1. Virginia’s defense reminded me of how painful it was to watch Bennett style basketball. The clutching and grabbing in the post takes all the flow out of the offense. Just a brutal grinder of a game. The refs let just about everything go. Virginia played it exactly how they wanted and it worked.

2. Ryan Evans needs to self-regulate himself when his shot isn’t falling. Good God man… you’re a fifth-year senior. Don’t you have any feel for when you’re on or off by now? He took some shots that I announced were short before they even left his hand.

3. While our last possession was bad, the main culprit was really the Virginia defense. They knew we wouldn’t drive and just stood beyond the arc and pestered us. If every team in America played end-of-game possessions like that, there would be no buzzer beating 3-pointers. Someone needed to recognize that and just go to the hoop.

4. That said, while it appeared Brust got murdered on the play, I understand the no-call. There’s no reason for the refs to bail us out of that shyt show.

5. Our young guards continue to go through growing pains. Multiple highly questionable decisions by both guys again. I thought Jackson had a couple nice drives where he was robbed of either a foul or the hoop just not wanting the ball. Marshall was up-and-don again. It’s almost pointless to say again that we miss Gasser.

6. There is no reason for this team to get slaughtered on the boards. We have 4 good rebounders in our starting lineup and Jackson should be better than most point guards. The fact that our 3 seniors aren’t corralling more loose balls is disappointing. I will give Berggren a break as he’s typically been pretty good and he appeared like he might be under the weather tonight. As for the 2 forwards, no excuses.

7. Dekker needs to get more shots. That’s it. If he’s not getting open you call timeout and run some plays for him. Having him stand around watching Bruiser hoist up threes is utterly pointless. I do like his intensity. Late in the game when he had a key play or we needed a stop, he really seemed to be trying to rally his teammates.

8. Man we missed a lot of loose balls tonight. Just seemed like they key ones never went our way. Combine that with some awful possessions, no rebounding and no free throws and you’ve got a big mess of a game.

9. There were some on here who claimed that we missed on Jesperson when he signed with Virginia. They were wrong then and I assume would admit they are wrong now. He’s the very definition of “just another guy”.

10. Overall I thought Virginia was a good, not great, team. I had penciled this in as a win because you normally need some real firepower to come into the KC and win. On paper, they probably had less actual talent than Arkansas, but they played a 1000% smarter game. The Badgers are going through some serious growing pains right now. Seems like whenever this happens and things look their worst, they regroup and get a nice win. I expect that to happen versus Cal on Sunday.

EricTheeRed wrote:

4. That said, while it appeared Brust got murdered on the play, I understand the no-call. There’s no reason for the refs to bail us out of that **** show.

EricTheeRed wrote:

9. There were some on here who claimed that we missed on Jesperson when he signed with Virginia. They were wrong then and I assume would admit they are wrong now. He’s the very definition of “just another guy”.

 

EricTheeRed wrote:

1. Virginia’s defense reminded me of how painful it was to watch Bennett style basketball. The clutching and grabbing in the post takes all the flow out of the offense. Just a brutal grinder of a game. The refs let just about everything go. Virginia played it exactly how they wanted and it worked.

2. Ryan Evans needs to self-regulate himself when his shot isn’t falling. Good God man… you’re a fifth-year senior. Don’t you have any feel for when you’re on or off by now? He took some shots that I announced were short before they even left his hand.

3. While our last possession was bad, the main culprit was really the Virginia defense. They knew we wouldn’t drive and just stood beyond the arc and pestered us. If every team in America played end-of-game possessions like that, there would be no buzzer beating 3-pointers. Someone needed to recognize that and just go to the hoop.

4. That said, while it appeared Brust got murdered on the play, I understand the no-call. There’s no reason for the refs to bail us out of that shyt show.

5. Our young guards continue to go through growing pains. Multiple highly questionable decisions by both guys again. I thought Jackson had a couple nice drives where he was robbed of either a foul or the hoop just not wanting the ball. Marshall was up-and-don again. It’s almost pointless to say again that we miss Gasser.

6. There is no reason for this team to get slaughtered on the boards. We have 4 good rebounders in our starting lineup and Jackson should be better than most point guards. The fact that our 3 seniors aren’t corralling more loose balls is disappointing. I will give Berggren a break as he’s typically been pretty good and he appeared like he might be under the weather tonight. As for the 2 forwards, no excuses.

