sports, and they are the only sports with truly national recruiting. In every other sport, the student-athletes really are students first, so transferring will always be primarily an academic and social consideration rather than a sporting one (just as it is for most football and basketball players). So nothing is gained by the forced redshirt.

Of course, I could be wrong. In fact, I probably am! It could well be that transfers (and pay-for-play) won't change things enough to affect what's special about big-time college sports. And even if does destroy what's special, it could be worth it just because it will increase the student-athletes' freedom of choice, which may just be a paramount consideration. But I am very certain that this is the question we should actually be thinking about because it is the actual reason that these rules exist. We certainly shouldn't make these kinds of changes without at least acknowledging and confronting the real risks involved.

Prediction time

Time to start the annual predictions. Last year I was great on the picks vs. the spread, and terrible against the over/under. UW is a 24 point favorite and the over/under is 47 1/2. I know I said after last season I was giving up on picking the over/under after my horrendous showing, but I'm a fake gambling addict so I just can't give it up.

As you may surmise from my previous post I am high on UW and I am picking them. The 24 points are the biggest spread of any 2 major conference opponents this weekend although there aren't that many good games. This is the 4th weekend and most teams are making money with home games against patsies. I still like UW against the big spread based on what UW did to Purdue last year, and what Cincy did to them this year. The close game against Notre Dame didn't change my opinion of Purdue.

Purdue has scored 7, 20, and 24 points in their 3 games. I think the UW defense will destroy them, and I don't think they make it to double digit points. Unless Stave throws a pick 6 or UW gives up a special teams TD Purdue may not get in the end zone. If that is correct, then UW has to score about 40 points to cover the over. I think they have it in them with the running game hitting on all cylinders. Gary Anderson doesn't seem to have the run up the score mentality that Bielema did, because he seems to have more class than any human being in college coaching today. However when the classy thing to do is run the ball to run out the clock, and your 3rd string tailback is good enough to start on most college teams, it's hard not to run it up a little.

I have UW and the over. What say you Torvik?

I finally learned something

I went into the Badgers game not knowing much about what kind of team UW was going to have this year. The questions have been answered despite a gut wrenching loss that the refs just plain screwed up (more on that later). This is a very good football team, and the defense is as good as advertised. That may seem silly after they gave up 32 points and 468 yards of offense, but ASU is a very good offense. ASU was playing at home, and due to circumstances (Punt return for TD, 3 and outs) the defense had to be on the field for over 50 plays in the first half. Here's what I liked about the defense: ASU completed just 57% of their passes (29-51); ASU averaged just 2.8 yards per rush (42 rushes for 116 yards); UW won the turnover battle 2-1 and had 2 4th down stops. This defense should keep getting better, and I think they are good enough to allow UW to compete for the Big Ten Championship.

 

The offense can run the ball against a real opponent, and while Stave is not as good as past Badger QBs, he can do enough for this team to win. I was disappointed to see UW throw the ball as much as they did (31 passes, 32 rushes including a sack and the kneel down) especially when they ran the ball so effectively (32 rushes for 231 yards 7.2 YPC avg.). Stave had a few throws that made me cringe, (I'm thinking of the Favre throw in the second half) but he didn't turn the ball over once. Melvin Gordon has the size and speed that the NFL likes and they may come calling after this year, so UW should ride him all season. He could put up Heisman consideration numbers if they do.

 

I liked seeing starters like Borland and Southward playing on special teams. UW has had horrible special teams for years largely because Bielema didn't like to play starters due to the injury risk. UW doesn't have the depth of athletes as top flight recruiting schools, so if you don't play your starters on special teams that means you are playing lesser athletes and inexperienced players there. The result is crappy special teams. With the changed rules on kickoffs making touchbacks more frequent, there should be fewer total special teams plays reducing the injury risk. There is an injury risk, but at the college level, at a program like UW, I think playing it's best athletes on special teams is a good move. I think the potential payout of more big plays out weighs the risk of extra injury exposure.

