(3) Wisconsin vs. (10) Davidson. 6:10 CST

[brettac1]

Really, don't know what to say, how much time do you spend away from this website?

 

Quite a bit. I guess I thought the Kevin LoveFest was much more annoying than the coverage Davidson got. Davidson deserves slightly more than the average team's coverage since they are the Cinderella or whatever. But I just didn't think it was over the top (at least not anymore than anything else is in the day and age of 24 hour sports).

 

And yeah, it definitely sucked that Hughes got hurt. It's going to be his team next year. But what sucked worse was when Flowers decided that he needed to start jacking up stupid shots every other possession after the injury, and they didn't move the ball near the paint at all. They seriously are in need of some athletes, that was painfully clear after Davidson decided to apply their press.

[TooLiveBrew]

Watching seemingly every Badger sucking wind 5 minutes into the 2nd half was embarassing, frustrating, and completely disappointing. Ever seen a press, guys? Yeah, they played their asses off, but it looked like they were gassed WAY too early. What happened?

[bjkrautk]

Watching seemingly every Badger sucking wind 5 minutes into the 2nd half was embarassing, frustrating, and completely disappointing. Ever seen a press, guys? Yeah, they played their asses off, but it looked like they were gassed WAY too early. What happened?

They were being run around screens all game, and were cut down to a 6 man rotation once Hughes went down (Bo never once used Jarmuz or Leuer to spell some of his guys, IIRC). Part of the reason why they kept missing long jumpers down the stretch is that their legs were dead.

 

[brettac1]

Here's a little about the TV ratings when the last great cinderella made it deep into the tournament, George Mason two years ago:

 

"The next time somebody tells you that the NCAA tournament is a cultural phenomenon, ask that somebody if he or she actually bothered to watch the Final Four.

 

Because, apparently, Americans don't put their clickers where their mouths are.

 

The TV ratings for the long weekend in Indianapolis are disappointing, if predictable. Saturday's semifinals were the second-lowest-rated ever. The numbers for Florida's resounding victory over UCLA on Monday night flirted with the lowest ever for a title game, down 25 percent from last year's game.

 

Billy Packer will offer an explanation for this. In the meantime, somebody tell me again why it's a good thing when Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas or UConn aren't there at the end.

 

A lot of people exult when the powerful, tradition-guzz-ling machines are pushed into a ditch along the road to the Final Four. But these brand-name schools are missed -- at CBS and in America's homes.

 

Everybody loved mid-sized, cuddly George Mason and, to a lesser extent, LSU. But love them enough to watch them play? Guess not.

 

Is this a case of people embracing the romance of the upset, yet being bored by the upstarts? So it seems. "

 

And this: NY Times

 

Florida's victory over George Mason on Saturday rated a 9.1, down 9 percent from the comparable game last year, and U.C.L.A.'s victory over Louisiana State rated an 8.2, down 25 percent. For the 2005-6 season, each rating point equals about 1.1 million TV households.

Lower ratings were expected for the tournament after all the Big Ten teams were eliminated and because none of the four top-seeded teams advanced to the Final Four. For all games, CBS recorded a 6.3 rating, down from a 6.9.

[danzig6767]

Watching seemingly every Badger sucking wind 5 minutes into the 2nd half was embarassing, frustrating, and completely disappointing. Ever seen a press, guys? Yeah, they played their asses off, but it looked like they were gassed WAY too early. What happened?

The Badgers aren't built to press, especially with Hughes out. Flowers then was the only really good athlete left on the floor. The Duke game was the only other time the Badgers got way behind and with our style of play, a comeback was extremely unlikely.

Don't underestimate how good Davidson is, if the Badgers played them 10 times on a neutral court, i really question if we'd win more than half the games. Davidson played Duke closer than UW did, were way up on UCLA, only lost by 4 to North Carolina, beat Georgetown, and destroyed us in the second half. They weren't some small school that just got hot late in the year.

 

[Roscoe Chill]

George Mason didn't have the best player in the country.

 

I said before how Davidson was the epitome of a one man team, and I still pretty much think so. I just underestimated how good that one player was. And the refs helped him out even more...BUT AGAIN, I'm not blaming the refs for the loss, just pointing out that the tone was set early in that second half.

 

I said a long time ago that the one thing I didn't like about the Badgers was when time was of the essence and they were down, they seemed to be lost offensively, and that was no more apparent than tonight.

[ccbrew]

Well, i'm obviously not going to change your mind, but you're the only Badgers fan in a couple forums i browsed that thought the refs played even a very minor role in the loss, much less a big one. I was going to check out Scout.com, i'm curious to see if i'll see a single fan upset with the refs.

 

I didn't feel the officiating was bad. The travel was pretty obvious IMO, but in this particular game, the play on the floor was the determining factor of the outcome.

 

But interesting to see the following photo on the front page of JSOnline. I don't remember a foul being called on Curry while Hughes was on the floor..if that's the case, how was this not a foul?

 

http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/badger/img/mar08/thughes328.jpg

[brettac1]

Davidson might not, either.

 

But you're point was that ratings don't go down when Cinderellas advance. But they do.

[Roscoe Chill]

But interesting to see the following photo on the front page of JSOnline. I don't remember a foul being called on Curry while Hughes was on the floor..if that's the case, how was this not a foul?

