Badgers to final four

Agreed. Very cool stuff.

 

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All it does is validate what Ryan has always been. He's always been a superb basketball coach, and he now finally has the talent to compete at the highest level. Very satisfying to finally have this team in the Final Four. And they lose one key player from this team- the rest will be back for another season. Awesome...

better hope they get that home cooking appleton ref crew they had in the last game.

 

Zona got leg humped in basically a home game.

BS

 

 

I am positive that you forgot to include that emoticon, IC.

 

If not, then what game were you watching?

 

Wow UConn.  Sparty completely lost confidence in the second half.

ding dong the Witch is dead (Michigan State).

 

I am glad.  Should UW advance to the finals, I just did not want to see the Spartans.

 

UConn sure looks tough though.  Then again, I guess all the teams do though I think Michigan would be the easiest out.

Its been a GLORIOUS weekend ....

 

 

Yeah, go home, Izzo.

IMO, there are no easy outs left ... but the caveat imo is the fact that Michigan is a known for our staff scouting.

Kentucky is young, dum and full of ?, go with the known.

jmo.

Anybody else feel the officiating was terrible in this game as well.  Okay maybe not terrible but inconsistent.  Ticky tack one minute and then you had to really get hammered the next? 

Seemed like 'Zona was getting most of the calls in the 1st half which led to Bo's technical.  It woke the refs up tho as things were more even in the 2nd. Not sure about the charge call at the end, but the Arizona guy did lower his shoulder. Not sure the evidence was there to over turn the out of bounds call, maybe that was a make up for the charge.

Iowa kind of made the tournament- lost in the round of 68. They should have Final 68 hats and shirts for those poor guys.

Well its Kentucky.  Couldn't find two more different programs.

 

Aside from hating Calipari, not really that impressed aside from the obvious physical talent.  Their offense is basically clearing it out for someone to go one on one, then crash the boards.  I think Badgers' methodical offense will drive UK crazy.  Love the idea of Bo and Gard having a week to come up with schemes.

quote:

Kentucky is young, dum and full of ?, go with the known.
jmo.

"Between two evils, I pick the one I've never tried before." -- Mae West

The one thing about Kentucky- and it's like this for all the schools that get the one and done players, is that a disciplined team can frustrate them and get them out if their game. Gordon was frustrated all night. Randle will be too. The Badgers can't come out jittery like they did last night- so if they come out confident and poised, they can bury Kentucky like they did Baylor.

Kentucky is favored by 2. If I was a betting man..... So bucky has third best odds to win it.....still the underdog. i find that comforting at some level.

 

One of my friend wanted me to put my $ where my mouth was and put $200 on Wisconsin to win it all when they were 50:1. I don't think it would be nearly as fun For me until they win it I guess.

I think Michigan State or Kentucky would have been the two worst matchups for Wisconsin of the Final 8 teams. Kentucky has 7 guys that averaged more than 10 minutes a game.

 

Cauley-Stein 7'0"

Johnson 7'0"

Randall 6'9"

Poythress 6'8"

Harrison 6'6"

Harrison 6'6"

Young 6'6"

 

Their 8th guy is Lee who is also 6'9"

 

The Badgers really go 7 deep plus a small amount of minutes from Dujan.

 

Kaminsky 7'0"

Dekker 6'7"

Gasser 6'3"

Jackson 6'2"

Brust 6'1"

Koenig 6'3"

Hayes 6'7"

 

Dujan 6'9"

 

The Badgers usually don't get beat very often by perimeter shooters. They have trouble with athletic big guys. Most athletic big guys are NBA prospects right out of high school and play as one and done guys. Kentucky has about 5 of those guys on their roster.

 

I like Wisconsin chance's if they force Kentucky to shoot from the outside but if they get in the paint, I don't think the Badgers have enough height to bother them. Dekker will have to play Randle, at least to start, and will be giving up 2-3 inches and 50 pounds. Brust, Jackson, and Gasser will be giving up 4-5 inches each. Dujan and Hayes may have to play more minutes on defense for matchup purposes. On paper the Badgers don't match up well, but as the saying goes, they don't play games on paper.

Stein probably won't play

Kentucky is gonna kill 'em.

 

Helluva ride though. Really nice job so far by Bucky

never underestimate the power of Bucky to f*** 'em! 

MiPack's post did not make me feel anymore confident, but never underestimate Bo.

We know who the USA wants to win the NCAA Championship.

 

http://espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?sportIndex=frontpage&pollId=4255959

Funny, the SEC is rooting for Floriduh, not Kentucky.

I also wonder how long before the NCAA really looks at the "one and done" players. 

 

For example, it seems teams like Kentucky each year gets these outstanding players that Calipari knows are only going to be there for one year.  Not just one player-but multiple players-leave after one year.  But he doesn't worry because he's got another 7 freshmen ready to play for one year coming up through recruiting.  For some reason most all of these outstanding players go to Kentucky.  Good for him, he's not breaking any rules (at least not yet).  However, I doubt many of the players that are leaving have attended many classes and will probably drop out after the NCAA tourney.

