White Suburban Punk

Underachieving Minnesota picked a helluva time to actually show and play like they care last night, as they beat Wisconsin 68-52 at Williams Arena.  Wisconsin’s hopes for the conference title are dashed.  The good news for the Badgers was that Jon Leuer made his return to the lineup, coming off the bench 2:30 into the game.  The bad news is that there is going to be an adjustment period, both for the player and the team.  Leuer looked extremely rusty last night, both with his shooting touch and on defense.  In fact, the team defense overall was pretty weak, although they definitely didn’t get any help from the officials.  It seemed like the Badgers kept getting called for touch fouls while Minnesota would hack and rake all they wanted without getting a call.  Bo Ryan actually received a technical late in the first half when the foul differential was 10-4.  At halftime, Minnesota led, 35-26, Leuer was 0-6 from the floor and Wisconsin was 3-18 from two.

Still, Wisconsin was able to cut the lead to three in the second half, but then they started missing shots again.  They had good looks, but they just weren’t going in.  One of those nights.  They also gave up a lot of offensive rebounds and got killed on the glass overall.  It was a pretty sloppy game that they deserved to lose.  Leuer finished 2-12 with four points and one rebound in 26 minutes.

Steve Lavin stated at one point that his friends who are scouts consider Leuer a lottery-level talent.  I know he’s good, but I”m not sure he’s that good.  Maybe next year he will really emerge into a force.  It seemed before his injury that he was starting to figure out how good he is.

With Minnesota dribbling the clock out, Gopher guard Lawrence Westbrook inexplicably drove the lane and attempted a dunk with 3 seconds left in the game.  He failed, but was fouled and hit two free throws.  Stay classy, Minnesota.

Just when it seemed like all was right with Wisconsin basketball, they get upset at home by the Illini.  Looking back, however, this was almost inevitable.  Wisconsin had been leading a very charmed life lately, winning a couple of games they didn’t deserve and getting a couple of routs based on lights out shooting.  A dry spell had to come at some point, and it arrived last night.

The Badgers started out great with the offense cruising, and built a ten point lead, but then they started getting a bit lackadaisacal on defense and taking some quick shots.  They also didn’t drive into the lane, and absolutely could not stop Illinois’ high pick and roll all game.  Guard Demetri McCamey finished with 27 for the Illini, including some fairly ridiculous shots.  Illinois hit their last 8 shots of the first half, and the Badgers kept it close in the second, but Illinois pulled away at the end.  Wisconsin got some good looks, but missed 17 of their last 20 shots in the game.  Trevon Hughes finished 4-16, including 0-8 in the second half.  The Badgers had been ranked #13 in the coaches’ poll and #11 in the AP and looked like they could go 2-0 this week and maybe break into the top 10, but it wasn’t meant to be.  They probably needed to be brought back to earth.  They’re still #9 in the RPI, with Indiana at the Kohl Center Saturday.  In fact, the rest of the Big Ten schedule is pretty good, with the toughest game at Minnesota.

Illinois was able to build its resume, and Wisconsin gets another shot at them in Champaign in the last game of the season.  Coupled with Michigan State’s third straight loss last night, Illinois is now tied for first in the conference.

Photo from Scout.com

Wisconsin made it 2-0 against Michigan with a win in Ann Arbor Saturday in basketball.  My favorite color guy, Bill Raftery, did the game on CBS, although it was on an alternative CBS station I didn’t even know about on Direct TV.  Wisconsin shot lights out in this game, almost unbelievably well, especially from three.  They were 9-13 from downtown in the first half, including a Jason Bohannon bomb from just over half court at the buzzer.  Michigan shot 60% for the half and trailed, 40-26.  The Badgers couldn’t stop or contain Deshaun Sims, but Michigan inexplicably stopped going to him.  This happened in the second half, too.

At halftime, Seth Davis said that he loves Wisconsin and he thinks they’ll be a really tough out in the tournament because they’re smart and they don’t turn the ball over.  Amen.

Michigan started the second half much more aggressively and the refs started calling fouls like crazy.  This was the second recent game where this happened – virtually no fouls in the first half, and then every touch gets a foul in the second.  Big Ten officials.  Suspiciously, 7 of the first 8 fouls in the second half were called on the team with the double digit lead, too.  But Wisconsin simply would not be deterred on this day.  They kept hitting their threes and cruised to a 62-44 win.  The offense was purring all game, working the shot clock, and really getting good shots.  It wasn’t like all these threes were prayers.  After high hopes in the beginning of the season (#15 in preseason polls), Michigan looks like an also ran now.  Manny Harris scored just 11 points and Deshaun Sims finished with 18.  Beyond them, I don’t see any other scorers on the team.  Wisconsin is now 5-2 without Jon Leuer, who actually took some shooting practice Sunday with his cast still on.  The projection for his return is still “before the Big Ten tournament.” 

