Saturday, Oct. 27 may have felt like the end of the world to the Badger faithful. At virtually the same moment (5:26 p.m.), UW lost its lead on Michigan State and lost junior guard Josh Gasser to an ACL tear.
As if to pour acid on the wound, the Badgers found out just hours later that they had lost their starting quarterback for the season as well.
End-of-the-world scenario, right?
Wrong.
First let’s address what happened at Camp Randall. Sure, losing to Michigan State on the last play of the game (again) is tough to swallow. Having that loss snap a 21-game home win streak that dated back to 2009 made it that much worse.
But at the end of the day, Wisconsin is still one road win away from clinching a spot in the Big Ten championship game. A win this weekend against Indiana and the Badgers can book their tickets to Indianapolis for the first weekend in December. That was going to be the case no matter what happened against the Spartans.
Once the sanctions against two of UW’s Leaders Division foes were announced this summer, the Badgers knew that the road to Indianapolis lie simply in victories against Illinois, Purdue and Indiana. The first two stops having been successfully completed, Wisconsin is still right where it needs to be heading down the home stretch.
Should the Badgers have won at least one or two of the three games they’ve lost (by three points each) this year? Absolutely. But even if they had, they would still be in the position they are in right now. Nothing was lost in overtime on Saturday.
In fact, it might serve as a focusing mechanism if anything. No longer can Wisconsin even dream of a decent bowl bid without the Big Ten title. In a manner that is clearer than ever before, it is “Rose Bowl or bust.”
Thankfully for the Badgers, they had a bye week after MSU. With the pivotal game against Indiana on the horizon, that off week was crucial for UW to get healthy and get ready to continue its quest to get back to Pasadena for a third straight year.
“I think the options we had before today are still there,” UW head coach Bret Bielema noted. “We can’t lose anybody that doesn’t want to believe in finishing this thing out the right way.”
The same mantra holds true for the Gasser injury.
Sure, the Badgers lose arguably their most consistent presence on the floor, the only player on the roster to have started for an extended stretch in each of the last two seasons. But at the same time, redshirt freshman guard George Marshall is more than capable of plugging that gap.
Marshall is a completely different player than Gasser and is sure to have his fair share of growing pains as he adjusts to life in the Big Ten. But he is also capable of giving the Badgers a level of explosiveness at the point guard position that is simply not in Gasser’s game.
Where the injury will hurt this season is in the depth department. UW will now be left with at least two new starters and just one player (sophomore forward Frank Kaminsky) with meaningful game experience available off the bench.
That experience is non-existent in the backcourt, as sophomore guard Traevon Jackson will likely be thrust into the backup role having had just 92 minutes of playing time at the college level.
But while depth could be an issue, the easy remedy to that lies in a surprise player, perhaps the emergence of freshman guard Zac Showalter or a significant contribution from junior forward Duje Dukan. Thanks in large part to the versatility of freshman forward Sam Dekker, the Badgers can fill the void left by Gasser’s injury as much with the “bigs” as with the guards, perhaps moving Dekker into the two-guard spot to give UW a small, athletic starting five.
Beyond this season, the Gasser injury could (assuming a full recovery) become a small blessing in disguise. With another guard set to join the team next year (Bronson Koenig), UW can now build a bit of the depth in the backcourt that has been sorely lacking in recent years. One look at Jordan Taylor’s minutes last season and it’s obvious that Wisconsin hasn’t had a viable guard option off the bench in quite some time.
Gasser going down obviously sends Wisconsin outside the ranks of the top 25 at this point. With Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State all bringing back rosters more than deserving of their top-15 rankings, it figures to be a monumental task for head coach Bo Ryan to get his Badgers into the top four in the Big Ten, something he has done all 12 years that he has been at the helm in Madison.
But if there is a coach out there capable of turning this UW team into a contender when March rolls around, it is Bo Ryan. Left without the plentiful stock of recruits given to many of his counterparts, Ryan is a master at getting the most out of his limited resources.
Now faced with losing his starting point guard on the eve of the season, Ryan faces his toughest task yet as the Badger head coach. Is it a tough task? Sure. But by no means is it a task the school’s all-time winningest coach isn’t able to handle.
Do you think Wisconsin will make it back to Indianapolis? How will the basketball team fare without Gasser? Let Max know at sports@dailycardinal.com.