 

It doesn't make the NCAA look good either....especially if they are trying to feign the term "student-athlete". 

 

One response would be to have the school lose that scholarship until after that player would've completed his Junior Year.   Most schools-with one or two players like this-it probably would not be a big impact.  But for schools like Kentucky, continually using this as your recruiting strategy, would destroy the program if they didn't' change their tactics.

 

just a thought...

 Do you 'know a freshman has to pass 6 credits in the fall and doesn't even have to show up to class in the spring and can be eligible To play?

 

just once I'd love to hear a player get asked what his major is. I wonder if the Kentucky guys ever even declare one. 

How many classes would any of them even be able to attend with teh tournament $chedule they have been on.

Good thing the Chokeyes never have to worry about that, huh?

...and the y only have to pass those 6 credits with a "D". So they can take 5 classes, get "F"'s in 3 of them & "D"'s in 2 and still be eligible. 

I really could careless irrigardlessly.

 

You go to college to get a good job.  For a guy like Randle, in order to get the good job he had to do as little as possible to stay eligible and play awesome basketball.  He'll be a millionaire in a couple of months.  Who are we to bitch about him using the system, as it is designed, to get a great job. 

Are you guys telling me that if Randle, Parker, Wiggins or Gordon wanted to be a "one and done" at Wisconsin you wouldn't be all over it?

Bingo Mr Ka Bong.    Plus what do we really know about the academic abilities of Randle and Wiggins to name a couple.  How much time have the student athletes from Wisconsin devoted to their studies the last couple of weeks.  Does anyone think that senior Patric Young of Florida got those muscles toting his book bag across campus?

 

Face it, the whole system of college sports is wacky....the OSU Ad gets a big bonus because a wrestler won a title, Coach Cal and his staff gets a huge bonus for getting this far.....does any of this make sense?

Hmmmm.

 

Michigan was tied with Kentucky until a tough 3 basically at the buzzer.  I don't know how to interpret that game in a way that forces the conclusion that Bucky will definitely get hammered.

 

I just hope Wisconsin boxes out like crazy for defensive rebounds and plays close to perfectly composed on offense.  Frequent and sharp passing.  Inside out a lot and usually with Kaminsky.  High percentage makes on the open looks.

 

I think Wisconsin's offense could drive a team like Kentucky crazy.

Exactly. It is the school's fault for allowing it.

Interesting you should ask.  The NY Times answered that very question yesterday:

 

Linky

You might want to read this NY Times feature from this past weekend.  Made me even prouder of Ryan's program.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03...tournament.html?_r=0

 

ANAHEIM, Calif. — On the eve of their West Regional final Saturday against Arizona, the Wisconsin players were ensconced in a hotel down the street from Disneyland, in a meeting room with two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows.

 

In the fishbowl that is the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament, temptation was giving the Badgers a full-court press. Outside, Wisconsin fans basking in the bright sunshine strolled past in shorts, red T-shirts and halter tops. A few held beer cans, including a woman who rapped on a window until the players looked up.

The basketball portion of their day was done, but the Badgers had more business to tend to. They put their heads down and resumed studying, ignoring the foot traffic outside, the chocolate chip cookies left over from the lunch buffet and the officials’ whistles coming from the television, tuned to a regional game featuring their Big Ten rival Michigan, filtering in from the lobby bar on the other side of the double doors.

 

As Tracey Maloney, the academic support staff member assigned to the team, looked on, the freshman guard Jordan Hill studied Italian vocabulary. Another freshman, Riley Dearring, researched Plessy v. Ferguson for a United States history class.

 

Frank Kaminsky, a junior forward whose game-high 19 points and career-high 6 blocks had figured prominently in the Badgers’ 17-point victory against Baylor the previous night, worked on a blog post assignment. The senior guard Ben Brust told Maloney about a Nascar podcast for an independent studies project that he had completed a few hours before scoring 14 points against Baylor.

And between emails with his project partners in Madison, the fifth-year senior Zach Bohannon, a reserve forward, helped the junior guard Josh Gasser with his accounting homework.

 

The term student-athlete is not an oxymoron in the N.C.A.A. tournament. Every senior on the Wisconsin men’s basketball team in the past two seasons graduated, and the team is on track to achieve that again this year. With their 64-63 overtime victory against the top-seeded Wildcats, the Badgers also managed a first for a Bo Ryan-coached team. They earned a trip to the Final Four, which means they will spend another week juggling classwork and tournament games. 

 

“A lot of people think that it’s easy to be a student-athlete, that people just do things for you and this and that,” said Hill, a kinesiology major. “I don’t know about other schools, but at Wisconsin, that doesn’t fly.”