Badger Basketball: Good into the Future!

So I thought I’d take the opportunity with this open blog post to discuss the Badger Basketball team! Now this year is going very well despite recent troubles, and we are a legitimate Final Four contender. Alando Tucker is the obvious pick for Big 10 Player of the Year, and probably the #2 guy in the National Player of the Year discussion. In my opinion, Wisconsin should beat Michigan State on Saturday, and then if they win their first 2 games of the Big 10 Tournament, they are a solid #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. It will probably take an Ohio State loss at Michigan Saturday, or an early exit from the conference tournament to get Wisconsin the St. Louis regional #1 seed, which would give us better location in the tournament.

Anyhow, what I really wanted to talk about was next year because I have heard from a few people about how we won’t be the same next year. I will agree that we won’t be an elite top 5 team to start next year. But I feel we will be an NCAA lock team that stays in the top 20 all year with the possibility of turning into a top 5 team again! Now I don’t expect anyone to just take my word on this, you probably want some sort of evidence for this. Well here it comes!

As far as big men go, Wisconsin will be absolutely solid next year with Butch and Stiemsma the probable starters. Both will be senior leaders and with Butch’s growing scoring and rebounding ability added with Stiemsma’s defensive prowess, plus his nice 15 ft. jumper, they will be a force to be reckoned with in the paint. Losing Chappell is still a loss but he is not as good as the other two anyhow, and we will have redshirt-freshman J.P. Gavinski that could add some valuable playing time as well.

As far as the guard position goes, we will be arguably better than this year even though we lose Taylor. Taylor is a good player but is not the greatest ball handler and as seen at Ohio State Sunday, is not the senior leader he should be. We keep Flowers as a fantastic defensive guard and his scoring will only keep improving. On top of Flowers we will have the sophomores in Hughes and Bohannon that between them will be able to more than make up for Taylor’s contributions. Hughes is an amazing ball handler and can run the point very effectively. Bohannon has the sweetest outside shot on the team, and I could definitely see him as a Drew Neitzel-like guy for this team as he progresses. As both of them get better defensively and get more comfortable with their increased roles, I don’t see scoring from the guard position as a problem. The more Bohannon drains the three, the less zone defense will give us problems which is an achilles heel this year to some degree.

Now, the big question is how do you replace Alando Tucker in the forward slot when he is clearly the best player in the entire conference? My answer is simple, you don’t. But just like when Devin Harris left, Tucker was waiting in the wings and we have Landry doing that now. His athleticism is comparable to Tucker’s; he has an inch or two on him in height, and has better shot-blocking skills. Landry won’t be Tucker next year, but he can definitely be a top 5 Big 10 player averaging 15-20 points per game and by his senior year could be as good as Tucker is this year. Krabbenhoft and Gullikson are very solid contributors as well that will help burden the load in Tucker’s absence. Krabbenhoft in particular is the best hustle player on the team, and should see a few starts depending on the other team’s starting lineup.

Overall, the starting 5 will be hard to determine exactly and may switch more often than this year, but my best guess is as follows:

Brian Butch

Greg Stiemsma

Marcus Landry

Michael Flowers

Jason Bohannon

Our bench should consist of at least 4 regular contributors, which mean we will be a very deep team again, making it hard to outplay us for 40 minutes. These will be our main bench contributors:

Joe Krabbenhoft

Kevin Gullikson

Trevon Hughes

J.P. Gavinski

Also, looking at this Rivals.com page about our next year Freshman class, we will be adding 4 more players, two 4 star prospects and two 3 star prospects, so there is a great chance that a few of those players will see some playing time and contribute to make us even deeper! With 3 seniors starting, we will again be a veteran team that has a deep bench, good young players as a supporting cast, and as always, an underrated coach in Bo Ryan! I just cannot see a big drop-off from this year, and if the pieces fall right there is no reason we don’t end up as a top 5 team threatening for a #1 seed again! Let me know what you think about next year’s team.