 

http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/badger/img/mar08/thughes328.jpg

 

 

Exactly. And there was another blatant reach and almost tackle Curry wasn't called on. I'm not hallucinating.

[Roscoe Chill]

And who said that the refs wanted Davidson because of ratings anyway?

 

What happened in the Florida-UCLA title game, that had nothing to do with a Cinderella.

[brettac1]

I guess anytime there are cries of conspiracy, that's usually the reason, like "the refs want a NY team there" in football. What other reason would they have? They just didn't like the Badgers?

[brettac1]

What happened in the Florida-UCLA title game, that had nothing to do with a Cinderella.

 

Just non-compelling teams. They would have been even lower had George Mason been there. And I think it was on American Idol night.

[bjkrautk]

But interesting to see the following photo on the front page of JSOnline. I don't remember a foul being called on Curry while Hughes was on the floor..if that's the case, how was this not a foul?

 

http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/badger/img/mar08/thughes328.jpg

 

 

Exactly. And there was another blatant reach and almost tackle Curry wasn't called on. I'm not hallucinating.

I can't comment on the picture, because I don't even know what part of the game it came from. That said, Flowers drew a charge on Curry....I think early in the second half. So you're wrong there.

 

[Roscoe Chill]

I'm not even saying it was a conscious decision brettac. Florida and UCLA non compelling? I can't even name one guy off the top of my head of that George Mason team. They weren't exciting. Stephen Curry brought Lebron James up to sit behind his bench...he was plastered all over every newspaper, every website, all week long. I'm just not sure where you were all week in regards to the Davidson hype.

[Roscoe Chill]

Flowers drew a charge on Curry....I think early in the second half. So you're wrong there.

 

Yeah, I'm wrong. You bring up an instance where A foul called on him, so I'm wrong? He had four fouls for what it's worth dude. What if Curry had fouled out with 10 minutes to play if they would have called fouls when fouls occurred the whole way?

[Roscoe Chill]

By the way, the Badgers played terrible tonight and deserved to lose, just so no one thinks I have a little man thing going on with Wisconsin.

 

Although picking on Krabbenhoft is funny.

[brettac1]

I'm just saying it wasn't anything more than the Kevin Love hype. He's the one in the corner of my SI cover. With the bigger feature in my SI, also. And who gets more hype than Psycho T/UNC?

[brettac1]

I wasn't "picking on" Krabbenhoft. When I said he was a chump in this thread, it was after his 100 yard inbounds pass and stupid reach-in after a Davidson rebound.

[Roscoe Chill]

What's even more hilarious is how a guy like Curry only get offered from Davidson, Winthrop, and Virginia Commonwealth. Virginia Tech didn't have a scholly for the son of Dell Curry? That's funny.

[bjkrautk]

NDOG - my apologies, I hit the reply to the wrong post with the picture. I was talking about ccbrew's comment that Curry didn't have a foul called on him while Flowers was in the game.

 

 

(Of course, that would have been quite a feat, given that Flowers played all 40 minutes according to the J-S box score.)

[brettac1]

I think the reason for that is that he wasn't playing the AAU circuit, at least that's what it seems like was the reason. He was also pretty small in HS, too. I actually think he might even play four years of college ball.

[SeriesFinale]

Well, at least Wisconsin wasn't the highest seed to lose to Davidson.

 

 

It's a stinger tonight, but overall they exceeded my expectations for the 07-08 campaign.

Yeah, I didn't think I'd be the only one who thought last year's loss was much worse than this. Last year's Badgers were super-hyped and briefly ranked number

one and while they faded during the stretch they should've made a much deeper run than they did, losing to a

non-descript UNLV team in the 2nd. The big [players] they had this year

did much better than expected and ran into a force-of-nature that's

a little hard to root against. I'm disappointed in the way they played tonight, and that they're not going to make a run to the FF I fully felt they were capable of, but I'm not angry.

 

 

Anyway, on my way home after the game here in SF I saw from the train some young dude walking alone in the rain with a Wisconsin t-shirt on and a dress-tie wrapped around his head carrying a 12-pack of PBR as he wandered into a Burger Meister. Awesome and sad at the same time.

 

 

 

EDIT: Removed derogatory term - b19

[ccbrew]

NDOG - my apologies, I hit the reply to the wrong post with the picture. I was talking about ccbrew's comment that Curry didn't have a foul called on him while Flowers was in the game.

 

 

(Of course, that would have been quite a feat, given that Flowers played all 40 minutes according to the J-S box score.)

Which of course wasn't even what I said..the picture is of Hughes being hacked, and my quote was "I don't remember a foul being called on Curry while Hughes was on the floor..." http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

The silver lining through all this is that I'll officially be ready for Brewers season. It'll take me just about until the opener to get over this one..

[lbb020]

Totally amazed by Bo's approach to this game.....we came out gunning 3's from the get go and never let up, our advantage was most certainly in the paint and we did not exploit that at all. I don't believe Butch posted up once..and Laundry/Krabbenhoft only did a time or 2. The biggest mistake, however, was not trying to isolate Stephen Curry on defense, we absolutely should have tried to get him in foul trouble early. Took 46 shots in the game, and exactly half (23) were 3's. That is not the recipe for success against a team like Davidson

[wisconsinfan47]

Oh well...just in time for Badger Hockey and Opening Day.

 

Coincidence? I think not.