Tag: Tennessee basketball

When covering a sports team, it is certainly important to make note of progress and improvement. It is essential to be clear in saying that a team notched a particularly important victory and took a clear step forward. It is irresponsible to gloss over successes or minimize them. Always waiting to criticize and being stingy on praise is a bad look every time.

At Badgers Wire, we have not done that after the Wisconsin Badgers’ authoritative win over the Tennessee Volunteers. We noted how impressive the Wisconsin defense was in this game, emphasizing the extent to which a defensive renaissance can raise this team’s ceiling. 

We also pointed out that Wisconsin played a more complete game even without Micah Potter posting big numbers or logging much playing time. We have clearly noted the good developments connected to a genuinely impressive performance in Knoxville. We aren’t being stingy on praise. We aren’t being a bunch of Negative Nicks or Nancies around here.

However: When noting the successes of a team (or an athlete), it is still fair and reasonable to point out that a given success might have been the product of the opponent’s struggles. We shouldn’t completely ignore this element of Wisconsin’s win over Tennessee. We shouldn’t make too big a deal of it, yes, but we shouldn’t completely cast it aside.

Tennessee, as we pointed out before this game, was playing without senior point guard Lamonte Turner, a core member of last season’s Sweet 16 team which came within an eyelash of reaching the Elite Eight. Tennessee lost Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield to the NBA. Turner was one of the players who anchored this season’s team and gave Tennessee a real shot at another NCAA Tournament berth. Losing Turner just before the Wisconsin game clearly crippled Tennessee.

By all means, let’s give full credit to Wisconsin for pouncing on a vulnerable opponent and stomping on its throat. Nevertheless, one has to be mindful of the reality that future opponents won’t lack critical players — not just point guards, but quality players and upperclassmen who knit the rest of the team together. The timing of this game worked in Wisconsin’s favor. The Badgers made great use of their circumstances, but for all the good things they did, it certainly should be said that they faced a weakened opponent.

The next challenge for Wisconsin: Standing up to a good team on the road when that good team has all its weapons. It’s not being a killjoy to point that out.

If you have followed sports for any reasonable length of time, you know that what I am about to write is not a new or foreign concept for sports teams: Having an athlete in the lineup, even if that athlete doesn’t produce big numbers, can be a source of comfort for teammates.

If you have heard it once, you have heard it many times: After a big win, a team’s players say something to the effect of, “He might not have scored a ton of points, but just knowing he was with us meant a lot to the team. We all drew energy from him and are more excited to play now that he is a more complete part of our journey through this season.”

Translation: We like playing for our teammate, our brother. We are more together. We are more cohesive, regardless of what the stats might say.

Is this what is happening with the Wisconsin Badgers basketball team? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure. However, after a convincing 68-48 win over the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday — UW’s first win of the season away from the Kohl Center — it is certainly reasonable to wonder if the Badgers are simply happier and more whole now that Micah Potter is on the bench as an active player, a member of the team in full.

Potter did not provide a big statistical contribution on Saturday. In fact, he didn’t provide much of a statistical contribution at all. Potter played only seven minutes, grabbing two rebounds and not scoring any points. If I had told you before this game that Potter would post those numbers, would you have predicted Wisconsin would win by 20 and basically coast through the entire second half without any real scoreboard pressure? I doubt it.

Again, I don’t know if this “placebo effect” is real. We will find out in the next few weeks, especially this Friday against Ohio State. Yet, the notion that Wisconsin needed Potter to be a prime player — a high-impact contributor — in order for this team to improve, especially on the road, was refuted by this game. Potter was peripheral to what the Badgers did on the court, but Wisconsin looked so much better and more formidable nonetheless.

Did this team simply need to know that Micah Potter was with the Badgers not only as a friend, but as an eligible player? Is that all it took? Where was this kind of performance when Potter was ineligible, and not yet allowed to play? Potter didn’t change the dynamic for this team on the court, but maybe he has changed the dynamic in the locker room.

I don’t know any of this. I admit I am speculating.

The question, though, is very interesting… and I wonder if any other Badger fans are thinking the same thing. Stay tuned as the season continues.

We told you earlier this season after the North Carolina State and Rutgers losses: The Wisconsin Badgers, for all their struggles on offense in games played away from the Kohl Center, had the chance to become a much better team if they developed at the defensive end of the floor. Offense might not always travel, but defense does. Defense doesn’t depend on a familiar shooting environment. Defense doesn’t depend on the lighting in the arena or the depth perception a shooter has in a given building. Defense doesn’t need the rims to be soft or the backboard to be accommodating for a shooter’s touch.

A shooter likes the feel of the ball and the way a gymnasium looks. A shooter wants to know what to expect from the rim. A shooter likes getting up in the morning and shooting in his (or her) own building. There is comfort to shooting in the place you love, the place where you spend most of your time, like a pitcher knowing what his home-ballpark pitcher’s mound feels like. Defense has nothing to do with that. Defense is about work, hustle, positioning, communication, and other components which can exist regardless of one’s visual, physical surroundings.

Basketball players with limited ceilings in terms of talent or physical capacity won’t become elite scorers, but they CAN become elite defenders. Dick Bennett enabled Wisconsin basketball fans to see this when he took the 2000 team to the Final Four. Several of Bo Ryan’s teams manifested this same reality. In 2019 — with 2020 just days away — the current iteration of Wisconsin basketball has the ability to change its season not by shooting better, but defending better.

