How far will Wisconsin go? Zach Rastall: Round of 32 Wisconsin’s play in the Big Ten Tournament inspired renewed hope that they could make a little run in the NCAA Tournament, only to have that optimism promptly squashed into tiny bits by the selection committee.
March Madness is here, and the Daily Cardinal Sports Desk is bringing you endless coverage of the NCAA Tournament. We've got predictions, breakdowns, previews and more. Anything you could ever hope for from a tournament preview package is all inside.
Happ goes off at the Garden: Under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden, redshirt sophomore Ethan Happ walked onto one of the most hallowed floors in all of basketball and took center stage, delivering his best performance of the season. In Wisconsin’s 61-54 overtime victory over Rutgers, Happ carried the load on both ends, torching the Scarlet Knights for a career-high 32 points while also anchoring the defense with two blocks. On a night when scoring woes nearly cost Wisconsin the game, it was up to Happ to keep his team alive.
While the UW sixth-man carousel continues to spin, freshman guard D’Mitrik Trice remains the lone constant.
WASHINGTON — D’Mitrik Trice didn’t sleep much before Wisconsin’s Big Ten Tournament game against Indiana Friday night. And when the freshman got off the bus and entered the Verizon Center Friday night, he said he felt a “different feeling” than he does before most games. But any nerves that Trice had quickly subsided, as the young guard flourished in his 31 minutes of play. But Trice was far from the only productive Badger on the night, as five different Badgers scored in double figures in No. 24 Wisconsin’s (12-6 Big Ten, 24-8 overall) 70-60 victory over the Hoosiers (7-11, 18-15).
In this week's episode, host Bobby Ehrlich chats with women's hockey beat writer Cameron Lane-Flehinger, who breaks down the NCAA Tournament bracket and Wisconsin's chances of winning it all.
A year ago, the Badgers strode into the Big Ten Tournament one of the hottest teams in the conference, having won 11-of-13 games and locking up a 15th-straight Top 4 finish.
In the spring semester of his sophomore year, Matt Ferris found himself enrolled in Calculus 213 with his high-profile teammate, Nigel Hayes. Hayes was a serious contributor on a team that came within a few minutes of a national championship, while Ferris scored a total of two points in 17 minutes over the course of the season.
“I feel like we can run the table, I really do,” said Nigel Hayes, maybe. Well perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch, but Badgers fans, coaches and players alike all had to let out a huge collective sigh of relief after Wisconsin’s convincing 66-49 win over Minnesota Sunday. The victory snapped a three-game skid for UW and a brutal stretch of basketball where it had lost five of six.
In the week leading up to his team’s final game of the regular season, Bronson Koenig made one thing clear: He wants to be remembered as a winner. After playing just five minutes in the first half thanks to two early fouls, the senior guard reiterated his sentiments on the court, burying five second-half threes en route to a blowout of Minnesota (11-7 Big Ten, 23-8 overall). Koenig led the way as the No. 22 Badgers (12-6, 23-8) ran away with a victory on senior night, 66-49. UW trailed by two points at the break, as they shot just 38.7 percent from the floor and missed four of their five free throws.
With the blink of an eye, the No. 22 Wisconsin Badgers (11-6 Big Ten, 22-8 overall) saw their victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes (9-8, 17-13) vanish. After two missed free throws by redshirt sophomore Ethan Happ with 29 seconds to go, Iowa received a timely basket by a familiar Kohl Center face. Hawkeye freshman guard Jordan Bohannon, the younger brother of former Badgers Zach and Jason Bohannon, knocked down the game-winning 3-pointer with just nine seconds left.
The No. 11 seed Badgers opened up Big Ten Tournament play against the No. 14 seed Rutgers, and the two were tied 6-6 with 3:16 left in the first quarter. The game was never tied again, as the Badgers (3-13 Big Ten, 9-21 overall) went on to the win the first quarter 14-6, the first half 27-13, and ultimately the game 61-55 against the Scarlet Knights (3-12, 6-24). “We've talked a lot as a team since the game ended at Iowa on Sunday night about doing something that nobody in the program currently had done: win a first round game,” head coach Jonathan Tsipis told UWBadgers.com. Redshirt senior forward Avyanna Young led her young squad with 20 points, and also added four rebounds and three assists. While Young did pour in almost a third of her team’s points, Rutgers’ Shrita Parker did her best to keep her team afloat with 24 points in the game.
For years, in the driveway outside of Zak Showalter’s house in Germantown, Wis., the Badger guard played basketball with a clear disadvantage.
It had been 13 years since the Badgers bested Michigan State at the Breslin Center. Finally, with a Spartan team struggling to win games and without their senior leader Eron Harris, UW had a shot to break a nine-game road losing streak to MSU. But Sunday afternoon, Harris was on the floor and the No. 16 Badgers (11-5 Big Ten, 22-7 overall) dropped their tenth straight game in East Lansing, Mich., to an explosive Spartans team (10-6, 18-11). Though Harris played just eight seconds as he rested with season-ending knee surgery, there was a different energy in the building for his senior night.
The No. 16 Wisconsin Badgers (11-4 Big Ten, 22-6 overall) thought they had solved a number of problems and righted their ship after last Sunday’s 71-60 win over Maryland.
The No. 16 Wisconsin Badgers (11-4 Big Ten, 22-6 overall) have made losing to unranked opponents a habit in the last two weeks.
At least for the moment, Wisconsin has righted the ship and is back on course toward at least a share of the Big Ten title. Thanks to an emphatic 11-point win over Maryland Sunday afternoon, the Badgers sit tied with Purdue atop the conference standings with only four games left in the regular season.
The Badgers sorely missed Bronson Koenig against Michigan Thursday as they watched 3-pointer after 3-pointer clang off the rim in their second-straight conference loss.
After scoring fewer than 60 points in back-to-back losses, the first half of the No. 11 Badgers’ (11-3 Big Ten, 22-5 overall) matchup with No. 23 Maryland (10-4, 22-5) looked like more of the same.
In the annual “Think Pink” game, Wisconsin took the court covered in pink from headbands to shoelaces.
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Solutions by The State News
