SI.com - Luke Winn's 2008 Tourney Blog: Wisconsin's School Of D

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Get inside March Madness with SI.com's Luke Winn in the Tourney Blog, a daily journal of college basketball commentary, on-site reporting and reader-driven discussions.

3/22/2008 11:08:00 PM

Wisconsin's School Of D

Wisconsin held Jacob Pullen and the Wildcats to 39.6 percent shooting Saturday.

Bill Frakes/SI

OMAHA, Neb. -- A Bo Ryan practice is a rare place where the lexicon of basketball statheads -- who consider points per possession to be the ultimate measure of a team's potency -- is regarded as old-school coachspeak rather than a foreign language. Wisconsin's defense, the foundation for its run to the Midwest Regional's Sweet 16, is typically evaluated, in 4-5 minute scrimmage segments that simulate gaps between TV timeouts, by whether it can keep the Badgers' scout team under one point per possession. "And if they're over one," says junior forward Marcus Landry, "that's not good in Bo's eyes. It'll be time to start running."

A Wisconsin game, consequently, is a place where this defensive meticulousness -- a philosophy that assistant Greg Gard says Ryan has held since his days at Division III Wisconsin-Platteville, because it "provides accountability on every possession" -- is put into practice. The Badgers used the nation's most efficient defense (0.814 adjusted PPP) to win a Big Ten title, and then used it in the second round of the NCAA tournament to turn Kansas State's offense into a discombobulated mess. Against third-seeded UW, the 11th-seeded 'Cats scored just 22 second-half points in a 72-55 loss.

The unraveling of Team Potential, with its NBA Lottery duo of Michael Beasley and Bill Walker, could be explained by the fact that Wisconsin does not (in Walker's words) "give anything to you easy." K-State shot challenged jumper after challenged jumper, missing all 13 of its three-point attempts, and failed to feed Beasley (who scored 23 points, but just six in the second half) frequently enough in the post. But the story of the game could also be told through the lens of a few key series of defensive possessions.

The Badgers began the second half with a 39-33 lead, and defended the four-minute, 59-second stretch until the first media timeout so well that they yielded only two points in six possessions. They went into that break with a 46-35 advantage. Later, in the four-minute, 34-second gap between the final two media timeouts, when the Wildcats desperately needed to stage a comeback, UW gave up just four points on five possessions. The score at the beginning of that span was 61-49 in the Badgers' favor; at the end it was 72-53. After giving up 33 points on 32 possessions in the first half, UW yielded just 22 on 30 possessions in the second. Keeping K-State under one point per possession kept the Badgers from being bounced in the second round for the second straight season.

The beauty of Wisconsin's stinginess on Saturday was that it was "junk-free." Not a single second was spent playing a trick defense. All 40 minutes featured Ryan's trademark man-to-man, fronting-the-post, weakside-help defense that got the Badgers to the dance. Junior forward Joe Krabbenhoft, a gritty South Dakotan who bears the facial scars of a fearless defender -- he's had stitches on 36 occasions in his lifetime, including four under his right eye this season -- teamed up with Landry and Greg Stiemsma to keep Beasley from having a transcendent tournament performance. The Badgers also held Beasley and Walker's supporting cast to just 14 points combined, making K-State's offense tragically two-dimensional.

"We stuck with our rules, our system, coach Ryan's defense," said Krabbenhoft. "We didn't try to be any other team. ... We did what Wisconsin does, and we didn't change from being tough-nosed, up in your face, and [gave away] nothing easy."

Krabbenhoft insists there is no actual Wisconsin Defensive Rule Book that's distributed amongst the team -- just a set of simple principles that are drilled into their heads. "It's funny, you'd think as good as we are defensively, there would be all these crazy rules," he said, "but they're very basic." Those include: protecting the rim in transition (K-State had zero fastbreak points), weakside help in the post (Beasley said "I couldn't get the shots I wanted" because of the double-teams), contesting every jumper (the 'Cats shot 39.6 percent on the game), and staying in front of guards on penetration (K-State's backcourt created little on drive-and-kicks, combining for just three assists).

The rules alone, though, would have little impact if there weren't a high degree of synchrony among the Badgers' defenders. "The satellites aren't going to make the universe work," Ryan said. "And our guys rotate sink, pinch, all our rules that we talk about, the different things that we do; they have to be done in unison."

It is a truly surprising thing, much in the same way that Texas jumped from a No. 5 to a No. 2 seed in the year after Kevin Durant's departure, that Wisconsin is going deeper in this NCAA tournament than it managed to do with All-America candidate Alando Tucker last season. It required, according to Gard, a mutual understanding of the Badgers' new identity, one with no player averaging more than 12.4 points, and the defense becoming even more efficient than the one UW had when it rose to a national No. 1 ranking in February of 2007.

"They know that our margin for error is very slim, and in order for us to be successful, we have to be a very good defensive team and unselfish offensively," said Gard. "They understood that we didn't have a 30-point-per-game scorer anymore, and that it had to be a group effort this time."

The Badgers do not have any players with guaranteed NBA futures, and to reach the Final Four they'll likely have to go through two more teams -- Georgetown and Kansas -- that are stocked with pros-in-waiting. An advantage in draft picks, however, does not guarantee a favorable outcome. The first item in UW's personnel report on Beasley, according to Krabbenhoft, read that K-State's super-frosh was "the best player on Earth, and it was going to very hard to stop him." Yet Beasley and the Wildcats are now out of the NCAA tournament, their talent having been slowly neutralized by the Badgers, on possession after agonizing possession.

