Border Battle MSU vs Wisconsin

Who: Those stinking Badgers!
Where: Breslin, 7pm.
TV/Radio: ESPN/94.9


Badger Bits

• Bo Ryan is an enemy of the State.
• Bo Ryan and Tom Izzo are the two longest reigning coaches of the Big Ten.
• Bo Ryan hates your freedom.
• Wisconsin is ranked 5th according to KenPom
• Bo Ryan once sent a guy to dunk on his own mother because she didn't call him for a couple of weeks.
• Wisconsin leads the nation in tall white men 3 point shooting percentage. True fact.

Bo Ryan's coaching style was developed when he was locked in a cabin out in the woods from when he graduated college in 1969 until landing a job with the University of Wisconsin as an assistant in 1976. During those seven years, he was in complete seclusion excepting for the occasional trip into town for some beers, some laughs and the occasional tuggle. He had only one piece of media for his entertainment and coaching study and it was this film.

Very quick character break: This is actually really cool. I'd love to watch some of these for State.

Ryan sold his soul to the devil sometime in 2001 when he accepted the job as the Head Coach at Wisconsin. He has spent his time since blowing up kittens and electrocuting puppies.

My partner in crime, Ty, writes a series for his blog The Lions In Winter called the Watchtower. The watchtower takes the statistical tendencies of Offensive and Defensive coordinators and pits them against each other. Of all the teams in the Big Ten, there are not two teams more well-suited for this kind of review. I'd love to do it using some KenPom magic, but, alas, I do not get paid until friday. Screw it, Wisconsin hate is a special kind of hate.

Advanced KenPom Analysis

We have moar green on our screen than Wisconsin does on theirs. So that's nice. 

Keys to Victory for MSU

• Score more than 60 points
• Get transition baskets
• Don't let the white guys kill you with three balls.
• Don't let Wisconsin out rebound you too badly.
• Bring a gun to this knife fight.

Keys to Victory for Wisconsin

• Be aware of how much time is on the clock. ZING!
• Stop MSU's transition baskets
• Score more than 60 points
• Get some white guy three-ballin' action.
• Summon your inner Satan, Bo Ryan.

Very Rudimentary KenPom Analysis

MSU's one trouble area is that they turn the ball over on offense at 20.5% clip, which is good for 9th in the Big Ten. As luck would have it Wisconsin is the worst in the conference at forcing turnovers at 15.2%. Anytime you're worse than Nebraska basketball at something, you're pretty bad.

Wisconsin ranks 10th in the conference at shooting the three so the whole Wisky three-ballin' their way back into the game looks like less of an issue than usual. MSU is also defending the three really well holding their opponents to 27.9 percent from 3pt land.

Finally, MSU is just monstrous on the boards this year checking in at 1st and 3rd in the Big Ten on offense and defense respectively.  Wisconsin checks in at 7th and 5th on offense and defense rebounding.

Summary

Two typical strengths of Wisconsin are atypically weak for Wisconsin this year and more of a strength for MSU than usual this year. Where MSU struggles in turning the ball over, Wisconsin is super craptabulous at forcing turnovers. I had originally and lazily predicted a four point victory, but on paper I had no idea how absolutely well MSU is playing.Now I am predictiing incorrectly based off of KenPom data a nine point victory.

Prediction: MSU 58 Wisconsin 49.

Huge, huge dap to the Mrs. She chopped both these pics and had a teething and crying baby on her back most of the time it was happening. My wife is the most capable human being alive.

Update: 12:32 PM. The Mrs. has added a pic for OneFreeFitz in the comment section below.

Bo in the sunlight!

A Brief Fictional History of Bret Bielema Pt. 2

This is a continuation of the apparently-not-so-brief and certainly fictitous history of Bret Cornelius Bielema. You can read Part One over here if you've not yet done so. As with the last one, there's some cursing in this one. So don't read if you're sensitive to that stuff.