Next up for the Badgers is Illinois and Indiana at home.  I actually watched the end of the Illinois/Michigan State game, won by Illinois in Champaign, and the fans rushed the court after the game.  Dick Vitale was saying how he didn’t like that, which is also something Mike Wilbon said last week.  What is up with these guys?  Isn’t college basketball supposed to be fun?  They beat the first place team in the conference, a team they hate.  They’re supposed to just pack up and go home?  Lighten up!

Illinois and Wisconsin are now tied for second, one game behind Michigan State.

Wisconsin hockey hosts Michigan outside at Camp Randall Stadium today, televised by the Big Ten Network at 6:00 eastern.  Michigan is ranked #19 in the country, Wisconsin is #3, and the Badgers hope to avenge a 3-2 loss earlier in the season in Ann Arbor.  This is actually a big game for the PairWise rankings.  The forecast for Madison is 27 degrees and cloudy, downright balmy for early February in Madtown.

Michigan and Wisconsin also meet today in basketball in Ann Arbor.  Wisconsin struggled to win at the Kohl Center earlier in the season, and has had all kinds of trouble on the road. Vegas has the game as a pick ‘em.

Football signing day was this week and it looks like Wisconsin had a pretty typical class, no blue chip standouts, but a lot of solid, coachable players.  They hit the defensive line pretty hard to build depth there, and have a couple of players who may be able to contribute next year, one defensive tackle (Beau Allen) and a safety (Frank Tamokloe).  The precise scientific measurements of recruiting classes by the “experts” have Wisconsin’s class ranked #33 by Scout.com and #86 by Rivals.com.

The Sporting News released an early 2010 football preseason rankings and has Wisconsin 10th.  Matt Hayes also has an article arguing that Wisconsin will enter 2010 with the most momentum in the country.  Juicy quote: “Now with a little luck and championship karma, and some old-fashioned Wisconsin Crawl Ball spit and polish, the Badgers may not only win the Big Ten for the first time since 1999—they may just play for it all next January in Phoenix.”

Great performance for the #16 Badgers as they destroy #5 Michigan State, 67-49 last night, handing Tom Izzo his first Big Ten defeat of the season.  Wisconsin did it without Jon Leuer and mostly without Trevon Hughes, who played just 3 minutes of the first half before sitting with two fouls.  Still, UW led 38-23 at the half.  It was a season low points for Michigan State, who shot 37%, had just 11 assists, and 13 turnovers.  Wisconsin shot 51%, had 17 assists, and just 5 turnovers.  Wisconsin did it with an incredibly balanced attack, as virtually everyone played well.  Jason Bohannon, Jordan Taylor, Keaton Nankivil, Ryan Evans, Tim Jarmusz, and Rob Wilson all contributed solid games.  The Badgers are now 4-2 without Leuer, 5-2 vs. ranked teams, and 3-0 vs. teams in the top 10.  They are now #10 in the RPI.

No matter how much Izzo bitched and moaned, and he did it a lot, it didn’t matter.  Michigan State’s only lead in the game was 1-0.  They were absolutely blown out, crushed, routed, out-toughed, manhandled, and bitch slapped by the better team, at least on this night.

Photo from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

#16 Wisconsin lost to #12 Purdue at Mackey Arena Thursday, but the performance was definitely encouraging given the last couple of games.  It’s a completely acceptable loss, and they actually had a real good chance to win this game.  Jon Leuer somewhat strangely is still traveling with the team despite his broken wrist, but this was probably the Badgers’ best performance so far without him.  Purdue’s crowd was extremely pumped for this game, and they had some extra emotion with the return from injury of their point guard.  The first half was pretty tight, with Purdue holding a 27-25 halftime lead.  There were only 8 fouls called in the entire first half, and then 8 were called in the first 4 minutes of the second half, including 3 on Purdue in 16 seconds, which had the crowd in a frenzy.  Purdue actually started the second half with 6 points, 8 fouls, and 5 turnovers, and UW took a 5 point lead.  But then the shots stopped falling and the Badgers started turning the ball over like crazy.  Purdue went on a 17-2 run.  One stat showed the Badgers with 4 turnovers in the game’s first 30 minutes and then 4 more in the next two minutes.  Still, Wisconsin clawed back and even took a lead with 40 seconds left on Keaton Nankivil’s 7th three pointer.  Hopefully he continues to step it up in Leuer’s absence.  A big guy who can score.  Robby Hummel hacked the hell out of Trevon Hughes on a 3 with 6 seconds left, but it wasn’t called, after the refs called absolutely everything in the rest of the second half.  The officiating was horribly inconsistent, but we’re used to that in the Big Ten.  Anyway, Badgers lose 60-57.  Next is Michigan State at the Kohl Center on Tuesday.

