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UW Moves Up, and Down, in the Rankings and Penn State Highlights

2012-02-20T11:17:23-08:00

Hopefully today is a vacation day for you to celebrate our presidents' birthdays. If not, here's some Badger news to distract you.

Rankings and Bracketology

Looking like crap against Michigan State in East Lansing last week didn't hurt the Badgers the Coaches' poll as UW moved up two spots in the Coaches poll to #15. The AP voters dropped UW one spot to #16. See the polls here.

Rankings are nice but this time of year it's all about seeding in the tourney. UW is still a #4 seed in Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology. Lundardi has UW playing Middle Tenn State in the first round with Wichita State the #5 seed and Kentucky the #1.

As far as RPI rankings go, UW is 24th in the Real Time RPI, #23 in the CBS version, and #23 in the NCAA's RPI report.

UW is the 6th best team in the country according to Ken Pomeroy.

Penn State Post-Game

UW took care of business at home Sunday against Penn State so I don't need to post any videos of swimsuit models. It looks like the Badgers practiced shooting Friday and Saturday as UW burried half their shots from beyond the arc; although they still had their signature scoring drought in the 2nd half.

Watch the game highlights below and check out Eric's post-game thoughts on Buckyville if you want to dissect the game more. It looks like Phil at B5Q was working off a hanger so no link to his usual post-game insights.

Wisconsin-Michigan State Game Thoughts

2012-02-17T07:24:50-08:00

The Badgers looked awful. If you want to relive the embarassment, check out the post-game thread on Buckyville. If not, hopefully the video below helps lift your spirits on a Friday.

Wisconsin vs Sparty - Round 2

2012-02-16T11:05:36-08:00

One of colllege basketballs greatest current rivalries gets fired up on Thursday evening in East Lansing. With nearly a week off the Badgers head back out on the road to try and break a 8 year losing streak at the Breslin Center. Las Vegas opened the line at MSU -5.5 and betting currently sits at -6 according to VegasInsider.com. The Spartans play has certainly stepped up over the last few weeks making this look like a tough one for Wisconsin. If UW can't control the two man game that burned them so bad in the first game it could be an extremely long night. Wisconsin needs to shoot better than 35% from three-point land to keep this one close.

Given this has been such a good rivalry over the years lets take a look back at some of the best games:

Starting with the most recent game....

A couple from 2007...

2003...

Badgers Knock Off Goldie in OT

2012-02-10T07:57:06-08:00

It wasn't pretty for the last 8 minutes of the second half but UW pulled out another Big Ten road win at Minnesota.

UW went 8 minutes and 49 seconds in the 2nd half and OT without scoring. How many perrenial top-20 programs consistently have prolonged scoring droughts like the Badgers? I'm guessing just them.

I've given up on ever being able to defend UW's style of play to any other fan but they got the win and that's all that matters these days.

Fan Reaction

If you want to read, or join in, on a mostly civil discussion of the game, check out Eric's 10 Things thread at Buckyville. Needless to say Tubby Smith doesn't impress a lot of Badger fans with his coaching skills. Minnesota fans seem to like him but mediocrity is a step up for them.

Blogger Reaction

Phil notes in his game recap at B5Q that UW had a 6-minute FG drought in the first half. Add that to the cold freeze at the end of regulation and UW went almost 15 minutes without scoring a FG. That's ridiculous.

Jack at Badger of Honor writes that UW is still in the Big Ten title hunt but they're really playing more to secure a top-4 seed in the BTT. Remember that with Nebraska in the conference the #5 seed plays on the first day of the conference tourney.

Beat Writer Reaction

In his post-game blog Jeff Potyrkus writes that UW showed a lot of mental toughness at the end of regulation and in OT, Ryan Evans wasn't always pretty but was effective, and he thinks UW will win in East Lansing next week.

Game Highlights

Couresty of the UW Athletic department.

Take 3: Welcome Back Eddie, Recruiting Revisited, and Poll Updates

2012-02-06T21:50:18-08:00

We've had better weekends in UW sports. As I'm sure you know, the basketball team fell short against OSU Saturday when – and you might have seen this movie before – the Badgers once again couldn't get jump shots to fall. The hockey team topped that by being swept at home against St. Cloud State.

How about we find something else to talk about?

Welcome Back Eddie

Bielema completed his staff by hiring former UW running back Eddie Faulkner away from Pitt to be UW's tight ends coach. While Faulkner has ties to Madison and comes with an impressive resume – he was an offensive coordinator at Ball State before serving as Northern Illinois' RB's coach last season – I imagine there's a little bit of, "suckamyballs, Chryst" in that move.