Bielema shuffled down the hallway ready to receive the torch as the head football coach of Wisconsin. What was the first thing he'd need? A whistle certainly, old Mr. Scrotumsack used to beat Bielema in high school with one when he screwed up, but that wasn't quite what he was looking for. He stepped out into the cool night air and it hit him like a gentle fall breeze. He'll need a windbreaker, certainly every coach worth being someone could be identified by his trademark wear. Bielema selected the windbreaker. Playing UNLV when it's 96 degrees outside, WINDBREAKER!

Playing PSU when it's 35 and raining, WINDBREAKER! As the fall of 2006 approached and Wisconsin prepared for their first game with Bowling Green, Bielema got the feeling he was in over his head. One August night he sat in his new house, the bulk of his things still unpacked and in moving boxes. He draped his windbreaker over him for comfort because a warm summer Wisconsin evening is still cold by the standards of 90 percent of the world. He contemplated the task at hand and realized he can't do it alone. He quietly said out loud "I need the power of the devil."

Suddenly....

What the hell are you whining about? You're fourteen years old and in charge of a team that doesn't have any real competition in it's own state or any of it's neighboring states except for Iowa. All you have to do to win in the Big Ten is show up on Saturday and not make coaching mistakes. You can't do that?

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Well, the problem is that winning in the Big Ten is really hard. Like REALLY hard. I've even had to learn to read and shit. I had to quit drinking PBR because I didn't want my gut to look like that fat bastard Alvarez. Can you imagine a lifetime of drinking Bud Light? That's almost not worth being the head coach for, would you drink Bud Light for all of eternity?

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No, I can't imagine that Bret and let me tell you why. Because I'm the damned devil. I don't have to take any shit off of anyone and I invented AfterShock with drops of my own sweat. I tell you what, I can see you're in over your head and I'm going to offer you a deal you simply cannot say no to. How would you like me to guarantee your success at Wisconsin and you can drink all the PBR you want?

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You have my attention. Sooey! That sounds hot. What do I have to do?

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Well Bret, it's well documented that I am an Ohio State fan. I really love that Jim Tressel guy I just think he's great. But I certainly can enjoy and be happy for other teams. So I will make you this deal, I will guarantee you success at Wisconsin, but in return, you will never have a more than .500 winning percentage on the road in the Big Ten. You are allowed to finish over .500 for a season, but when you retire or are fired, your Big Ten Road Winning Percentage will be at or below .500. I will deliver players to you who should win Heisman's and you will still stay at .500 or below.

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Yeah, yeah fuck all that, what about the PBR?

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Hm, for the PBR.... What to do. The Windbreaker. You may never take it off again. EVER. There will come a day where you will be tempted and you will want to remove it. You may not do so. If you do, I shall wrest any national title hopes from your hands, forevermore. In 2011, you will have a running back who would win the Heisman were he in the SEC and a QB who will smash the passing efficiency record. That will be insufficient to win the national title and you will lose to my godforsaken Buckeyes who will go on to finish the season 6-6.

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Alright you drive a hard bargain, but I'll do it.

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The years passed and the prophecy was as foretold. In 2011 over Memorial Day weekend, Bielema was chillaxin' at the Dells when he got into a drinking contest with some kids from UW-Stout. The penalty for losing this drinking contest was that you had to streak through the Quad.


 

As Paul Harvey used to say, "Now you know the rest of the story."

Hate Week: A Brief Fictional History of Bret Bielema Pt. 1

It's time for us to know our enemy in a more serious sense. It's no secret I think Bret Bielema is the biggest chunderdick in Big Ten football, which puts him high in the running worldwide. My assessment of why I don't like him can be sumarized quickly and fairly in his habit of crushing cupcakes with his meaty, hairy fists and the fact he's a pretty average road coach. 12-12 in the Big Ten which is exactly average to be precise. "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril." says Sun Tzu, so let us sit down and learn the history of Bret Cornelius Bielema.
  

