The season had been over for less than 30 minutes last March when Marcus Landry looked around the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team's locker room and predicted the Badgers would be stronger when they started practice again in the fall.

"Sometimes you have to go through certain things to know if you can come out of them or not," Landry said. "These younger guys who will still be around, having gone through this, they know they can come out of it."

Landry was referring to the team's recovery from a six-game losing streak that allowed the Badgers to finish with a 20-13 overall record, 10-6 mark in the Big Ten Conference and reach the NCAA tournament for the 11th straight season.

It was a journey that also taught the team that Landry and fellow senior Joe Krabbenhoft were indispensable warriors and every returning player needed to get stronger physically and mentally if they wanted to enjoy success this season.

As the Badgers prepare for their first practice Friday at the Kohl Center's Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion, it appears they are stronger physically. But that's just the first step in the development of a team that needs every player to improve their game if it hopes to compete in a talented conference where every team is expected to be stronger, too.

Other obstacles include playing four of their first six Big Ten games on the road. The Badgers will prepare for that with a difficult preseason schedule that includes three games at the Maui Invitational and a Kohl Center date against Duke a few days after they get home from Hawaii.

"Now you obviously find out how far you can take your talents," said UW coach Bo Ryan after he watched the Badgers run the Elver Park hill better as a group than any of his previous teams. "Each player will get a chance to do that and how you get those talents to work as part of the team."

Since the Badgers' 60-49 loss to Xavier in a second-round NCAA tournament game, the coaches have emphasized finishing stronger around the basket in spring and fall workouts. That was expected after a season where point-blank misses and reverse layups cost them games.

Also, power forwards like 6-8, 240-pound junior Keaton Nankivil, 6-10, 230-pound junior Jon Leuer and 6-10, 240-pound redshirt freshman Jared Berggren have worked toward staying strong for an entire season so they can handle the hard work inside that Landry and Krabbenhoft did so well for four seasons.

Nankivil and Leuer, in particular, want to avoid last year's weight drop-off that saw them finish the season weighing around 210 pounds.

The guard rotation should be deeper because sophomores Rob Wilson and Jordan Taylor have added experience and strength to back up senior co-captains and leading returning scorers Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon. And junior swingman Tim Jarmusz will continue to work with the guards and forwards.

While the players may have changed physically, what they can count on during Friday's practice is that Ryan hasn't changed one iota as a coach. His devotion to his system and ability to shape it around his players are big reasons why the Badgers have never finished lower than fourth in his eight years as the UW coach.

"Not every year are you going to have the same type of athlete, the same type of size, the same type of speed; there's always a difference," Ryan said. "It's how those differences come together that make or break a team."

As expected, Ryan said he hasn't paid attention to any of the preseason predictions that have ignored the Badgers as Big Ten title contenders. That seems to happen every year.

If anything, it keeps the Badgers focused on what's important. That's what Landry was talking about in the locker room last March. It's why the Badgers recovered from a six-game losing streak last season and hope to prove the prognosticators wrong again this season.

"I didn't do anything different. It just showed the character of the group," Ryan said. "Every person in the program stayed true to what we stand for; and what are you going to do next and go from here and just stay in it. That's what our guys did last year and what we are hoping for every year."

Login to post your comment. If you don't have an account, you may register for one.