Looking forward to Kansas v. Kansas State from Manhattan Saturday night. 

Photo from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

So why can’t we do this against Michigan in football?  Charissa Thompson brought her magic to Madison and the Big Ten Network as the Badgers started the game 1-13 from the floor and finished the first half 1-10 from beyond the arc, but only down by 3 points.  Michigan got the lead back to 11 in the second half, but Wisconsin closed the game on a 24-9 run to win by 6.  They got their first lead with 3 minutes left in the game and ended up shooting 34% from the field, including 4-24 from three point land.  They won by turning the ball over just five times in the game (once in the second half), being tenacious on the boards, and hitting their free throws.  Tim Jarmusz held Manny Harris to just 11 points on 4-14 shooting, Trevon Hughes scored 16 of his 20 points in the second half, and Rob Wilson had his coming out party with a career high 13 points. 

Wisconsin is now a precarious 2-1 without Jon Leuer, and they simply have to start getting some production down low.  About half their shots have been from beyond the arc since Leuer went down.  This team just doesn’t shoot well enough to continue like this.  They absolutely stole a win at home to unranked Michigan, which is great, but definitely ominous.

Ohio State got revenge from Wisconsin’s 22 point drubbing in Madison three weeks ago by beating the Badgers 60-51 in Columbus.  Evan Turner missed the game in Madison, but he was back Saturday and scored 15 points despite being plagued by foul trouble.  Wisconsin was without Jon Leuer, who has a broken wrist, and got virtually no low post scoring whatsoever.  The Badgers actually played pretty poorly overall, with 14 turnovers (season average is 10) and just 7 assists.  They shot 40% for the game and 9-26 from 3.  Ryan Evans had his worst game of the season, finishing with 0 points, 2 fouls, 2 turnovers, and 5 rebounds.  Jim Jackson couldn’t pronounce Tim Jarmusz’s name (JAR-miss), and it continued into the second half.  It’s strange that no one corrects a guy after he makes the same mistake over and over.

Overall, Ohio State wasn’t really all that impressive.  They shot well, but seemed to fall asleep at times and weren’t able to step on the Badgers’ throat and put the game away.  Even up 8 late in the game, they were taking quick shots and making stupid turnovers.  With 1:00 left and OSU up 10, the Badgers appeared to concede and weren’t even trying to foul.  Evan Turner inexplicably drove to the hoop and got called for charging.  But they got the win and are now 3-3 in the conference after a tough start to the conference schedule.   Wisconsin is 4-2 and now face Michigan (coming off a huge win against Connecticut) and Penn State at home in the next two games.  They then will play at Purdue and at home to Michigan State, so it’s important to win these two home games.  They are now 1-1 without Leuer and dropped to #18 in the AP and #19 in the coaches’ poll.  RPI is #9.

After being picked to finish 8th in the conference at the start of the season, Wisconsin is 14-3 overall, 4-1 in the conference, and ranked #13 in the nation.  Leading scorer Jon Leuer is now sidelined indefinitely, however, after having surgery on a broken wrist suffered in the Purdue game last weekend.  The Badgers played terrific basketball in their first two Big 10 games, at home to Ohio State (22 point win) and at Penn State, but looked completely discombobulated in a loss at Michigan State and in the first half of the Purdue game.  However, they got their mojo back in the second half against Purdue, handing them their first loss of the season behind the guard trio of Jordan Taylor, Jason Bohannon, and Trevon Hughes.

Last night they made it 4-1 in the conference with a hard-fought win at Northwestern in the first game without Leuer.  Trevon Hughes awoke from a horrible 0-9 shooting start to ignite the win.  Incidentally, Luke Winn at Sports Illustrated did a great piece on Hughes’ voyage from Queens to Wisbumf***, er, Wisconsin, here.  Wisconsin closed the game on a 14-2 run to win by 10 against Northwestern.  The Badgers finished the game with 15 offensive rebounds, while Northwestern had 20 defensive rebounds in the game.  Not bad for the first game without the 6-10 Leuer. 

Next up is a revenge game for Ohio State in Columbus on Saturday night, televised on the Big Ten Network.  The Buckeyes will have Evan Turner back for this one, after he missed the game in Madison.