Labels: Omaha, Wisconsin

posted by Luke Winn | View comments (20) |

20 Comments:

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Posted: March 23, 2008 1:06 AM by

Anonymous

Great piece by Wynn, getting to the essence of this underrated team....

Posted: March 23, 2008 1:14 AM by

Anonymous

Well put Luke. Go Badgers!

Posted: March 23, 2008 2:16 AM by

Anonymous

Excellent piece....Thanks for giving credit to a great team.

Posted: March 23, 2008 7:49 AM by

Anonymous

What a lovely written article about the Badgers defense! Great job, Luke.

Posted: March 23, 2008 8:10 AM by

Anonymous

when was the last time a team that wasn't stocked full of nba talent won the tourney?
wisky may make the final 4 but they have no chance of winning the whole enchilada

Posted: March 23, 2008 8:45 AM by

Anonymous

Nice piece Luke. Gets to the baseline that makes the team tick as winners.
Nice Job GO BUCKY

Posted: March 23, 2008 9:08 AM by

Anonymous

Maybe Luke should take Seth Davis' place on CBS' studio show. He is a Wisconsin hater. This is the same guy that said before the season that the Badgers wouldn't even make the postseason. Then he picks K-State because he is in love with Beasley. If I was that wrong at my job, I would be fired. It is also noteworthy that he picked against Michigan State twice too. A Big Ten hater also apparently.

Posted: March 23, 2008 9:59 AM by

Anonymous

Wow! What a awesome read Wynn!
Anyone who says watching the Badgers is ugly has no appreciation for great team basketball and a future hall of fame coach! As for a team winning it all without a superstar Villanova comes to mind as they only had Ed Pickney who played on 7 NBA teams. I guarantee you that Butch and others on the team may not be NBA all-stars one of them may get the same 7 years in the NBA.

Posted: March 23, 2008 11:33 AM by

Clark Miller

So I did a little research on Kenpom.com. With respect to tournament teams this season. Wisconsin held Cal St. Fullerton to their lowest offensive efficiency of the year. Kansas St. to their second lowest. Michigan St. to the second and seventh lowest. Texas to the sixth lowest (in Austin). Indiana to the lowest. Only Duke and Purdue figured them out this year. Thankfully, they’re gone already.

Posted: March 23, 2008 11:47 AM by

Leviathan

The comment about when was the last time a team not stocked full of nba talent won the tourney got me thinking--when was it, actually? Working backward, I think the answer might be the 2001-2002 Maryland team. Now, they did have NBA players (Steve Blake and Juan Dixon) but they have really ended up being role players in the league. No superstars that I could see. This wasn't true with any of the other teams since they won; all had at least one huge talent. This isn't meant to refute the comment, by the way, just a point of interest. Now, relative to WI, do any of their players rate with Blake and Dixon? Mmm...maybe, maybe not. I do know Flowers has started to get sniffs from scouts, and a big tourney finish from Butch could push him up (much like it probably did for Dixon, who might have been a 2nd round pick otherwise). And Hughes...well, he's a sophomore, so his future is pretty murky. But, long story short, Maryland seems the most likely comparison, relative to the comment.

Posted: March 23, 2008 12:13 PM by

Anonymous

This was a very insightful article that actually takes the time to explain why Wisconsin is so effective. Rather than just focusing on what Wisconsin doesn't do (i.e., run and shoot), it takes us behind the scenes to reveal how Ryan gets his players to concentrate so well on the "D." Thanks.

Posted: March 23, 2008 12:36 PM by

rylessss

The Badgers seem to be playing the most efficient basketball of all the teams at this point in, wouldn’t you say?

Posted: March 23, 2008 12:39 PM by

Anonymous

Davis is far from a Badger hater. He named them his "All glue" team in his awards this year. Yeah, he picked KSU, but he picks a lot of upsets. That said, great article, Luke. Always nice to read about our Badgers.

Posted: March 23, 2008 12:44 PM by

Anonymous

much appreciated. if you could hit hubert davis upside the head next opportunity, i'd greatly appreciate it. badgers have been out of his top 16 teams for the entire season

Posted: March 23, 2008 10:25 PM by

Anonymous

It's allright if the Badgers don't have a lineup filled with NBA talent b/c there is no definite favorite. I rememeber Arizona losing in the elite 8 in 03 with Luke Walton, Salim Stoudomire,Hassan Adams, Andre Igoudala, and Jason Gardner. That team too much talent. There is also more parity this year among the top 10.

Posted: March 23, 2008 10:45 PM by

ngawe_2008

Krabbenhoft hasn't had 36 stitches, he's had to get stitches 36 times.

Go Badgers.

Posted: March 23, 2008 11:52 PM by

Anonymous

i love your blogs. this is why i love bo ryan. what an under-appreciated coach

Posted: March 24, 2008 1:29 PM by

Anonymous

bucky is tough. underrate them all you want ESPN know it alls. all we do is win. when you say wisconsin you said it all.

Posted: March 24, 2008 5:47 PM by

Andrew

Nice piece! Don't want the secret out, it's nice to be the underdog. Go Badgers!!

Posted: March 26, 2008 1:50 AM by

jerry

Hate to disagree with everyone, especially since I love Bo Ryan (actually I hate him since I'm a fan of another big 10 team, but that's another story), I think he's a fantastic coach...but there's no way Wisconsin is getting past Kansas. We saw last year against UNLV what really good guard play can do against Wisc., and Kansas has an amazing backcourt. I'm fine with the Badgers' style - it doesn't bore me, on the contrary, it's nice to see such good defense - but I say Kansas puts up at least 80 on them (if the Badgers get past Davidson, which has a pretty good guard too).