Bo knows it’s not going to be easy.
At the Kohl Center Monday, UW men’s basketball head coach Bo Ryan recalled a reporter insinuating a couple days earlier that the Badgers had a favorable schedule to close the season, because two of their remaining three games, against Michigan and Illinois, are at home, and they only have to go on the road once, to Minnesota.
“And I’m thinking Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois,” Ryan said. “If you took all the Big Ten coaches and said, ‘Ok, you can play seven of the other teams,’ how many of them would put those three teams in the ones that they would pick?”
Right now, only someone with a serious tournament-berth death wish.
When the Badgers first peeked at their schedule before the season, they probably liked what they saw in their homestretch. The Wolverines were undergoing constant, sure-to-be-distracting scrutiny stemming from the Ed Martin/Chris Webber scandal, the Gophers have tended to fade towards the end of the season in recent years, and the Illini lost five key seniors, including a former Big Ten player of the year. Cakewalk.
Now, fast-forward to reality. Since super-shooter Willie Deane dried up in the past two weeks, early-season frontrunner Purdue has dropped four of their last five, and look who’s left with the 9-4 Badgers atop the league: Michigan (9-3), Minnesota (8-4) and Illinois (8-4).
Despite winning the last two meetings with the Badgers, the Illini are probably still smarting from their 72-66 loss to UW at the Kohl Center last Jan. 5, a game the Illini never expected to lose to the then 7-7 Badgers.
The Gophers are the hottest team in the Big Ten, having won four straight and seven of their last eight. They’ve won their last six at creaky Williams Arena and have avoided their standard February collapse, going 5-1 this month.
But, as the old coach’s cliché goes, it’s the next game, against Michigan, that’s most important.
Mired in controversy and ineligible for the NCAA tournament, some figured the Wolverines might have thrown in the maize and blue towel after they opened the season 0-6, a start which included losses to such powerhouses as Western Michigan (7-7 in the MAC) and St. Bonaventure (12-13).
Amazingly, just the opposite has happened. In lieu of tourney berths and Final Fours, Tommy Amaker has sold his players on winning the championship they still can: the Big Ten title.
In their regular-season finale last year, the Wolverines witnessed the raucous championship celebration after UW defeated them to win Wisconsin’s first conference title in over 50 years. A win on that same Kohl Center floor Wednesday will push Michigan one step closer to their first regular-season Big Ten title since 1986, Glen Rice’s freshman season.
The player who Ryan feels — correctly — will have the biggest impact on the game is another freshman, Wolverine point Daniel Horton.
With the exception of UNLV’s Marcus Banks, the 6-foot-3 Horton, who will battle with Indiana’s Bracey Wright for Big Ten freshman of the year until the last second ticks off the clock, is as good a scoring point guard as the Badgers have faced this season.
Horton is averaging 16.5 points a game and has showcased his ability to create, finish and score from long range, evidenced by his 4.4 assists and 37 percent clip from downtown.
“Horton was probably the best high school player that we saw play last year,” Ryan said. “He’s long, he’s quick, he can score from the outside, he can take it to the rack. When you have a guy with his kind of talent, you can at least be assured of always having a chance.”
While Horton may be a nightmare to defend, he and the rest of Michigan’s cadre of athletic perimeter players — and severe lack of interior threats — may be the Wolverines’ undoing.
Horton, fellow frosh Lester Abram — whose smooth left-handed game can’t help but recall Jalen’s — and wings Bernard Robinson, Jr. and Lavell Blanchard account for nearly 78 percent of the team’s scoring. Frosh forwards Graham Brown and Chris Hunter provide size and rebounding, but each player has eked into double figures only four times all season.
Indiana’s 6-foot-11 Jeff Newton, Penn State’s 6-foot-9 Jan Jagla, MSU’s 6-foot-10 Erazem Lorbek and 6-foot-10 Illini forwards James Augustine and Brian Cook all took advantage of UW’s lack of interior size, turning and shooting over 6-foot-5 Alando Tucker and 6-foot-8 Mike Wilkinson whenever they pleased.
Despite being dominated inside, UW managed to contain the Indiana and Michigan State guards and walked away with victories. With the Wolverines lacking a viable interior threat, Wednesday’s game will likely be decided by the defensive performances turned in by Freddie Owens and Devin Harris, who will probably split time covering Horton and Abram, as well as the jobs Kirk Penney and Tucker do on Blanchard and Robinson.
Oh, and then there’s that revenge theme. The Badgers haven’t forgotten the 15-point lead they blew to Michigan in a 66-65 UW loss Jan. 8. It was Horton who won that game, scoring 25, hitting the go-ahead leaner with seven seconds left and blocking Harris’ attempt at a game-winner as time expired. This time, Michigan’s fortunes will again hinge on Horton, and the Badgers’ on how well they defend him.
