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| Frames from the YouTube celebration video. |
The part I love most is right after coach Rob Jeter walks into the UW-Milwaukee locker room.
He presumably has just finished his postgame media responsibilities, presumably answered all those questions about how the Panthers just shocked the Horizon League by winning the regular-season title. Piece of cake, really. All it took was nine straight league wins and ignoring everyone who said it couldn’t be done.
So Jeter enters the locker room and there are his players. A few minutes earlier, they’d turned the place into a celebratory mosh pit. But now, they’re all lined up on benches like so many good school boys waiting for a Gene Hackman Hoosiers speech. The trap is set, and Jeter’s dribbling right into it.
They let the Horizon League Coach of the Year get a few words out, waiting… waiting… then can wait no longer. Suddenly, they spring another wild mosh pit on Jeter, who’s so shocked that you’re thankful he’s got a very strong heart.
You can watch the whole wild scene play out right here, and videos like this gem are why YouTube was created. It’s a priceless moment of pure joy, college basketball at its finest.
And man, is college basketball in Wisconsin looking pretty fine.
Pick a school, any school, and there’s a darn good chance you’ll be writing their name into an NCAA Tournament bracket.
UWM has its league title, which means it hosts the league tourney, which means it’s two home victories away from going dancing. The Panthers, incidentally, have a 7-2 home record vs. Horizon League teams.
Marquette’s season-long roller-coaster ride is at another peak, thanks to three straight wins, and may stay there for a while. Now that a pair of sophomores – point guard Junior Cadougan and center Chris Otule – are blossoming, Marquette’s season is following suit, and the Eagles are likely off the NCAA bubble.
And then there’s the Wisconsin Badgers, a team that once again has gone from barely being ranked before the season to owning a spot in the top 10, a journey that seems like an annual rite of passage. Few teams are so regularly underrated, yet so regularly deliver.
Yes, three programs with three fan bases who are happier than Charlie Sheen’s ex-publicist. And it’s easy to know who to thank.
It comes back to the coaches, because in college basketball, it always comes back to the coaches.
None of the skippers on these three ships are coaching fraternity superstars or high-profile guys, yet each man fits his school tighter than 80s NBA shorts.
Williams is the ball of concentrated energy, perpetually in motion and perpetually hoarse, an underdog coaching underdogs to fight the big boys of the Big East.
Ryan is the wise and wily veteran, a man with a system that’s been refined and proven through its years of success, the slow and steady battleship in the staid Big Ten.
Jeter is the patient leader, the quiet disciplinarian, the smiling ambassador who maximizes everything in an effort to put his under-the-radar program over the top.
Three men in three very different situations are experiencing some very real success. That it’s all coming together at the same time is something of a rare treat for basketball fans around the state.
NUTSHELLS
A Spring Thing
As I write this on Monday afternoon, a familiar voice has just come on the radio.
“From Maryvale Park in West Phoenix, Arizona, an absolutely gorgeous sunny afternoon for baseball. It’s the Brewers against the world champion San Francisco Giants. Hello again everyone, Bob Uecker along with Cory Provus and our illustrious engineer, Kent Sommerfeld, set to bring you baseball action today.”
Action that’s been absent from Milwaukee’s airwaves since September.
“We’re back,” Uecker continued. “Yep. Great to be back with ya.”
So there’s your promise, Wisconsin. The snow will melt. It has to because they’re playing baseball again. Bob Uecker told us, so it must be true.
Bad News Bucks
Whenever it seems like the Bucks’ season can’t get any more troublesome, it does just that.
A couple days after losing while the Bradley Center rung loud with MVP chants for Chicago’s Derek Rose, word has come that Andrew Bogut has another injury, this one to his left ribcage. The news comes on the heels of Ersan Ilyasova suffering a concussion, making him the third Bucks player to deal with the scary ailment this season, joining Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Carlos Delfino.
Hard to see how the Bucks could absorb two more injuries at this stage of the season. And suddenly, whatever faint hopes the Bucks had of making a playoff run may be fading into the mist.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I tweet as howiemag. And tune in every Tuesday morning at 6:30 when I join Doug Russell and Mike Wickett on SportsRadio 1250 AM for Tuesdays with Howie.