7. Dekker needs to get more shots. That’s it. If he’s not getting open you call timeout and run some plays for him. Having him stand around watching Bruiser hoist up threes is utterly pointless. I do like his intensity. Late in the game when he had a key play or we needed a stop, he really seemed to be trying to rally his teammates.

8. Man we missed a lot of loose balls tonight. Just seemed like they key ones never went our way. Combine that with some awful possessions, no rebounding and no free throws and you’ve got a big mess of a game.

9. There were some on here who claimed that we missed on Jesperson when he signed with Virginia. They were wrong then and I assume would admit they are wrong now. He’s the very definition of “just another guy”.

10. Overall I thought Virginia was a good, not great, team. I had penciled this in as a win because you normally need some real firepower to come into the KC and win. On paper, they probably had less actual talent than Arkansas, but they played a 1000% smarter game. The Badgers are going through some serious growing pains right now. Seems like whenever this happens and things look their worst, they regroup and get a nice win. I expect that to happen versus Cal on Sunday.

combatsports4life wrote: I agree with pretty much everything.  They need to start setting up plays for Berg and Dekker, it's driving me absolutely crazy.  If we rely on Evans, Bruiser and Brust to be main scoring options then we might as well pack the season in.

Kansasspike wrote: I like Gasser, he is missed, but we are not talking about an elite offensive player here, let us not make him out to be the second coming, with him this team still has many flaws.

dhady wrote: Everyone knew what the deal was when Josh went down. Inconsistent guard play. Josh would have given the guard play stability, which is going to be a slow process given the experience of the guards.

That being said, senior leadership is lacking here, and I expect little improvement. Maybe Evans idea of leadership is to launch yet another 3, that everyone at the Kohl Center knows will not go in. Too bad he has not figured it out yet.

rekim wrote: BadgersFan82: Watching Virginia's Atkins and Mitchell ( I hope that's the right name) I found myself wondering if Nigel and Vitto will give us at least that level of play.

SRS80 wrote:

dhady wrote: Everyone knew what the deal was when Josh went down. Inconsistent guard play. Josh would have given the guard play stability, which is going to be a slow process given the experience of the guards.

That being said, senior leadership is lacking here, and I expect little improvement. Maybe Evans idea of leadership is to launch yet another 3, that everyone at the Kohl Center knows will not go in. Too bad he has not figured it out yet.

Maybe if the coach would hold a 5th year senior to the same level of accountability he holds a true freshman things could change.

SRS80 wrote: Maybe if the coach would hold a 5th year senior to the same level of accountability he holds a true freshman things could change.

BadgersFan82 wrote:

rekim wrote: BadgersFan82: Watching Virginia's Atkins and Mitchell ( I hope that's the right name) I found myself wondering if Nigel and Vitto will give us at least that level of play.

We can only hope so...as bad as Evans, Bruiser & Berg were in this game, we've got Frank & Evan Anderson behind them.

Next year we are looking at Marshall, Brust, Gasser, Dekker & Frank?  Hope Gasser is ready to come back and grab some boards because that team looks pretty weak in terms of rebounding.

rekim wrote:

BadgersFan82 wrote:

rekim wrote: BadgersFan82: Watching Virginia's Atkins and Mitchell ( I hope that's the right name) I found myself wondering if Nigel and Vitto will give us at least that level of play.

We can only hope so...as bad as Evans, Bruiser & Berg were in this game, we've got Frank & Evan Anderson behind them.

Next year we are looking at Marshall, Brust, Gasser, Dekker & Frank?  Hope Gasser is ready to come back and grab some boards because that team looks pretty weak in terms of rebounding.

Don't forget Duje for two more years!!  The future is Bright!  Oh, wait. Maybe not.

SaMOKEY wrote:

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--- combatsports4life wrote:

Herbert should be in charge of strength and conditioning for these guys.  I bet they wouldn't get pushed around any more.

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Because Groy hasn't been pushed around this year?

Kansasspike wrote: I would also add continued overall poor play of the upper class men besides Berg, this team dribbles way to much to nowhere, nobody talented enough to create of that group.