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Bret Bielema was born in Prophetsville, Illinois(this is not made up) with the name Michael "Meathead" Stivic(this is made up). Forgoing the local life of drinking and panhandling for corn at the local grist mill, he was recruited to play football at the University of Iowa. As a defensive lineman he was able to educate his fellow lineman about drinking and cornholing. I trust the reader can discern which kind of cornholing I'm referring to. At the University of Iowa he received the lifelong emblem of his time there. His Tiger Hawk Tattoo.


Armed with knowledge imparted on him by Hayden Fry and a hatred of all things weaker than he is, he set out into the world to play Arena League Football. He was signed to the Milwaukee Mustangs for a meager salary of as much PBR as he could drink. He was cut before he was able to bankrupt the team through his PBR consumption but the debt he left behind could never be fully repaid and eventually forced the Milwaukee Mustangs to fold in 2001.

One night after Bielema killed a 30 pack of PBR while watching reruns of All in the Family and passing in and out all night long, he called up Hayden Fry at Iowa and asked him how things were going and did he like you know want to go get coffee or something sometime? Fry asked him to call back during daytime, but Bielema started sobbing softly into the phone. Bielema hung up while yelling "I GOT TRAMPSTAMPED FOR YOU".  Fry woke up the next morning wondering if he had dreamed the whole thing, but *69ed the call and sure enough Bret answered by vomiting into the phone. Fry offered him an assistant coaching position immediately.

Bielema coached at Iowa from 1993-2001. When Hayden Fry retired in 1998, Bielema interviewed for the job as the Head Cheese at Iowa. He lost out to Kirk Ferentz in the "Grand Contest of All Things Dooshy" for the job. He and Ferentz were put to a septathlon of events including Dodgeball at an Elementary School, Cheating at the Bingo Hall, Cow Tipping, Rhabdomyolysis-Inducing HGH Injections, Lighting Bags of Dog Crap On Fire and leaving it on Mary Sue Coleman's doorstep, How Many Times Could You Do the Century Club in a Week? and The Championship of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Bielema beat Ferentz at the Century Club thing while driving around smashing mailboxes and doing donuts on Mary Sue Coleman's lawn while rolling garbage bags full of flaming dogshit on her front porch. Eventually he crashed into the Bingo Hall and stole all of the bingo cards and writing "O-Doyle Rules!" on each of them. Normally this would have given him a Bielema-like smashing victory over his opponents, but he was disqualified on the grounds that he left the cow-tipping undone.

So the job went to Ferentz and after a couple years Bielema left for the bright lights of Manhattan.... Kansas to serve as the Co-Defensive Coordinator for Kansas State. Upon arrival in Manhattan....Kansas, he realized something was off, about three weeks later after spending six hours looking for the Empire State building he realized he was not in Manhattan New York. He immediately requested to leave because who the shit WANTS to coach for KSU? However, once handed his contract with the Bielema mark on it, he was sure he had seen this document before even if he could not read it.

In late 2003, he was contacted by Papa Barry Alvarez to interview for the Defensive Coordinator position at Wisconsin. The only requirements laid out by Alvarez were the ability to recognize a running vs. passing play and a working knowledge of the letters X and O. Bielema asked "You mean like hugs and kisses?" To which Alvarez replied, "No dude. That's wrong.". Bielema was hired and took the total Wisconsin Scoring defense from 43rd in 2003 to 9th in 2004.

Upon the close of the season, Bielema marched directly into Alvarez's office to apologize for making the ranking of the defense smaller. Alvarez told Bielema to sit down and that he had something to talk to him about. Alvarez said, "Bret, there comes a time in a man's life where he needs to start thinking about something other than football." Bret said, "You mean, drinkin'?" Alvarez said, "How would you like to be the next football coach at Wisconsin?" Bielema said, "Yessir, I surely would." Alvarez says, "Great, you start next year." Bret got up and started to walk out of the room, Alvarez said "Oh, and Bret, sometimes, smaller is better." Bret looked down at the floor, maaaaaaaybe at his pants, but definitely at the floor and smiled. A smile that was in danger of splitting his cheeks, but the brightest smile in Madison in 2004.

Bret Bielema had just become a man.