11-11-2022, 10:18 AM
Hey folks, Badger fan here, coming by to see what you folks are talking about. Which seems to be not much about this game... But, it is still fall sports season and a couple weeks before T-day, so not entirely in the swing of things yet for hoops.
First topic, the venue for tonight - it's at Miller Park, er, American Family Field in Milwaukee. There are a lot of Badgers fans in MKE and all over the state, but the face value for tickets was terribly overpriced given that the sightlines and distance to the court appear to be less than ideal. I suspect a much lower attendance than they were hoping for, and overall, it may not have been a great idea. Marquette plays its home games in the Bucks' arena, so that was never an option, Maybe AmFam had aspirations of hosting NCAA games and wanted to try this out, but I suspect this will be a failed experiment.
Ok, about the team. The media consensus is they're picked to finish around 9th. This is about the same as last year, and they ended up winning a share of the conference title. Part of that was the unexpected explosion of (now Washington Wizard) Johnny Davis, and it doesn't seem like UW has a guy like that this year. We'll see - Wisconsin tends to do better than expected a lot, but there's some solid teams in the league
There's really 3 known commodities returning from last year - PG Chucky Hepburn, F/C Steven Crowl, and F Tyler Wahl. Hepburn is not terribly flashy, but solid on both ends of the court. Crowl is a 7-footer who shoots a lot of 3s vs. mixing it up inside. Wahl is probably the star of the team - he's a stat-stuffer and hustle-type of player, but he's not particularly good from distance. I think both Wahl and Hepburn are projected first team All-conference.
The rest of the team, however, are giant question marks. The shooting guard starter, Max Klesmit, is a transfer from Wofford, so I suspect he's played against Jones. He's on the smallish side, but appears to be a relatively good 3-shooter. The other starter is Jordan Davis, Johnny's twin brother, who played sparingly his first two years. The starters played about 2/3 of the minutes in the first game against South Dakota.
The backup PG, Kamari McGee, is a transfer from UW-Green Bay. He's quick and flashy but hasn't learned how to play in UW's low-turnover philosophy yet. The backup SG is a true freshman from Indiana, Connor Essegian - he comes with the reputation of an outstanding shooter and scorer, but you traditionally earn minutes at Wisconsin by playing good team defense - yet to be seen if he can pick that up well enough. Another shooter is a guy who transferred in from UNLV last year, Isaac Lindsey - he's not expected to play all that much, but if comes in, he'll shoot it if he touches it.
For bigs, it's kind of a mess. Jahcobi Neath is in his 2nd season with the Badgers after transferring in from Wake Forest. He's really more of a G/F and his time in Madison has been marred by lingering injuries, but he has the potential to be a key contributor. Then you have a duo of Carter Gilmore and Markus Ilver - Gilmore gives you fewer mistakes defensively, and Ilver can shoot. None of these guys I've mentioned so far are really able to guard a center. When Crowl needs a rest or is in foul trouble, Wisconsin is in trouble. I think the plan is to move Wahl over to guarding the 5, mostly. They do have a C on the bench in Hodges who redshirted last year, but he doesn't seem particularly ready to play a lot of minutes outside of emergency situations.
Defense has been exclusively man-to-man for decades, but there is a rumor that the team has practiced some zone. It would blow Badger fans' minds to see that. They are into analytics, and would like to make you shoot difficult twos, Rebounding is a true question mark with this team - we just don't know whether they will be good at it or not with all the new faces. Traditionally, they've been good at defensive rebounds and really bad at offensive rebounding - that second part is intentional and part of the philosophy to get back on defense and limit transition opportunities.
I know, TL;DR. Hit me with any questions.
First topic, the venue for tonight - it's at Miller Park, er, American Family Field in Milwaukee. There are a lot of Badgers fans in MKE and all over the state, but the face value for tickets was terribly overpriced given that the sightlines and distance to the court appear to be less than ideal. I suspect a much lower attendance than they were hoping for, and overall, it may not have been a great idea. Marquette plays its home games in the Bucks' arena, so that was never an option, Maybe AmFam had aspirations of hosting NCAA games and wanted to try this out, but I suspect this will be a failed experiment.
Ok, about the team. The media consensus is they're picked to finish around 9th. This is about the same as last year, and they ended up winning a share of the conference title. Part of that was the unexpected explosion of (now Washington Wizard) Johnny Davis, and it doesn't seem like UW has a guy like that this year. We'll see - Wisconsin tends to do better than expected a lot, but there's some solid teams in the league
There's really 3 known commodities returning from last year - PG Chucky Hepburn, F/C Steven Crowl, and F Tyler Wahl. Hepburn is not terribly flashy, but solid on both ends of the court. Crowl is a 7-footer who shoots a lot of 3s vs. mixing it up inside. Wahl is probably the star of the team - he's a stat-stuffer and hustle-type of player, but he's not particularly good from distance. I think both Wahl and Hepburn are projected first team All-conference.
The rest of the team, however, are giant question marks. The shooting guard starter, Max Klesmit, is a transfer from Wofford, so I suspect he's played against Jones. He's on the smallish side, but appears to be a relatively good 3-shooter. The other starter is Jordan Davis, Johnny's twin brother, who played sparingly his first two years. The starters played about 2/3 of the minutes in the first game against South Dakota.
The backup PG, Kamari McGee, is a transfer from UW-Green Bay. He's quick and flashy but hasn't learned how to play in UW's low-turnover philosophy yet. The backup SG is a true freshman from Indiana, Connor Essegian - he comes with the reputation of an outstanding shooter and scorer, but you traditionally earn minutes at Wisconsin by playing good team defense - yet to be seen if he can pick that up well enough. Another shooter is a guy who transferred in from UNLV last year, Isaac Lindsey - he's not expected to play all that much, but if comes in, he'll shoot it if he touches it.
For bigs, it's kind of a mess. Jahcobi Neath is in his 2nd season with the Badgers after transferring in from Wake Forest. He's really more of a G/F and his time in Madison has been marred by lingering injuries, but he has the potential to be a key contributor. Then you have a duo of Carter Gilmore and Markus Ilver - Gilmore gives you fewer mistakes defensively, and Ilver can shoot. None of these guys I've mentioned so far are really able to guard a center. When Crowl needs a rest or is in foul trouble, Wisconsin is in trouble. I think the plan is to move Wahl over to guarding the 5, mostly. They do have a C on the bench in Hodges who redshirted last year, but he doesn't seem particularly ready to play a lot of minutes outside of emergency situations.
Defense has been exclusively man-to-man for decades, but there is a rumor that the team has practiced some zone. It would blow Badger fans' minds to see that. They are into analytics, and would like to make you shoot difficult twos, Rebounding is a true question mark with this team - we just don't know whether they will be good at it or not with all the new faces. Traditionally, they've been good at defensive rebounds and really bad at offensive rebounding - that second part is intentional and part of the philosophy to get back on defense and limit transition opportunities.
I know, TL;DR. Hit me with any questions.
