Human beings are imperfect, which means sports teams and the athletes who play for them are imperfect as well. Sports — like all other human endeavors — are a theater of the imperfect. In many ways, managing imperfections — limiting them in some circumstances, confining them in others — is the ultimate task of every team. The imperfections will exist; preventing them from spiraling out of control is often the main goal of a team and coaching staff on game night.
If you look at competition and endeavor in this context, the Wisconsin Badgers did a really good job of containing their limitations at the offensive end of the floor on Tuesday night against the Purdue Boilermakers. Wisconsin was hardly dominant or imposing, but the Badgers weren’t terrible, either. This conveys a simple yet often overlooked truth of sports: You don’t necessarily need to play great to win; many times, “avoiding mediocrity or ineptitude” is enough of a standard to win a game. It doesn’t sound sexy or inspiring, but it works.
I will provide a few statistics to back up these claims, but first, let me make one more big-picture point about the Badgers: After the first win over Nebraska in the Kohl Center last month, I made the point that Wisconsin is not going to shoot near 50 percent from 3-point range on a regular basis. UW got whatever it wanted against a bad opponent; that wasn’t reflective of where the team is going to go, or how much the Badgers might achieve this season.
Shooting 50 percent on threes isn’t a realistic goal for this team. A realistic goal was to stop shooting 28-29-30 percent from 3-point range, and to see if UW could establish a 37-38-39-percent standard. Shooting 37 percent on threes is not great, but not terrible. It’s decent. It’s okay.
Given how well Wisconsin can play defense, merely being “decent” on offense is going to win a lot of games. If UW can carry a “decent” offense into the rest of the season, the Badgers have a real shot at the Sweet 16.
Now, then, the relevant stats from Tuesday’s win:
Wisconsin hit 38.7 percent of its threes (12 of 31).
The Badgers still aren’t a team which will generate 30 or 35 free throws per game, but on Tuesday, they did create 20 attempts and outscored Purdue 19-8 at the charity stripe. Not amazing, but not mediocre. Just being better than mediocre can go a long way.
Wisconsin placed four scorers in double figures, all with 12 or more points. Again, that’s not worth a ticker-tape parade, but see what happens when this team gets just a little bit of deep and balanced scoring? It matters.
Decent 3-point shooting. Decent free-throw output. Decent scoring balance. This wasn’t an incredible or amazing game from Wisconsin, but merely being better than average makes UW so much better. Remember that as we go forward.