One of the basic questions facing the Wisconsin Badgers basketball team is this: How much of a ceiling does this group have?
On many levels, it seems clear that Wisconsin’s ceiling is relatively low. There is no superstar scorer. There is no dominant defensive giant in the paint. There is no ultra-fast point guard who changes the calculus for an opposing defense.
Yet, with Wisconsin lingering in the 7-9 seed range in various bracket projections right now, it has to be said that the 2000 Badger Final Four team was an 8 seed which improved to a modest degree and managed to attain notable consistency when it counted. Those Badgers didn’t destroy most opponents in the 2000 NCAA Tournament. They did take apart LSU by 13, but their other three games were all close. Wisconsin won the race to 61 in those three victories. It never scored more than 66 points but never allowed more than 60. The Badgers didn’t overwhelm their opponents in March of 2000, but they did outplay them, and they made history.
This team could do something similar. The Badgers’ ceiling doesn’t need to be extraordinarily high. If UW can merely raise it by one or two yards, that might mean a lot. It might mean the difference between losing 57-53 and winning 60-57.
If one player on the Badgers currently magnifies the need for players to make a 10- or 12-percent improvement to put the team over the top, Brad Davison is a perfectly reasonable choice.
One might have thought that after the one-game suspension against Michigan State, Davison would have been especially motivated to perform at a high level against Minnesota and Ohio State. Yet, in 51 combined minutes from those two games, Davison has scored a total of eight points with two rebounds. Call it a disruption of flow. Call it a product of the flagrant foul against Iowa which got him suspended. Call it what you want. Whatever the description or reason, Davison has not responded the way many expected him to.
Davison was primarily responsible for the huge win over Maryland, a result which — had it gone the other way — might have left UW uncomfortably close to the bubble. With that victory, Wisconsin relieved an enormous amount of bubble pressure. Davison can still become that player. If he can, that one- or two-yard rise in Wisconsin’s ceiling can still take place. March could become a month of possibilities, not limitations, for this imperfect but resilient team.