Wisconsin Basketball: Badgers vs. Penn State – Pre-Game Analysis
By Josh Blakely
The Wisconsin basketball team will square off against Penn State Thursday night
Bucky travels to the Bryce Jordan Center for a matchup with Penn State, tonight at 7 p.m. (BTN). The theme for this game is harmony. Not only do my predictions closely align with Ken Pomeroy’s, but the Badgers’ stat predictions align quite closely with Penn State’s.
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Pomeroy has a 64-63 Badger victory, while my crystal ball shows either a 65-64 or 67-64 Nittany Lion win. If the Badgers score 64 on 63 possessions, you can hail us both as geniuses (at least until the next game).
As a fan, I’m partial to Pomeroy’s prediction, but as a participant in our crystal ball competition (one that he knows nothing about), I have to believe in my predictions.
You may ask why I have two different predictions for the final score and you would be asking a good question. One is based on applying the offensive and defensive control over the team points-per-possession along with home court advantage.
The component points are counting up the points from made field goals and free throws predicted for each team in the game. I think that the “Points” prediction would be more accurate, but it will be interesting to see.
With Penn State’s home court advantage, these two teams are very evenly matched, with only two categories showing an edge of 5 percent or more. The Badgers should get more steals and offensive rebounds, but the percentage edge in steals is skewed by the low number of predicted steals, overall, so the only significant advantage for either team is the Badgers’ edge in offensive rebounding. That said, Penn State’s small advantages in most of the other stats make up the difference, which leads to Penn State being favored.
In looking at the Penn State defense, their weakness is at the starting guard spots and power forward. That means Bronson Koenig is again in the spotlight. Zak Showalter is limited, offensively, so I don’t think he’ll be able to take advantage of this, but Koenig could have another big game in this one. At the same time, it will be interesting to see who Delvidas Zemgulis guards when he is in the game. If he is guarding Nigel Hayes, the Nittany Lions are in trouble.
As for the Badgers defense, it is quite clear that the team’s weakness is at point guard, where Koenig and Jordan Hill are below-average and clearly the worst on the team. If either of them ends up on Shep Garner, things could go sideways, fast, as he’s the best of a mediocre lot on offense for the Nittany Lions.
However, there is a path to mitigate this shortcoming. Zak Showalter is one of the better defenders on the team, so he should cover Garner. That would force Koenig and Hill to cover the taller Josh Reaves and Devin Foster, but it shouldn’t matter, as they are both pretty brutal offensively.
If you see Showalter on Garner, you know that Gard is seeing the same things I am and you will have another data point for his good stewardship of the team.
Next: Opinons on Greg Gard Through 7 Games
Stay tuned to badger of Honor for more on the Wisconsin basketball team.