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How loss to Carleton Ravens put Wisconsin on the road to the Final Four
To get to the Final Four, the Wisconsin Badgers first spent a long night in the Ravens' Nest.
Outside of a few mentions on Twitter last Saturday when the Badgers got by Arizona in the Elite Eight, very few seemed to play up the fact that one of the last four teams standing lost to the 10-time CIS champion Carleton Ravens by double digits in August, with now three-time Canadian player of the year Phil Scrubb going off for 30 points and 12 assists in a 95-82 game that wasn't that close. It was, granted, an exhibition game between teams from two vastly different collegiate hoops solar systems, with Carleton boasting a veteran squad that can practise together all summer due to CIS rules and Wisconsin coming in with three new starters and playing with an unfamiliar 24-second shot clock. Yet the fact is a game that isn't listed on the UW men's basketball site and wasn't mentioned by TSN's analysts during the Badgers' Elite Eight win — is Carleton's coach Dave Smart now Voldemort now that Sportsnet is the CIS rights holder? — got Wisconsin on a new path. It gave the Badgers a window into their potential to become a more up-tempo team, instead of replicating the slowdown style long attributed to Bo Ryan teams.
From C.L. Brown:
The Ravens, who won their 10th Canadian Interuniversity Sport title in the past 12 years in early March, played at a pace and style comparable to [Virgiinia Commonwealth]. After trailing by as many as 22 points, the Badgers lost 95-82.
Wisconsin wasn't quite used to playing so fast, but it was intrigued by it. Point guard Traevon Jackson said the Badgers believed they had a team that could play faster and be tougher to stop scoring than coach Bo Ryan's previous teams in Madison.
"When we went to Canada, I was just telling everybody, like, why not? Why can't we do the things that we want to do?" Jackson said.
The Badgers were less concerned about the defensive holes they showed and more impressed by the offensive flashes they saw.
Junior center Frank Kaminsky was nowhere near the guy who could drop 28 points on Arizona in the regional final. He was much closer to being the guy who averaged just 4.2 points and 1.8 rebounds as a sophomore. But he gave a glimpse of what was to come by scoring 11 of the Badgers' first 23 points against Carleton.
Sophomore forward Sam Dekker showed he was ready for his expanded role by scoring a team-high 28 points.
Jackson was a player many fans weren't sold would be the starting point guard by season's end. But he scored 19 points and proved he was better than the 29 percent 3-point shooter he was last season. (ESPN.com)
It was anything but a "shocking loss," contrary to how one Canadian headline writer put it. The ball movement and speed of the Badgers made it manifestly evident why they are a NCAA tournament team season after season.
Obviously, Wisconsin was more concerned about how its young nucleus responded to a new challenge in a unfamiliar environment than it did to the fact Carleton had a ridiculous 59.4 per cent effective field goal percentage on that warm August night. It makes for a nice now-you-know-the-rest-of-the-story sidebar to the Badgers' run that should not be ignored or mischaracterized as an upset. It shows how good Carleton and the teams that give it a run every so often, such as coach James Derouin's Ottawa Gee-Gees and Roy Rana's Ryerson Rams are becoming.
Connecticut, as Brown mentions, is the highest-scoring team in the Final Four at 76.8 points per game, ahead of the Badgers' 73.2. Carleton and CIS runner-up Ottawa each averaged more than 95 in the regular season while playing with FIBA rules. Would that the NCAA would swing with the rest of the world and adopt the proper shot clock, but using the "eye-glazing, 35-second version" serves a purpose. It manufactures greater potential for the supposed bracket-busting upsets that help keep eyeballs glued to March Madness and keep the TV money tap flowing.
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
