Futility and Rutgers basketball have been like Siamese twins, tied together by the hip for the past 15 years.
The Big Ten season is finally at the doorstep, and everyone is chomping at the bit to get things underway.
Final exams might have taken up much of the No. 14 Wisconsin Badgers’ (11-2) time over the past week, but Friday night, in UW’s final tune-up before Big Ten conference play, the Badgers passed any possible test, breezing by Florida A&M (2-11), 90-37. After UW’s victory over Green Bay last Wednesday, the Badgers had the weekend off to prepare for finals.
Before dipping into Big Ten play for what should be an eventful conference season, the No. 14 Wisconsin Badgers (10-2) host Florida A&M (2-10) Friday night in a matchup that could get ugly. The Rattlers have just two wins on the season and haven’t won a single game against a Division I opponent thus far.
The Badgers came into Green Bay with wins against Butler (3-7), Tennessee State (3-5), Illinois State (3-6) and Mississippi Valley State (3-5), while UWGB had gone 8-1 up to that night, with the one loss coming at the hands of the No. 2 team in the country, Notre Dame.
Ethan Happ spent the entirety of his summer working to improve his jump shot. But it wasn’t until a zero-degree day, with snow lining the Madison sidewalks, that the sophomore forward showed off his work. “It gave me a little bit of a chill feeling,” Happ said of the first basket he’s made outside of the paint while at UW. Happ’s jumper, with just over nine minutes to play in the first half, came in the midst of No. 14 Wisconsin’s (10-2) best offensive stretch of the night.
Back in November, Ohio State came into Madison and surprised many by playing toe-to-toe with Wisconsin.
By several different measures, this was arguably the greatest semester in Wisconsin athletic history. The football team went from unranked all the way up to No. 8 in the country, providing plenty of heart-stopping moments along the way and coming up just shy of a Big Ten title and a College Football Playoff berth. The volleyball team earned its first ever No. 1 ranking before falling in heart-breaking fashion in the Elite Eight.
This weekend, for the first time in its history, Wisconsin won its Big Ten opener. The league has only been around for four years, but the win is still an impressive milestone for a program that has floundered in the conference the past two years.
In what was arguably Wisconsin’s (4-8) most well-played game of the season, the Badgers could not pull off the upset Sunday and knock off in-state rival Marquette.
As the Badgers trotted off the court and into the locker room at the end of the second set of the regional final match Saturday night, the fans who filled the seats in the Field House roared with excitement, feeling the dream of a Final Four berth slowing becoming a reality. Three sets later, the raucous atmosphere inside the Field House had been replaced with sobering silence, as the thousands of fans who once seemed so confident in their team struggled to come to grips with what they just witnessed.
After less than two minutes of action in No. 17 Wisconsin’s (9-2) victory over Marquette (7-3) Saturday afternoon, sophomore forward Ethan Happ picked up his second foul in as many minutes.
Two teams extremely familiar with each other fought until the very end in a Sweet 16 match for the ages that had one team screaming for joy after a comeback. The No. 3 Wisconsin Badgers (17-3 Big Ten, 28-4 overall) took on Ohio State (10-10, 22-12) for the third time this season, in a match that was very different from the first two meetings.
In this week's podcast, host Bobby Ehrlich gives his weekly weather report and then talks men's basketball with Ben Pickman and women's hockey with Cameron Lane-Flehinger.
For the last three games, the Badgers’ level of competition has steadily declined.
In the Big Ten Championship semifinal, junior forward Christopher Mueller stepped up big time giving his team a chance to advance to the championship game.
Head coach Jonathan Tsipis and his Badger squad lost last Tuesday night in a game in which it seemed neither team wanted to win.
Penn State Come early April, Penn State fans may be calling Happy Valley, Hockey Valley. The Nittany Lions are unbeaten in their last 13 games and have only suffered one loss in their 15 games on the ice this season. Penn State’s success is, in large part, due to sophomore forward Andrew Sturtz.
After the Badgers’ loss to Omaha, head coach Tony Granato said he thought freshman goalie Jack Berry played a great game. Sophomore Luke Kunin echoed his coach's comments, saying, “He battled hard for us tonight. He was our best player.”
After putting together one of the most successful regular seasons in program history, the 2016 Wisconsin Badgers is a team well-versed in the art of record-breaking. While this group of Wisconsin players is hailed for achievements like earning the highest postseason seed ever, the Wisconsin fanbase has made some history in its own right, shattering the average attendance for home matches this year. But now, much like he does with his own team, head coach Kelly Sheffield is trying to give Badgers’ fans some extra motivation to make the proverbial postseason push. During his weekly press conference Monday afternoon, Sheffield made the announcement that he and his wife would donate up to 1,000 tickets to Wisconsin students for the upcoming regional final match against Ohio State at the Field House.
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