Stop being surprised when Wisconsin wins
Wisconsin’s second straight Final Four was no fluke. Bo Ryan’s Badgers are officially one of college basketball’s top programs.
When Kenny Smith asked Bo Ryan last Sunday why he was no longer comfortable with scoring “on the small side of 50,” Ryan told Smith (in many more words) that Wisconsin is the same team it has always been during his 14 years as head coach. Implicit in Smith’s question was that this year’s Badgers were an anomaly, especially in an Elite Eight field of college basketball’s bluebloods.
“People don’t do their homework on how many points we score,” Ryan said (calmly, but the words that come out of this face always seem to burst forth like hellfire.) “Maybe if you’re saying ‘on the small side of 50,’ you’re talking about what we give up defensively. ... But offensively we’ve always been looking to try and get a quick score. The problem is the daggone guys on the other side are trying to stop us.”
Wisconsin is a slow team. It is using 61.1 possessions per game this season, which ranks 346th among 351 teams in Division I. In years past, Wisconsin’s slow pace has been correlated with the team’s annual early exits from the NCAA Tournament. Ryan had just one Elite Eight in 12 seasons before the 2013-14 Final Four run, despite qualifying for the tournament every season as, on average, a No. 5 seed.
Ryan is a man of numbers. When asked before halftime against Oregon why star center Frank Kaminsky had gotten off to a poor start, he said that Kaminsky's 3-of-7 shooting would have been better than 50 percent with one more make. Ryan has faith in the law of averages. That's why implicit in Ryan's response to Smith was incredulity that anyone who follows his team is surprised by any of its success.
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Ryan has won handsomely outside of the postseason. He was an immediate success upon taking over at Wisconsin in 2001, when the Badger went to the NCAA Tournament after being predicted to finish ninth in the Big Ten. He won the first of four Big Ten Coach of the Year awards, the latest of which came this season for leading a preseason favorite. Ryan's .717 winning percentage in Big Ten play is the best in conference history. His .7188 overall winning percentage is 51st all-time, four spots ahead of Tom Izzo and six spots behind Larry Brown.
Wisconsin has always won under Ryan, but because of his struggles in the NCAA Tournament the story became that his teams were fakes. He played a system that gamed the Big Ten, where basketball is an extension of football and methodical, physical play is tolerated. The Badgers don’t do many “fun” things -- they prefer to run their half-court offense, they bolt from the offensive glass to prevent transition opportunities, and they’re meticulous with the ball. Ryan’s teams were considered too rigid, so that the first team that was able to make Wisconsin do anything it did not want to do -- usually this team was “too athletic” for the Badgers -- would capitalize.
Yet for a “system” team, it’s remarkable how often the system has failed Wisconsin this postseason. A defense obsessed with chasing opponents off the three-point line gave up 23-of-44 attempts from long range in three games leading into the Arizona bout. Wisconsin is allowing opponents to rebound just 21.5 percent of their misses on the year, yet let smaller Oregon and UNC squads hauled in better than 30 percent of their missed shots. Against Arizona, Wisconsin lost its characteristic discipline, committing 21 personal fouls despite averaging a nation-low 12.4 per game.
Wisconsin struggled to shoot but won at the foul line against Oregon. It struggled to hit threes but worked UNC inside in a comeback win, It struggled inside the arc but rained from deep against Arizona. They’ve weathered runs and roared out of late second half deficits. Wisconsin was a pedestrian 14-for-33 behind the three-point line in the two games before they fired away against Arizona. That faith that they would progress to the mean paid off with a 12-for-18 long-range performance.
Wisconsin faced nearly every obstacle a team can during its NCAA Tournament run. There is no blueprint to beating the Badgers, besides being damn good.
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Unfortunately for Wisconsin, "damn good" aptly describes Kentucky, Wisconsin's 38-0 juggernaut Final Four opponent. One of the Wildcats' biggest strengths is perhaps Wisconsin's biggest weakness: Depth. The Badgers' vaunted frontcourt of Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and Nigel Hayes will finally face a counterpart that is even bigger, deeper and better (by NBA potential). If referees call the game as tightly as they did when Wisconsin played Arizona, both teams will quickly have to go to their bench. Unlike Kentucky, Wisconsin does not have a pro prospect who isn't playing in its starting five.
But Kentucky’s freakishness doesn’t discount Wisconsin, and neither should Wisconsin’s history. Wisconsin has been good before -- they’ve earned a No. 4 seed or better in six of Ryan’s seasons in Madison -- it has just taken an unusually long for the program to reach college basketball’s pinnacle. Ryan is making up for lost time, however. He has now gone to two Final Fours in 14 seasons. Unless your team is led by another current or future hall of fame coach, that level of NCAA Tournament success is nearly unrivaled.
The timing of Ryan’s success means that the narrative can’t entirely be negated. Wisconsin won’t have two first-round prospects on the roster every season -- one of them, Kaminsky, the probable National Player of the Year -- so those who want to call the Badgers a fluke can continue doing so.
But Ryan struggled to contain his contempt during his interview with Kenny Smith for a reason. In his mind, Wisconsin is simply satisfying the immutable law of averages. The Badgers have always been a powerhouse, and now the record is finally being set straight.
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