'Sconnie Six Pack 11/30
Which assistant coaches is Luke Fickell bringing to Wisconsin? Will Jim Leonhard stay?
Table of contents:
Wisconsin basketball falls to Wake Forest as Badgers’ defense falters
Packers swap safeties amid injury concerns to Darnell Savage
Seven Badgers receive all-conference defensive team honors with one notable snub
Brewers free agent relief pitcher signs with Seattle Mariners
Milwaukee Bucks travel to play New York Knicks
The Milwaukee Bucks (14-5) play in New York after a day off against the Knicks (10-11). You can watch tonight’s matchup at 6:30PM CST on Bally Sports Wisconsin.
Milwaukee will be without its most recent first-round draft pick, MarJon Beauchamp, who has been ruled-out with a non-COVID illness. Serge Ibaka, who has missed the Bucks’ last two games with illness, has been ruled out for tonight’s game as well. Joe Ingles and Khris Middleton remain sidelined with injury; each have yet to make their season debut. Middleton has been practicing regularly both with Milwaukee and its G-League affiliate team the Wisconsin Herd. When asked this week about a timeline for Middleton’s return, head coach Mike Budenholzer emphasized that the path to getting in game-shape is difficult particularly since Middleton did not have a training camp due to his injury.
Milwaukee has the oldest roster in the NBA and New York has the eighth-youngest. New York is led by point guard Jalen Brunson and power forward Julius Randle. Brunson leads the Knicks in points (21.8) and assists (6.7) per game. Randle is second on the Knicks in points (20.6) and leads the Knicks in rebounds (8.7) per game.
The Bucks biggest edge in this matchup is three-point shooting. Milwaukee makes the seventh most three-pointers per game while holding its opponents to the tenth-fewest three-pointers per game in the NBA. Conversely, New York makes the seventh-fewest three-pointers per game and is the NBA’s worst three-point shooting team. New York allows teams to make the second-most three-pointers per game.
Wisconsin basketball falls to Wake Forest as Badgers’ defense falters
Wisconsin (5-2) got complete offensive performances from its three key starters for the first time all season, but it was not enough to defeat the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (7-1). Wake was led by senior guard Tyree Appelby’s stellar individual performance - recording 32 points while playing all 40 minutes. Wisconsin fell to Wake Forest by a score of 78-75.
Steven Crowl, Tyler Wahl, and Chucky Hepburn recorded 15, 17, and 23 points respectively on the night. Crowl’s performance was by far his best on the year as he added seven rebounds and hit two of his three three-point attempts. Hepburn hit six three-pointers, his career high, while contributing on the defensive end with three steals. Freshman phenom Connor Essegian had 12 - all in the second-half - of Wisconsin’s 15 bench points, but he and Wahl sat on the bench for large chunks of the first-half with two first half fouls each.
Despite the well-rounded offensive performance, it was the failures of the Badgers’ defense that led to their first home loss of the season. Appelby’s offensive performance was complemented by Wake Forest shooting 53.7% from the field as a team - a mark over 16% better than what Wisconsin allowed as a team coming into the night. Wake Forest also made eight three-pointers; Wisconsin had been allowing just 4.8 attempts from three-point range per game.
Wisconsin next plays a nonconference matchup in Milwaukee on Saturday against Marquette. Marquette defeated #6 Baylor tonight by a score of 96-70.
Packers swap safeties amid injury concerns to Darnell Savage
The Packers announced three roster changes today, including two moves at the safety position. The moves at safety come following an injury suffered by S Darnell Savage on Green Bay’s first defensive-snap of the game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Green Bay released S Johnathan Abram and signed S Innis Gaines to the active 53-man roster yesterday. Gaines signed to the active roster from the Packers’ practice squad where he has had stints this season and last. Gaines has been elevated to the gameday roster twice this year including last week’s game against the Eagles. Green Bay has five safeties on the active roster, but Savage is treating a sprained foot. The severity of his injury will become slightly more clear based on his ability to practice today.
The Packers also signed tight end Nick Guggemos to the practice squad.
Seven Badgers receive all-conference defensive team honors with one notable snub
The Big Ten announced its defensive and special teams awards for the 2022 football season yesterday. Five Wisconsin Badgers received honors, but much of the response from Wisconsin football fans was about one Badger being underrated.
Wisconsin’s all-defensive selections included:
Linebacker Nick Herbig was a consensus-pick (coaches and media) to the Big Ten’s first-team all-defensive team
Safety John Torchio was a first-team selection by the media (second-team coaches)
Linebacker Maema Njongmeta was a third-team selection by the media (honorable mention coaches)
Nose tackle Keeanu Benton was a third-team selection by Big Ten coaches (honorable mention media)
Linebackers CJ Goetz and Jordan Turner were honorable mention selections by the media.
Notably, Benton was only a third-team selection (and only an honorable mention by members of the media). Benton is a sure-fire selection for the upcoming NFL draft and was a key piece of the Badgers’ defensive front this year. Beyond his impressive statistics, he was a disruptive force in the backfield in a way that could not simply be quantified.
