MADISON, Wis. — For 11 seasons under coach Bo Ryan, Wisconsin's men's basketball team has been built around the idea that no single player would lead the Badgers to great prominence. They have consistently played unselfish team basketball, and any player who did not subscribe to this theory could kindly exit stage left.
It is a model that has worked well for Ryan, of course. Wisconsin has qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each of the past 10 seasons with a fundamentally sound core of players that moved fluidly on the floor together like puppets on a string. Ryan doesn't coach any other way.
He maximizes his talent defensively to keep Wisconsin in ballgames and then hopes that, with enough patience, the Badgers will find an open man for an easy bucket.
In some respects, this season has been no different. The Badgers' defensive toughness is unquestioned. They still lead the nation in scoring defense, surrendering just 47.9 points per game.
The problem this season is that the majority of Ryan's players have never been asked to score at a consistent clip in college, and that challenge is proving difficult in Big Ten play. Obviously, you can't win games if you don't score. And right now, the Badgers simply aren't scoring enough points to contend.
The most glaring exhibit came Sunday, when Wisconsin was held to its lowest regular-season point total of the Ryan era in an embarrassing 59-41 loss against Michigan.
At this rate, Wisconsin could miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 14 years. The Badgers have uncharacteristically lost three straight games and are 12-5 overall and 1-3 in the Big Ten. They are tied for ninth in the conference and have fallen out of the top 25 for the first time in 19 weeks.
Perhaps, then, it's time to consider changing the everyone-is-equal philosophy. Because the way the Badgers have played recently, one man — point guard Jordan Taylor — might have to do everything just to give the team a fighting chance.
Taylor's credentials are indisputable. He is a preseason All-American, a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award for point guard of the year in college basketball. And the Badgers are on the verge of wasting his final season.
A year ago, Taylor starred playing alongside other veteran leaders in Keaton Nankivil, Jon Leuer and Tim Jarmusz. The pressure to perform never fell solely on his shoulders, and he averaged 18.1 points per game with a nation-leading 3.83 assists-to-turnover ratio
This season has been a different story.
With those three leaders gone to graduation, Taylor spent a good deal of his time trying to get other players involved in the early season, making them feel comfortable within the offense, acclimating them to the speed of big-time college basketball. As a result, his numbers dipped. He is averaging 13.6 points per game this season. He is tied for 46th in assists-to-turnover ratio at 2.6.
Still, he has been the only one showing himself as a reliable scoring threat in conference games. During the past two Big Ten games, the rest of the Badgers have been exposed for what they are: a group of guys playing over their heads against more athletic, better competition.
Taylor was 12 for 26 from the field (46.2 percent) and averaged 20.0 points in those two games. The rest of the team was 22 for 79 (27.8 percent). No other Wisconsin player besides Taylor scored more than nine points in either game, and it isn't surprising to see why.
Three of Wisconsin's top six players in the rotation this season averaged fewer than three points per game a season ago. Forward Ryan Evans played 11.6 minutes per game and averaged 2.8 points. Center Jared Berggren played 6.9 minutes and averaged 2.4 points. Sixth man Ben Brust, meanwhile, played 45 minutes and scored 10 points the entire season.
All three have performed as well as can be expected. Berggren is averaging 11.9 points, while Evans and Brust are at 9.9 points. But even with that success, they have never been the focal points offensively during the grind of a Big Ten season. In a loss against Michigan State, they combined to shoot eight for 34. In a loss against Michigan, they shot six for 18.
Taylor says he will continue to feed the ball to his teammates when they're open. But maybe he needs to become a more selfish player before it's too late.
"It's tough," Ryan said Monday. "Some people always say, 'Oh well, they just always reload.' That's so '80s and '90s terminology. It's difficult when people get to be in positions that they're not used to as far as roles."
Ryan had better figure out a way to get more scoring out of those roles. Otherwise, Taylor's senior season will have gone to waste, and Ryan will miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time in his 11-year career at Wisconsin.
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