 

Now to the end of the game. When Abbrederis ran out of bounds I said to my companions, UW should kick the ball now because without a timeout there is too much that can go wrong if they try to run another play. With only 18 seconds left and a kick taking 5-6 seconds and a kickoff taking another 5-6 seconds, ASU would have likely only had time for one play. When Anderson called for Stave to just center the ball and kneel rather than try another pass I was relieved, as it was a totally safe and wise call with plenty of time to spike. Given the kickers struggles this year, centering the ball made lots of sense. Then the Pac-12 refs screwed up, huddled to discuss their mistake, and ran off the field without an explanation of their indefensible decision to either the watching fans, or the coaches on the field. I hope they are reprimanded for this, but since they are employed by the Pac-12, I doubt they will be. This is now the 2nd year in a row UW has lost on the road to a Pac-12 team with a controversial call in the closing minutes (remember Oregon State). UW may want to adjust their scheduling in the future.

 

So losing like this really sucks, but this game is non-conference so it likely has no impact on UW's chances to make it to the Big Ten Championship game (there are tiebreakers in the case of a 3 way tie in which this game could have an impact, but what Leaders division team will possibly tie UW and OSU). Where I see a possible issue is on the money side for the Big Ten. Let's say UW has a great season going 6-2 in the Big Ten and 9-3 overall, but falls short of going to the Big Ten Championship game to OSU. OSU wins the Championship game and goes to the Rose Bowl. A 9-3 UW is probably heading to the Outback bowl or Capital One Bowl depending who the losing team was in the Championship game and which bowl wants what team. If UW had that extra quality road win at ASU and was 10-2 they would be a likely candidate for an at-large BCS game birth. While that wouldn't make much difference for fans, (UW would get a great SEC opponent in either the Outback or Capital One Bowl anyway) it makes a huge difference in payout for the Big Ten. A 2nd BCS game would bring over 10 million dollars of revenue to the conference. All speculation at this point, but that's what blogging is for.

I'll resume making picks with the Purdue game, and I've now become bullish on UW chances this year of having a great season.

Did I learn anything else?

Nope.
Stave threw the ball around a little more, but other than that UW showed nothing new. They rushed 4 most of the time. They ran the ball 51 times. No secrets will be revealed until ASU. What I'm kind of hoping is that UW does the exact same thing against ASU, and is still successful. The best UW teams are ones that can just run their basic stuff and win. If they look to exotic plays this early in the season then it may be a long year.
The spread is ASU -5 1/2. About what you would expect for a home team when both teams are separated by just a few spots in the polls. ASU brings back their quarterback, RB, and a few receivers from a good offense. This looks to be a classic matchup of strength vs strength: UW defense vs ASU offense.
I have no idea where this one is going, so no picks yet. Could be a blow out for either side. Could be a down to the 4th quarter shootout. Could be a defensive struggle. My wild guess is shootout, because when you get unfamiliar teams together the offenses usually benefit.
I'm going to start my predictions for the Purdue game once this team has shown themselves.

Did I learn anything on Saturday?

Yes, but what I learned was more about the big picture. You don't want to read to much into a game that was probably less competitive than when the 1s play the 2s at practice. With that being said, there are a few things I saw that comforted me.

After Gary Anderson came in with new systems, and brought in a JC transfer QB to run his spread offense I was worried. Those fears were somewhat reduced when Stave won the starting job, as Stave is not mobile and will not be running any read option. The offense on Saturday looked pretty much the same as the offense that UW has run successfully for several years. Lots of power run plays setting up play action passing, with occasional shotgun in 3rd down passing situations. Anderson appears to value getting his best players on the field and playing to their strengths over imposing a preferred scheme.

The offensive line did what you would expect in beating up an undersized and not talented defense. The running backs are talented and fast, and Watt looks like he may join his brother in the NFL someday (if they still have fullbacks by then). The tight ends and wide receivers are solid blockers and effective enough pass catchers, but only Abbrederis is a big play threat. Stave did not look very good in the 1st half, but played better in the 2nd. With only Abbrederis to create big plays in the passing game, the offense will probably struggle as it did last season against good defenses that can slow down the run game. Will the offensive line be good enough to win games by just running the ball? We won't have much idea about that until ASU.

