Yes, but Bo had a history of developing the players on his roster. Now, perhaps these players are somehow different than other players in previous classes, or perhaps Bo's teaching and development was the difference between other players being disappointing or being solid.
That's my point. Wisconsin has never been the school that brings in multiple high 4* / 5* recruits every year. They rarely have had "instant impact freshmen" that can come in and take over. They've made their living based upon identifying players that will fit their system and developing them over time. Now Bo isn't there to develop them. Perhaps Gard can be as effective as Bo in developing players. Perhaps he can't.
Or it could be that the type of players/system Bo ran is actually different than what Gard is now trying to do, and maybe just the players are a mismatch or haven't bought in as they were Bo's recruits.
SO, I have a lot of thoughts.
To answer your first graph, I think it was fair to say, the current crop of juniors (the really disappointing ones) were quite bad as freshmen. Like they showed less than most UW players who grew into real contributors. Granted, they've also not grown into even reliable 8th-man types, which is irritating.
To the second graph, I also think Bo's developmental skills were a hint overstated, but more on that later.
They system is by-and-large the same, but Gard has a longer leash, which manifests itself in interesting ways.
Here are my thoughts on why this start isn't tearing my up too much.
1. This isn't the worst start UW's had in the past three years. The Bo-to-Gard year was a HOT mess. Lost to Western Illinois and a not-great Georgetown team, and eventually UWM.
2. With that in mind, I'm not too stressed because UW's worst loss is ... ? UCLA? That seems kinda OK. They were tied with seconds to go. Vs. Xavier they were tied at the last TV timeout. Vs. Baylor down 2 with 2:20 left. At Virginia is gonna be a hard one.
3. Now the team is still pretty incoherent, and that's not ideal, but your top seven players are Happ (very good), a sophomore at top guard, a sophomore who hardly played last year, three freshmen and Khalil Iverson, who makes me want to put my fist through a window, I assume some gelling could happen. There's fight, and that's a start.
4. If UW can't beat OSU and starts taking Ls vs. PSU, Temple and Marquette, Ima get more worried. This team overscheduled for what it was.
5. Part of that is the recruiting imbalance at the end of Bo's tenure. One thing that helped UW was it tended to only lose 2-3 contributors a year from 2006-07 until 2012-13. The first UW Final Four team was veteran despite only having one senior, but at this point, UW has six scholarship juniors, two sophomores and four freshmen (which will likely bump to five when a reshirting walk-on transfer likely gets one). UW has gone several recent years down a scholarship player or two and it'll likely take a few cycles to clean up, especially given the top guy in the next class flipped to Kentucky.
On the other hand, life will be different without Bo, and here are a few reasons.
1. Bo's teams were crazy good at not turning the ball over. He'd bench talented scorers for doing it. He'd leave in docile, risk-averse guys. And it meant his offenses had a certain floor. You get that unless your shooting is just trash, and he got a lot of guards good at the end of the clock.
2. More of Bo's good players were solid to good as freshmen, they just got more minutes and responsibilities. Like you knew freshman Jordan Taylor would be something, and early in his sophomore year, you knew he's REALLY be something. Even Frank Kaminsky, the patron saint of development was a solidly efficent role player early on.
3. Bo could set a damn rotation. It sometimes befuddled fans, but looking back, he had a great sense of who should be in when. Gard has a looser rein there. Which is sometimes nice, but means more guys got out looking like they don't have a damn clue (this current roster isn't helping)
4. I don't think the top-4 thing continues for much longer, and I think this team loses it unless everything comes together as well as we can hope. But I think Gard's badgers will look much like Bo's. Maybe less sickeningly consistent. Maybe with a little more energy. Who knows. You're guy Painter rediscovered his recruiting mojo, and that looked like a longshot a few years ago, so maybe Greg hits some Bo marks while keeping things going. (I know Hammons getting it was one thing for Purdue, but did the 2014 class seem as solid as it ended up being? 2015 seemed like a tire fire until Biggie landed in it)
