When following the trajectory of a basketball team — or any sports team — over the course of a season, it is important to not merely note certain realities or themes in isolation, but to keep checking up on how teams handle the emergence of those themes.
Do they preserve and sustain the good themes and reverse or eliminate the bad ones… or vice-versa? This is how we track various patterns and identify a reality of evolution and growth, or a situation marked by regression and erosion.
When Wisconsin — minus Kobe King and Brad Davison — needed it most, it produced the balanced and formidable scoring this team has always required in order to handle the toughest situations imaginable. We have emphasized this theme a lot. Saturday, it came to the forefront.
Wisconsin’s worst offensive games are the games in which only one or two players carry the workload, making other players less of a threat for the defense. This allows defenses to sag off in spots and take their chances by allowing certain players to shoot.
When three or four players are filling it up for the Badgers, so much more is possible for this group. The 2020 Badgers are a team without a superstar who can, a la Frank Kaminsky or Sam Dekker, don the cape and put UW on his back. It HAS to be a group effort. Evolving toward this ideal is a necessary part of a strong February and a good first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Saturday, we saw what that looked like.
Nate Reuvers scored 15 points. D’Mitrik Trice scored 14. Aleem Ford scored 13. Brevin Pritzl added 10. Four players scoring 52 points, averaging 13 points among them. That’s what it will take… and all of this was done without Davison.
The fact that Wisconsin won under these circumstances was remarkable enough in its own right, without any added contextual details. The fact that Wisconsin generated such balance and depth without two players who had been starting a few weeks ago is that much more newsworthy.
Hopefully, this team will continue to make positive headlines in February after the headaches of the past week, which were temporarily dispelled on Saturday.