Thank goodness that a team doing this well is playing in Mackey on a Saturday afternoon when the students will be buzzing.
Home game! Weekend game! Catch a similarly-ranked team off balance when they have to travel to West Lafayette game…?
Boilers off a loss. We know. It was not ideal. Good time to get everything back in gear. What do the Badgers (we don’t need no stinkin’ badgers!) bring to town?
University of Wisconsin-Madison (19-5, 9-4 Big 10) – Kenpom #11
Basic Information
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
Type of School: Public Land-Grant Research University
Mascot: Bucky Badger
Venue: Kohl Center
(capacity 17,287 taxi, and I don’t mean a big yellow Taximeter Cabriolet for those of you who like animal classification and Joni Mitchell)
(and we’re counting badgers not Crows here, let me throw in the word taxonomy, I am now officially trying too hard)
Head Coach – Greg Gard
Seasons at Wisconsin: 10
Wisconsin Record: 119-110
Other Head Coaching Jobs: N/A
Overall Record: 119-110
Regular Season Conference Championships: 2
Conference Tournament Championships: 0
NCAA Appearances: 6
Final 4 Appearances: 0
Kenpom Style of Play
() = National Ranking per Kenpom
Offense
Adj. Efficiency: 123.7 (10)
Avg. Poss. Length: 17.7 (189)
Defense
Adj. Efficiency: 97.9 (35)
Avg. Poss. Length: 17.3 (123)
Tempo
Adj. Tempo: 67.1 (184)
Kenpom 4 Factors
() = National Ranking per Kenpom
Offense
Effective FG %: 54.8 (49)
Turnover %: 14.6 (29)
Off. Reb. %: 28.4 (231)
FTA/FGA: 35.1 (121)
Defense
Effective FG %: 47.6 (53)
Turnover %: 15.2 (313)
Off. Reb. %: 26.9 (49)
FTA/FGA: 28.2 (69)
The extremely relevant miscellaneous components here involve the following reasons why I’m glad we’re at home:
Wisconsin is the best free throw shooting team in the country. Hitting 85 out of 100, dudes. That’s NBA stuff.
The Badgers have the fourth lowest steal percentage as an offense and that’s why I love Smith being an absolute annoyance on defense. He’d be my favorite PG to watch in the country even if he wasn’t playing for the team I like.
Our Boilermakers do sit at a projected 65% chance of victory. Our friend Ken Pomeroy the atmospheric scientist who also loves sports stats has the home team winning 77-73.