The defense is a bit harder to get a handle on. I assume the Badgers are not going to show their hand until at least the ASU game, so while this defense looked a lot like last years it may look entirely different in 2 weeks. Anderson said he was going to bring in a 3-4 press man coverage scheme that was designed to pressure the QB. I don't remember seeing a CB within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage before the first play of the 2nd quarter. There were a few CB blitzes, but the defense was pretty vanilla and played off the ball. On 3rd down passing situations the Badgers played without anyone down on the defensive line, but they did that last year as well.

The Badgers stayed in their base 3-4 against 3 WR sets just as they did often with their 4-3. The only difference from 3-4 to 4-3 was Kelly was standing up instead of in a 3 point stance on the end of the line. The other OLB Armstrong was standing up as well but not on the line, as he split out to cover the slot WR. Not many 3-4 OLBs are going to match up on a WR, but Armstrong is not a typical 3-4 OLB, and neither is Kelly (a converted DE). UW basically looked like a 4-3 with Kelly standing up. Kelly was in coverage a little, and didn't look very good when he was. When the Badgers did play nickel, with 2 lineman, 4LBs, and 5 DBs, they did play more press coverage, but still with limited blitzing.

There will probably be no more answers against another over matched opponent in Tennessee Tech next week.

My first thoughts on this team is that we are looking at a repeat of last year. This team is very solid defensively, but not dominant. The defense should be good enough to keep UW in most every game. The running game is good enough to beat up bad defenses, so UW should put up points against bottom level competition. This should get them at least 5-6 wins. Last year UW lost a ton of close games because they couldn't score enough against defenses that could stop the run. In the 5 games in which UW failed to score 17 points in regulation they won just 1 (against Utah State when they missed the game winning field goal). They also lost to PSU in overtime when they only scored 21.

If Stave can stay healthy and start all season long, Abbrederis stays healthy, and the offensive line can stay healthy and perform close to as well as last year's line, this team could be better offensively and win enough of those close games to get to 10 wins. That's a lot to ask. If the offense struggles and looks like it did last year, UW probably loses some close games again and finishes with 8 wins. Barring catastrophic injury problems, I have given up my fears of a disastrous 5-7 losing season.

 

Earn That Statue

There's a statue of Barry Alvarez outside Camp Randall Stadium. This strikes some people as premature, or gauche, or worse, for a couple of reasons: (1) Barry Alvarez is still alive, and we usually wait until people are dead to honor them in bronze; and (2) Barry Alvarez is not just still alive, but still working at the University of Wisconsin as its athletics director.

Still, most Badgers fans are fine with the statue because it cannot be denied that Barry Alvarez is a living legend. What he did as the football coach at Wisconsin is a miracle. He take a good-for-nothing, moribund non-program and turn it into a consistent winner that went to three Rose Bowls (and won them) in eight years. Then he transitioned into a role as the tsar—er, athletics director—and groomed his own successor (Bret Bielema). This is usually where the story takes a turn for the worse. As rare as it is for someone to create a powerhouse from scratch, it's even rarer for the powerhouse to survive that person's retirement. But Barry Alvarez did it. He built Wisconsin football as its coach, and as athletics director he left it in Bret Bielema's remarkably competent hands. Three more Rose Bowls ensued.

We know what happened next. Bret Bielema took the money and ran. Barry Alvarez hired Gary Anderson.

This is Barry's final test. If Gary Anderson succeeds at Wisconsin—and by "success" I mean that he wins at least one conference championship in his tenure—then Barry Alvarez will have done the unthinkable: He will have turned Wisconsin into a dynasty.

And if that happens, Barry Alvarez will, beyond any doubt, have earned that statue.

--Bart Torvik

Looks like I'm already down and the season hasn't even started.

Torvik got me to pick a QB favorite earlier this summer and I went with Phillips over Stave. While Stave has not been officially named the starter, the word on the street is he will win the job.