One other college football note: In the last five years, the Big Ten is 6-6 in bowl games against the SEC.  In the last 10 years, the SEC holds a 14-12 edge.  Not nearly as bad as the national media would have you believe, is it?

Photo from SI

Flight of the Conchords is over after two seasons.  Great show, but probably a good decision.  How far could these guys really go before things got tired?  It was just too creative to go on for too long.  Hopefully they’ll come up with some one-off type stuff, and maybe some HBO specials.

On another TV note, Friday Night Lights has been incredible this season.  Best show on television, bar none.

The news from Patriots camp is pretty insane, with the two losses in a row, the inability to win in someone else’s stadium, the four players being sent home, Adalius Thomas essentially blasting BB, and now Brady supposedly has a rib injury.  Things really seem to be falling apart, but BB has four games to rally them.  It’s been a confusing year.  They still have so much talent on offense, but stunningly can’t execute, especially in crunch time.  I think Bill O’Brien has to get a lot of blame for the play calling.  It seems that whenever they start running the ball effectively, they immediately go away from it.  Please come back, Charlie Weis.  The defense has probably played about as well as anyone could have expected, with the youth and all the new players.  Adalius Thomas and Derrick Burgess appear to be bums, and the lack of a pass rush is killing them.  Any secondary would look bad put in that situation.  It’s incredible that they’ve already lost as many games this year as last year, especially considering how Matt Cassel has played this year.  Four games to get their act together, get back to basics, and PLAY TO WIN THE GAME.

The Sox are reportedly close to consummating the deal trading Mike Lowell to the Rangers.  Great guy, 2007 World Series MVP, but the team just has to have better defense on third base.  Of course, they now have to replace his bat, too.  I would think they’re either going to trade for Adrian Gonzalez or sign Adrian Beltre.  If they trade for Gonzalez, Roy Halladay is obviously out.  My guess is that Jason Bay will re-sign here, but if not, I don’t think they’ll get Matt Holliday.  LF would probably end up being a platoon between Jeremy Hermida and somebody like Xavier Nady. 

Is everyone excited about Marco Scutaro?  No.  Boof Bonser?  No, but I’ve actually always liked him.  He was a first round pick in 2000, and is now coming off shoulder surgery.  Good risk, but probably not lots of upside.  After the yankees traded for Curtis Granderson, if they get Bay or Matt Holliday or, god forbid, Doc Halladay, just forget 2010 and 2011.  Although Doc is probably out for them now after trading away one of their top prospects in the Granderson deal.  They could sign John Lackey, though, which would be almost as bad.  I’ve always liked him; it’s too bad the Sox don’t seem to be looking at him any closer.  Theo did have a comment about 2010 being a “bridge” to the future, and it’s getting to the point where no one will be able to compete with yankees next year anyway, so why bother.

The only good news this offseason has been the report that Peter Gammons is leaving the four letter network to join MLB Network and NESN.  Welcome home, Commish.

Badger football doesn’t get a New Year’s Day bowl game after the Outback Bowl bizarrely picked Northwestern.  Sure, they beat the Badgers, but we had a better overall record.  Anyway, I much prefer the matchup against Miami.  Better team than Auburn, and Miami is a team I truly hate.  Incidentally, ESPN’s 30 For 30 show is doing “The U” this Saturday night.  I’ve watched all the episodes so far of this thing, and it’s really good.

Badger hoops got themselves ranked after beating Duke, and then lost in OT at UW-Green Bay.  Harsh, but it looks like UWGB is actually a pretty good team, so hopefully that loss won’t look so bad later in the season.  Marquette is up this Saturday at 6:00 Eastern on ESPN2, in Madison.  Gotta win that one.

Badger hockey is on a nice roll, and they look like they could be for real this season.  They’re #11 in the country now, and they play at #3 North Dakota this weekend.  Friday night’s game will be televised on the NHL network, and I think they usually use the Badger announcers for those games.  The trend this year is for the Badgers to massively outshoot their opponents, at least with shots that reach the goalie.  Five of Wisconsin’s six defensemen have been drafted in the first two rounds of the NHL draft.

Liverpool finished up their Champions League schedule with yet another hard luck loss, this time to Fiorentina at Anfield, giving up the game winning goal basically at the death.  They play a huge game against Arsenal Sunday at Anfield.  I think it will be televised on Fox Soccer Channel.  It looks like Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard will both start for the first time since October.

Everton is supposedly in talks to get Landon Donovan on loan from the MLS.  Hopefully it happens, but I’m skeptical.  The league owns all the contracts in the MLS, and they have a history of asking for exorbitant sums for players on loan.  It would be great for Landycakes, though, and I would be really curious to see how he performs in the Premiership.

That’s all I got.