fans of the wisconsin badgers men's basketball team are shaking their heads today, as once again, they fall flat on their faces in a big ten road game.  2 days after losing to michigan state on the road, the badgers faced iowa on their senior day.  one has to wonder if the badgers are being courtious visitors, and allowing the home team's senior players to win their final appearance in front of the home fans.

ok, snap out of it.  while we may be nice people here in cheeseland, we're not that nice.  the truth is, we've once again been shown how a lack of overall athleticism, bad shooting, and a subpar defensive performance can kill a team that relies so heavily on everything other than offensive flash.

alando tucker showed again why he'll never make it to the nba, struggling with his shot, and forcing horrible, off balance leaners, hoping they'll drop or he'll draw a foul.  two small problems with his theory. 1.  he generally doesnt get the benefit of the doubt when officials know his shot selection is something other than stellar.  2.  even when he does get fouled, he misses as many free throws as he makes, thus crippling the other 4 players on the team, as none are involved in the game plan, other than to get the ball to tucker in the post.

kammron taylor, arguably the best offensive threat on the team, has all but disappeared the past several games.  as the point gaurd, sure, he's expected to run the offense and create shots for others, as well as himself.  the problem here is that taylor averages less than 3 assists per game, and lately has had difficulty handling the ball.

brian butch, the starting "center", rarely matches up against the opposing center, with good reason.  other than an occasional weakside rotation that results in a blocked shot, his defense is questionable at best.  jason chappel regularly gaurds the opposition's #5, and usually gets into early fould trouble, thus leaving undersized kevin gullickson to perform the task for extended minutes every game.

as a team, going into today's game, they shoot a collective 44% from the field.  for a team that struggles to find a shot, this isnt a terrible percentage.  however, considering roughly 1/3 of their shot attempts are from beyond the 3 point line, and they shoot just over 34% on 3's, its obvious part of the problem is due to the lack of a true inside presense.  yes, brian butch and the other bigs get second chance points, but most of their inside offense comes from tucker.   the other big problem is that, quite simply, they dont have good shooters.  taylor has the best looking release on the squad, but, as stated before, he's the point gaurd, and his focus is not on scoring. 

for the badgers to make any noise in the big ten tournament, they need to find some offense.  if that requires moving taylor to shooting gaurd, then so be it.  change at this point in the season normally occurs because of injury.  perfect, the badgers are staggering, and one more strong punch in the opening round of the conference tourney will not only knock them to the mat, but quite possibly out of the NCAA field of 64. 

the selection comittee for march madness puts a lot of emphasis on "what have you done for me lately", and in the case of wisconsin, that isnt much.  to get in, i think they'll need 2 lopsided wins, and at least a good showing against the likes of illinois or ohio state to once again look like a contender in the eyes of the bracketologists.