Wisconsin running back Isaac Guerendo was a consensus-pick as an honorable mention as an all-conference special teams player.
All-conference awards for the Big Ten for offensive players will be announced later today.
Brewers free agent relief pitcher signs with Seattle Mariners
The first Milwaukee Brewers player to hit free agency this off-season signed with the Seattle Mariners on Monday. Relief pitcher Trevor Gott agreed to a one-year deal with the Mariners. Financial details of the contract are not known at this time.
Milwaukee gave Gott a one-year contract last off-season as a free agent. He pitched 45.2 innings with a 4.14 ERA for the Brewers in 2022.
Gott is one of numerous pitchers from last season that the Brewers may be without in 2023. Brent Suter was waived and claimed by the Colorado Rockies earlier this month. Brad Boxberger had his team option declined allowing him to hit free agency. Luis Perdomo and Jandel Gustave were not tendered contract offers at the deadline and became free agents.
Topping-off the six pack: which assistant coaches is Luke Fickell bringing to Wisconsin - will Jim Leonhard stay?
Per reader request, we’re topping-off the six pack with a brief synopsis of the rumors and reporting surrounding what staff changes might be in store for the Wisconsin football team beyond its head coach position. In college football, head coaches get nearly free-reign over which assistants they have on staff. Anyone who was an assistant under Paul Chryst at Wisconsin is not necessarily staying at Wisconsin even if they have more years under contract. Fickell, with many years spent coaching with his assistants, is likely going to bring in lots of guys he has worked with before.
Roughly four hours before Fickell’s introductory press conference, a handful of football coaching jobs were posted on the University of Wisconsin’s job board. That includes openings for a director and assistant of strength and conditioning, an offensive and defensive coordinator, and assistant coaches. These postings do not necessarily mean that coaches who currently have these positions at Wisconsin will not be retained, such as defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, but they will have to apply for the position under Fickell.
So who is coming with Fickell to Wisconsin? Reports have started to come in quickly on who is potentially coming and Fickell has confirmed a couple as well. During Fickell’s introductory press conference, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that Brady Collins - Cincinnati’s strength and conditioning director - would be joining Fickell in Madison. Collins is Fickell’s right-hand man and Fickell gives Collins a lot of credit for Cincinnati’s incredible reputation of player development. Collins will be replacing current Wisconsin Director of Football Strength and Conditioning Shaun Snee.
The next shoe to drop during Fickell’s introductory press conference, this time by Fickell himself, was that he was bringing his two recruiting staffers from Cincinnati to Wisconsin. Pat Lambert, Director of Recruiting at Cincinnati and Max Stienecker, Director of Recruiting Strategy, are considered among the best recruiting staffers in the country. Experienced recruiting staffers like Lambert and Stienecker taking over the department should be a welcome change for Badgers fans. They will take over the department from Mickey Turner who Chryst tapped to lead the department earlier this year despite no prior experience within the recruiting department itself. Turner had previously coached tight ends for seven seasons under Chryst.
Mike Brown, wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator at Cincinnati, is expected to follow Fickell to Wisconsin. Brown joined Fickell’s staff in 2019 and would be a candidate to replace current Wisconsin offensive coordinator Bobby Engram.
Mike Tressel, nephew of former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, and Colin Hitschler will Fickell from Cincinnati to Wisconsin as well per The Athletic. Tressel, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, coached for 17 seasons under Mark Dantonio at Cincinnati and Michigan State. He returned to Cincinnati under Fickell in 2021. Hitschler has been with Fickell at Cincinnati since 2018 and just finished his first season as co-defensive coordinator.
Where does that leave Wisconsin’s interim head coach - will Jim Leonhard stay with the Badgers? One of the risks athletic director Chris McIntosh took when hiring Fickell is losing Leonhard - one of the great defensive minds in football who bleeds cardinal and white. After openly campaigning to get Wisconsin’s head coach position, after reportedly declining the defensive coordinator position with the Green Bay Packers in 2021, and after staying at Wisconsin despite countless rumors of interest from other college teams, it is hard to imagine Leonhard staying on staff at Wisconsin.
Fickell comes from playing and coaching defense. He is bringing his top two defensive coaches with him to Wisconsin. Would that leave Leonhard as the potential fourth defensive coordinator in the room with the Badgers? When Leonhard is currently making $1.5 million a season as defensive coordinator, it would seem difficult to afford him along with Fickell’s other staff (unless McIntosh is giving Fickell a huge sum of money to pay assistant coaches).
Edited to add (11/30/2022 12:26PM CST): Fickell said at his introductory press conference that he had met with Leonhard for about an hour. Fickell added that he would be open to keeping Leonhard on staff if the two of them could agree on a suitable role. According to Fickell, the two are meeting again sometime today (Wednesday, November 30th).
I know this ran a bit long, but giving readers a synopsis of all that has been reported in one place seemed like a valuable exercise. If you liked this, let me know! If you didn’t like this, let me know! As I mentioned, this final piece came from a reader suggestion, so if you have something you want to see covered in a future newsletter, let me know and I will find time to cover it.
On, Wisconsin.
It's Guggemos season, baby!