I am coming around on the new coach. I still have reservations about changing offensive and defensive systems that have worked amazingly over 2 decades, 2 coaches and 6 Rose Bowls. The choice of Stave over the much more athletic McEvoy, and the slightly more mobile and more experienced (or at least older) Phillips leads me to believe they are willing to craft the scheme to the talent. Stave will not be running the read option any time soon.

One of my reservations about the new coach had more to do with fan expectations more than Gary Anderson. After 2 wildly successful coaches and an impossible to imagine 6 Rose Bowls I thought the fan base had lost touch with reality when it came to reasonable expectations for this program. This is mostly based on what I hear and read, but it seemed pretty representative of the fan base as a whole.

What I heard at the end of the Bielema era were ridiculous things like UW should be a contender for a national championship. Not a Big Ten Championship, a National Championship. UW has had some great teams and has had some seasons where they were close to such lofty goals. UW certainly would have had a chance to play for a National Championship in a couple of recent seasons if an 8 team playoff existed, but that's a topic for another day. UW is not that type of program, and probably never will be.

I think I may have misread some of the fan base expectations because people hated Bielema so much. Much of my fear about expectations is because despite all of Bielema's success there were constantly fans who hated him and wanted him fired. They hated him because he didn't win a Rose Bowl, or have a good Bowl record in general, but mostly they hated him because he was a dick. I didn't care that Bielema was a dick. All I cared about was that the Badgers went to 3 Rose bowls and had a ton of wins while he was the coach. Gary Anderson on the other hand seems to have endeared himself to the fan base in a very short time, and by all accounts is pleasant to listen to in interviews and is an all around good human being.

If the fans like him, will they be more forgiving than they were with Bielema? Maybe. If he doesn't win enough to get to bowl games routinely then it won't matter how much he is liked or how saintly he is in life. Earlier this year if I was told he will win regularly but won't get to a BCS/Rose Bowl then I would have said he won't finish his contract. Now that I have seen how likable he is I'm not so sure. Fans are human beings after all, and how much a person is liked does matter to them in their perception of him as a coach.

I will start making my picks against the spread like last year, but not for a few weeks. You shouldn't bet on something you know nothing about, and no one knows much about football teams they have never seen play. Even though the only thing I'm risking is my pride. I'll resume picks in a few weeks once this team has shown more of itself.

It's too bad teams can't make overseas trips every year.

I know it's almost football season so I'll do a post on that soon, but I couldn't resist my basketball Badgers.

It was quite fun to get some summer basketball from the Badgers this past week. All I was able to watch was the 2nd half of the Ryerson game, but even that was a welcome break from baseball. I didn't see or read anything to question my assumptions from the end of last season:

The Badgers are going to start and play a lot of 3 guard and probably some 4 guard lineups. Kaminsky will have to play a lot. Dekker will almost never come out of the game and will be a dominating force in the Big Ten. They are going to be a lot of fun to watch.

The schedule came out today and it should be a fun year. There are not as many early cupcakes as usual. Perhaps because of the Canada trip UW will be ready for big tests early and they will get some wins. They start with Big East foe St. Johns on a neutral court, probable preseason top 10 Florida at home, and at Green Bay (where Bo Ryan has suffered a preseason loss before).

I think this team will be a championship contender in what should be a good but not great Big Ten Conference. They have a lucky schedule in that they don't play at MSU or at OSU and only play each team once. The other 2 teams they get once are Nebraska and PSU on the road. I think they ride a 4-0 record in those games plus a 10-4 record in the remaining games to a share of the Big Ten title at 14-4.

Sam Dekker is going to be great

The Badgers went 4-1 on their Canadian tour, and Sam Dekker pretty much dominated every game, except for one game when he got in foul trouble. I got to watch most of the stream of the Ryerson game, which included these two Dekker assists, on back-to-back possessions:



I'm going to enjoy watching Sam play for the next couple of years.

--Bart Torvik

Badgers QB redux

Alright, Chorlton, time to take a stand:

Who should start at QB for the Badgers?

Last year we clashed on Stave versus O'Brien.

You failed that test. Redemption time?