So it was that on Saturday, the Badgers took a big step forward. They did make a lot of threes on the road, but their biggest improvement was on defense. Wisconsin — whose great 3-point shooting certainly didn’t hurt the cause against the Tennessee Volunteers — nevertheless did something it had rarely done over the past eight weeks: It held an opponent under 50 points.

Even if Wisconsin hadn’t torched the nets; even if D’Mitrik Trice hadn’t busted loose; even if Brevin Pritzl didn’t have a strong game off the bench, the Badgers might still have beaten the Vols.

The big lesson from this game is not “When Wisconsin shoots threes well, it is very hard to beat.” That is a lesson to take from this blowout of Tennessee, but it’s not the main one. The main lesson is this: “When Wisconsin defends well, it gives itself a large margin for error.”

There will be Big Ten games — perhaps as early as this coming Friday at Ohio State — in which Wisconsin doesn’t shoot threes well and labors on offense. When those games arrive, and you know they will at some point — will UW’s defense be able to win a game in the mud, pulling out a 53-51 victory which looks ugly in the box score, but very beautiful on an NCAA Tournament nitty-gritty report on Selection Sunday?

We would all love Wisconsin to continue to play well at both ends of the floor, just like this Tennessee game, for the rest of the season. Yet, the key insight into UW’s defensive improvement is that it will enable the Badgers to win when they’re not at their best. Wisconsin — heading into Knoxville on Saturday — had generally not won games in which the offense struggled. UW received great performances from its offense in many of its victories (Marquette second half, all of the Indiana game, all of the Milwaukee game), but the losses were mostly comprised of struggle-bus showings (Saint Mary’s, Richmond, New Mexico, N.C. State; Rutgers was the exception).

Saturday’s win over Tennessee did involve great 3-point shooting, but if the Badgers can carry that defense into 2020, they will give themselves the best possible chance of returning to the NCAA Tournament.

The Tennessee Volunteers and Wisconsin Badgers have both endured rough losses this season, often marked by a sputtering offense but sometimes defined by an unfocused defense. These teams both have incomplete resumes and stand on shaky ground relative to the NCAA Tournament. They have a lot in common based on what they have endured over the past several weeks.

The past is not the only thing these teams share. Their current situations relative to their respective rosters are also strikingly similar.

Wisconsin fans know that the Badgers are trying to quickly integrate Micah Potter into their regular rotation. Potter was allowed to play for the Milwaukee game on Dec. 21, which gave the Badgers one game in which to adjust before this tussle with Tennessee. The Badgers are learning how to play a new way — not in terms of a new “style,” but certainly in terms of how they react and respond to each other in a sport which requires crisp and immediate (and often unspoken) understanding of what teammates will do. This will be Potter’s first road game of the season with the Badgers. It is a major test for Wisconsin with one of its key pieces finally in the lineup.

Tennessee is also facing a new situation, but not because an important player has joined the lineup. For the Vols, it is just the opposite.

Senior point guard Lamonte Turner (whose phantom foul of Purdue’s Carsen Edwards led to the Vols’ overtime loss to the Boilermakers in last March’s Sweet 16) was injured and knocked out for the entire season earlier in December. Tennessee has to rework its lineup without a core performer while Wisconsin welcomes Potter to the mix. Tennessee will also spend Saturday’s game figuring out how to cope with an adjusted reality. It makes this game that much more of a coin flip, so much harder to figure out from any or all sides of the competition.

If you think you know how Wisconsin — with Micah Potter — will play against Tennessee — without Lamonte Turner — this coming Saturday, you’re a much more confident person than I am.

The Wisconsin Badgers visit the Tennessee Volunteers this Saturday. On so many levels, these teams will look at the other side and see their own journey reflected in the first several weeks of the season. Wisconsin and Tennessee can strongly identify with their respective struggles this season, because they are very similar.

Wisconsin fans know what the Badger basketball team has endured over the past month and a half. Let’s look at what Tennessee has gone through.

Whereas the Badgers had to replace Ethan Happ this season, the Volunteers had to replace Grant Williams plus Admiral Schofield. The adjustment has been hard, and a toll has been taken on the Vols. Tennessee — like Wisconsin — has struggled to score for portions of this season. The Vols scored 57 in a ragged loss to Florida State. They scored 58 in a choppy win over Chattanooga. They scored just 47 at home in a bitter defeat at the hands of Memphis. The realigned Tennessee offense, trying to function without two meal-ticket scorers who carried the team last season, has stumbled in the dark and groped for solutions it hasn’t yet found.

Yet, also like Wisconsin, Tennessee’s struggles haven’t been completely confined to the offensive end of the floor. The defense has been a problem at times, especially in a 78-66 loss to Cincinnati. Tennessee has beaten Washington and VCU, so the Vols aren’t bereft of valuable wins which look good on a nitty-gritty report. However, Tennessee has taken far too many hits and not won enough of the high-value games on its schedule to feel comfortable about its NCAA Tournament position… much like Wisconsin. The Badgers need this game more than the Vols do… but the Vols do need it a lot.

Tennessee has lost at home, unlike Wisconsin. The Vols aren’t really a Jekyll-and-Hyde team based on where they play their games. That is one noticeable difference with the Badgers in a head-to-head comparison. Yet, there are a lot of ways in which Tennessee basketball can relate to Wisconsin hoops… and vice-versa. These teams have been pushed around and have pinballed through their season with no reassuring sense that they have found a solid and reliable identity.

That is only one reason this Saturday’s game is so interesting… and important… and utterly mysterious… for both teams, not just one.