Evizzerate said:
badger007 said:
I'll ask this in the most polite way possible, but is there a proper way to judge the quality of your program?
Jeff Sagarin has the Big Sky ranked 25th and the Big Ten ranked 1st.
Also, it is puzzling to see a 25-point loss to Oregon State and one point win over University of Great Falls. Were there any circumstances to those games other than it being early in the season?
Even Weber State seemed to have some trouble when going up against quality teams in their non-conference slate. They played St. Mary's, BYU and Cal (all tournament teams) and lost by a combined 65 points in those three games.
I'll take a shot: Has Wisconsin ever had a close game with one of the hyphenated UW+ Green Bay or Milw schools? I was at the University of GF game , behind our bench, and will say that this game is kind of the annual preseason scrimmage game we have every year. This year the entire team went into that game expecting the usual 40 point blowout and got shocked. The Griz ran into a really athletic fired up bunch , perhaps UGF's best team ever. Great Falls came in and they thought they were going to pull off an Appalachian State vs Michigan. They almost did.
The Griz team of the last 2 months, with the lineup and roles established is a different team and playing very well. I know our schedule sucks but the Long Beach State was a good win for us and we have improved steadily since then.
We absolutely have had close games against state schools like UW-GB and UW-Milwaukee. Hell, we even lost to UW-GB 88-84 (OT) in 2009! If I were to play devils advocate, though, UW-GB and UW-Milwaukee are both Division I programs that compete in the Horizon League, opposed to UGF. Milwaukee typically has had a very solid squad and have boasted two very good coaches recently (Bruce Pearl and Rob Jeter). They've had just one losing season since 2001-2002 and have several 20-win seasons in that span.
Regardless, I understand that was an early season game and teams are still finding their niche. Just found it a little puzzling, which is why I asked about the circumstances other than it being an early season game.