Game is at 8:00pm CST on ESPN. There will be " White" out conditions at the Kohl Center, tonight. Purdue is ranked #8 and The Badgers are ranked at #10.
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😳 😳 😳. Perdont is looking pretty damn good......
They'll cool off. Bucky's just getting going.
Robbie Hummel doing color. Former Purdue player.
@mrtundra posted:Robbie Hummel doing color. Former Purdue player.
He is very good
Threes by Hepburn and Davison give Bucky a 7 point lead!
Chuckie Hepburn's growth as a offensive player is amazing. I wonder who has coached him up so well?
@MichiganPacker posted:I think you jinxed them.
10-2 Purdue run
Oops!
Wahl hooked and held by Purdue. Review coming sometime next week. Wahl to the line.
If this score holds Wahl and Hepburn are the reason for the win.
Wow
It would be outstanding if Gard wins coach of the year. Hepburn with the final points and Wahl with the last defensive intercept. 
What a game! Hepburn answers Ivey and Wahl seals the deal with a steal! 70-67 Badgers!
Badgers go to the bank twice in the last 20 seconds.
The Badgers got very lucky, but most of the time luck is the product of hard work.
While I love the win and clinch of a Big Ten Title or at least a tie the Badgers may have played themselves out of a Milwaukee 1st round game. They could move up to a 2 seed in the Midwest which plays Sweet 16 games in Chicago. Their 1st round game would be in Indianapolis.
I don't think that the first two rounds are dictated by the region. In other words, they could still play in Milwaukee, regardless of where the sweet 16 games are. Either way, what a game, and what a season so far. Chucky was great, and I don't see any way that Gard isn't National Coach of the Year. Vogt and Carlson gave some nice minutes tonight too.
I was always one that said that Gard was a good, but not great, coach. I was wrong on that. He's one of the best coaches in the country.
This season seemed to come out of nowhere, but it's even more amazing considering that the future of Wisconsin basketball looked about as dismal as any program in the country after the tape leaked last year.
I think the negative impact of Alando Tucker was more than most of us could have imagined.
I’m going to go and look back at the some of the comments about Gard here last year…some of you people (TM) might want to do a purge.
@Blair Kiel posted:I’m going to go and look back at the some of the comments about Gard here last year…some of you people (TM) might want to do a purge.
Music City, who is no longer here, was the most vocal critique. I was in the camp of he's probably never going to recruit the 5-star guys you need to get to final fours, but he's better than anyone else you'll get to come here. But that's the ceiling you have at Wisconsin.
I thought they'd really struggle this year with hardly any experience coming back and they'd take a couple of years to get back to the 17-12 type teams that are on the bubble for a tourney bid.
A few other thoughts.
1. Getting Davison to come back was huge. It's like having an assistant coach on the floor.
2. Has there ever been a player in the last 25 years of Wisconsin basketball that was a worse representative for the program that Nate Reuvers? 4 star recruit who looked like the next poor-mans Kaminsky, Wilkenson, etc. and regressed badly.
3. Getting King and Reuvers at the same time was also an issue. Kobe King is right where he wants to be right now. He's a high volume shooter on a crappy mid-major team that's under 500 (Valparaiso).
4. F#$k Alando Tucker.
@stiffler posted:I don't think that the first two rounds are dictated by the region. In other words, they could still play in Milwaukee, regardless of where the sweet 16 games are. Either way, what a game, and what a season so far. Chucky was great, and I don't see any way that Gard isn't National Coach of the Year. Vogt and Carlson gave some nice minutes tonight too.
No, it does matter. No #2 seeds play in Milwaukee. I know these are only Lunadi's projections but it does show where early round games are played by region.
@MichiganPacker posted:I was always one that said that Gard was a good, but not great, coach. I was wrong on that. He's one of the best coaches in the country.
This season seemed to come out of nowhere, but it's even more amazing considering that the future of Wisconsin basketball looked about as dismal as any program in the country after the tape leaked last year.
I think the negative impact of Alando Tucker was more than most of us could have imagined.
