The Brewers have finalized some off-season acquisitions. Starting pitcher Randy Wolf passed a physical today to complete his contract with the Crew. Because Wolf was rated a Type A free agent, in order to sign him the Brewers would have had to give up a draft pick. Since the Dodgers declined to extend him arbitration, the Brewers will not have to surrender a compensatory draft pick (it would have been a second-rounder) to sign Wolf. Wolf is 101-85 with a 4.13 ERA over his 11 seasons in the Majors. His new contract with the Brewers is valued at a guaranteed $29.75 million, one of the richest contracts in Brewer history. Wolf should help to steady the rocky starting pitching from last year's team.
The Brewers also locked down infielder Craig Counsell for another year. The 39 year-old handyman played in 130 games last year for the Crew. It will be nice to have Counsell to add expereince to an extremely young infield consisting of players such as Alcides Escobar, Mat Gamel, Casey McGehee, and Rickie Weeks.
The Brewers have also signed experienced reliever LaTroy Hawkins, pending a physical.
#5 Duke came to Madison and was expected to easily handle the unranked Wisconsin Badgers. However, the Badgers came out strong and never trailed the entire game. Trevon Hughes led the way for the Badgers with a career high 26 points. John Leuer added 17 more, with Jason Bohannon scoring 10. The Badgers struggled to guard Duke star Kyle Singler, who scored his own career high of 28 points, but the overall effort of the Badgers was too much for Duke to overcome. "Their offense just beat our defense," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. Wisconsin also only turned the ball over five times the entire game, compared to Duke's eleven turnovers, which head coach Bo Ryan said was a huge key to the win. "That's five opportunities you didn't get a shot at the basket," Ryan said. "They had eleven opportunities that they didn't have to score. That might have been the difference in the game."
