With a convincing 77-44 victory against the visiting University of Pennsylvania this weekend, the UW men’s basketball team extended its home winning streak to 29 games.
The Badgers were in control for the duration of the game thanks in no small part to a +17 rebounding margin. In fact, the team’s 40 rebounds were just four short of Penn’s point total.
In addition to dominating the glass, the Badgers forced 18 turnovers Saturday night.
Wisconsin applied full-court pressure for the entirety of the game. The majority of the turnovers did not come as a direct result of the press, however, but rather in half-court sets.
“We’ve seen Penn pressed on films from last year and the year before, and we’ve seen them handle it rather easily,” head coach Bo Ryan said. “Maybe you only saw two, three, four forced turnovers off of it. But still, the idea of extending the defense, getting them to do some different things, using some shot clock, trying to get them to run players to different spots on the floor before they begin their offense on a half court level isn’t all bad. If they can run the floor and get right to the spots where they want to start their offense, they’re better, and maybe Penn got out of that a bit. And maybe that’s part of the reason we got them out of their rhythm. The press did what we are looking for it to do.”
Emptying the bench: Wisconsin was able to press for virtually all 40 minutes in Friday’s win because of the depth that the team displays at nearly every position. Ten Badgers played at least nine minutes in the game, and UW’s bench outscored Penn’s reserves 31-9.
All season long, Wisconsin’s depth will allow the Badgers to play a full-court game and tire opponents with a smaller rotation. It will also allow Ryan to customize the starting lineups and rotations to match up with opponents’ strengths and weaknesses.
“Depth means numbers,” Ryan said. “Everybody can count. So people have counted the number of players we have in a game. And if they count 12, 13, 14 people play, whatever it is on a particular night, then that’s called depth.”
The coach does make a clear distinction between depth and experience, however.
“I’ve never contradicted anything someone said about depth, it was experience,” Ryan said. “The only thing I said was that they’re not as experienced.”
Although the Badgers’ roster includes players with 495 games played between them, a lack of experience is evident as they are returning only one starter, senior forward Mike Wilkinson. Barring injury, three freshmen and three sophomores are likely to see significant playing time this year.
This inexperience will be a major question mark surrounding this year’s squad, especially at the point guard position. This raises the question as to whether or not Wisconsin’s young point guards will be able to advance the ball and effectively run Ryan’s swing offense against quality guards like Illinois’ Dee Brown.
This may be the aspect of the game in which Devin Harris’ early departure to the NBA could be most costly to Wisconsin. Some may argue that his 20 points per game average last year would be hard to account for, but thus far, Mike Wilkinson, Alando Tucker, Brian Butch and Clayton Hanson, among others, have showed that they are ready to step into the spotlight. Conversely, none of the Badgers’ committee of point guards has showed great strength with the ball early in the season.
One must also wonder what effect senior guard Boo Wade’s leave of absence will have in the early going, as Wade was initially announced to be the starting point guard and primary ball handler this year.
