Wisconsin Badgers' Lack Of Experience Exposed

The Wisconsin Badgers‘ lack of experience was exposed in their appearance at the Las Vegas Invite this past week.

They started the tournament with an 84-74 loss to No. 14 ranked Creighton, giving up 30 points to the All-American Doug McDermott.  The game was a series of ties and lead changes, but the Badgers could not stop the Blue Jays down the stretch.

The Badgers finally have a consistent inside and outside scoring threat, but they need to find a way to get defensive stops.  In the past, they are able to control the tempo of the game with their strong defensive efforts, but that is not the case with the team this year.

The Badgers defeated the Arkansas Razorbacks 77-70 in the second game of the invite, but once again many of the Badgers weaknesses were exposed.  Bo Ryan and his team fought back from an 11-point deficit and had five players score in double figures.

Sam Dekker has continued to show offensive confidence and scored 19 points in the victory yesterday.  Dekker will be one of the main offensive threats for the Badgers this season and will need to continue to score for them to be successful.

Defensively, the Badgers struggled once again.  They didn’t stop dribble penetration very well and couldn’t keep them out of the lane.  The Badgers are not going to be able to rely on outscoring teams and need to tremendously improve on the defensive end.

Bo Ryan must get his team to commit to his usual defensive principles before entering the Big Ten conference season.  This will allow them to control the tempo of the game instead of trying to outscore more athletic teams.