You can read more about the move at Madison.com, JSOnline, and B5Q.

Recruiting Revisited

Whether you're into or not, recruiting has become a big part of college sports. UW lost out on highly regarded touted tackle Jordan Diamond, who decided to take his talents to the dirty SEC (Auburn), last Friday.

Diamond would have helped UW's latest class, which doesn't rank high in large part because it's small; although, UW did have 3 recuits ranked in Phil Steele's top 250 incoming frosh.

This is usually when a fan, pundit, expert, whatever, chimes in with "rankings don't matter, it's how the recruits perform on the field". That's nice most people don't go back and look at how a class does. But not everyone.

Andy Staples at SI.com re-ranks the 2009 recruiting classes. UW's class, which ranked 43^rd a few years ago, came in at #10. I'm sure plenty of you will use that the next time you encounter some d-bag Ohio fan.

UW's 2013 class is likely to be small with only 9 scholarship seniors on next year's team according to the scholarship grid at BadgerBlitz.

Rankings & Bracketology

UW wasn't punished much in the polls after its 4^th home loss of the season. The Badgers slipped 2 spots in each poll. They're 21^st in the AP and 22^nd in the Coaches'. Dave Heller looks at the AP ballots for UW this week. Dickie V doesn't think UW is a top 25 team.

Joe Lunardi moved UW up to a #4 seed in his latest Bracketology. UW is in the same bracket with #1 Kentucky. I'll take that.

Take 3: Penn State Preview, Poll Rankings, and Recruiting

2012-01-30T21:30:15-08:00

Is this thing on? Apologies for being AWOL the last month. Things have been busy and we've missed a lot -- some small turnover on the football coaching staff, the ensuing freak-out about the state of the UW program, some crappy basketball, and a 5-game winning streak.

Hopefully we can get some fresh content on here more frequently. Thanks for sticking with us. Let's get onto some of the big Badger stories this week.

Penn State Previews

The Badgers look to extend their win streak to 6 games when they travel to Penn State tonight. BTN will broadcast the game with tip off set for 7pm CST. I'll be honest, I haven't followed Penn State at all this season. I just assume they suck every year.

One of the story-lines for the game is the point guard match-up between Jordan Taylor and Tim Frazier. Fox Sports WI takes a closer look at Frazier, who leads PSU in points, assists, rebounds, and steals. I feel OK about UW's ability to shut down a single guard.

You can read more previews at B5Q, Madison.com, and the JS, where Jeff Potrykus writes that UW's aggressiveness earlier in the shot clock is leading to a better offense (although still painful at times).

Movin' on Up

UW moved up to 19th and 20th in the Coaches and AP polls released Monday. Joe Lunardi also moved UW up to a #5 seed in his latest Bracketology.

Dave Heller looks at where UW was on the AP ballots. The Badgers are as high as 10th and don't appear on 3 ballots -- come on, even Seth Davis has UW at #20.

CBS Sports Gary Parrish attacks those 3 voters for their stupidity. If you're not a UConn fan I suggest clicking the link because Parrish spends more time talking about how much UConn sucks than how good UW is.

Recruiting Season Coming to a Close

With national signing day Wednesday there's still some drama left about which high school seniors will be wearing Cardinal next fall. Want to know how the class is shaping up? Read this thread on Buckyville.

Jeff Potrykus reports that a highly ranked safety picked Michigan State over UW and the Badgers could be losing highly ranked OL Kyle Dodson but has a chance at a couple of other highly tauted linemen.

A common theme with UW is recruiting is to talk about how UW's classes usually don't rank that high but UW continually churns out All-Americans and NFL players.

UWBadgers.com shares some facts and figures on the 2007-2010 classes, which never ranked higher than 6th in the Big Ten yet produced 5 All-Americans and a possible Heisman winner in 2012.

Montee Ball Staying at WI?

2012-01-05T08:23:16-08:00

A press conference for Montee Ball has been announced for today at 3pm on BTN and UWBadgers.com. It is interesting that Bielema is on the road recruting today and won't be available but regardless you have to think Montee will be back in Red and White next year.

Well, This Sure Sucks

2012-01-04T09:16:41-08:00

We've had a lack of content the past couple weeks partly due to the holidays, but the past week hasn't been kind to Bucky. I think this photo pretty much sums up how Badger fans feel right now, espeically the guy in the Wisconsin sweatshirt.

We'll be back with more news when things stop sucking. Anyone know when softball season starts?