It just really highlights how so many things are really out of the coach's control ... both good and bad, yet they will take the blame for them and the praise. Team chemistry is so important, but one variable that the coach has the least amount of control over. I know that I am bias, but basketball just by the nature of the sport has always been the most difficult to coach ... in other sports roles are clearly defined by positions (football / baseball) , in many there are stoppages of play between each play .... now throw in the variables of social media, AAU, all the people around the players looking at the game from just what is best for the kid, the age of the players is developmentally the height of egocentrism ... you are not just coaching basketball, you are a salesman, a psychologist, a father... add to that the recruiting, alumni pressure, media scrutiny .... it is one hell of an enormous job. In addition, who you have on your staff can make a tremendous impact. Look at Scott Drew; for years he was a bit of a joke within the coaching community for being weak and not a very good coach, played all zone, etc. someone other than him must have been the catalyst for their rise, especially on the defensive end.
Some of the Gard criticism was beyond ridiculous. Not sure why they initially had Hepburn's shot as a two when it wasn't even close.
"I'm not going to lie, that was some bullsh*t but it went in." @JohnnyDavis on @ChuckyHepburn's game-winner 🤣 pic.twitter.com/UqaxdrpafY
— Stephen Watson (@WISN_Watson) March 2, 2022
As called by @MattLepay & heard on the @varsity app: pic.twitter.com/WCl25Jt80z
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 2, 2022
Bronson Koenig made it rain 🌧
— IKE Badgers Podcast (@IKE_Badgers) April 8, 2020
• 1459 career pts (11th in UW history)
• Drained a 3 in 43 straight games
• 270 career 3’s (1st in school history)
Can’t forget this buzzer beater he hit to knock off 2-seed Xavier and send the Badgers to the Sweet 16☔️pic.twitter.com/gS6Jxzqmjq
Freddie Owens with the buzzer beater in 2003. #MarchMadness https://t.co/UjJIBJpkbk
— Colin Anderle (@nderleColin) March 13, 2018
(2013) Ben Brust’s miraculous 40-foot heave at the buzzer sends this Big Ten grudge match between Michigan and Wisconsin to OT. #FBFpic.twitter.com/uCB7dyPqvL
— CollegeBB News (@CollegeBBNCAA) July 28, 2018
@michiganjoe posted:Some of the Gard criticism was beyond ridiculous. Not sure why they initially had Hepburn's shot as a two when it wasn't even close.
Yeah, I wondered the same thing! Hepburn was clearly past the arc. Gard is the reason for this team's success. Who would have picked this team, last season, to play like they have, this season? Gard has this team playing like Champions, no doubt about it!
GREG GARD COACH OF THE YEAR!!!!
— Micah Potter (@BigJam_23) March 2, 2022
Was a crazy ending. Davis banks in a 2, purdont gets exactly what they want, a ball inside to the big guy who misses the 2, Davison who you normally want at the line gets fouled and misses the front end FT, purdont ties the game on a long 3 and then Hepburn shoots a 3 off the glass for the win. Wahl intercepts the desperation hail mary inbound pass,
I think that the fact that every Badger on the floor in the last couple of minutes made a play says something.
@R MaN posted:What did Tucker say or do?
He tried to have Gard fired and to take over the program himself.
@FLPACKER posted:It just really highlights how so many things are really out of the coach's control ... both good and bad, yet they will take the blame for them and the praise. Team chemistry is so important, but one variable that the coach has the least amount of control over. I know that I am bias, but basketball just by the nature of the sport has always been the most difficult to coach ... in other sports roles are clearly defined by positions (football / baseball) , in many there are stoppages of play between each play .... now throw in the variables of social media, AAU, all the people around the players looking at the game from just what is best for the kid, the age of the players is developmentally the height of egocentrism ... you are not just coaching basketball, you are a salesman, a psychologist, a father... add to that the recruiting, alumni pressure, media scrutiny .... it is one hell of an enormous job. In addition, who you have on your staff can make a tremendous impact. Look at Scott Drew; for years he was a bit of a joke within the coaching community for being weak and not a very good coach, played all zone, etc. someone other than him must have been the catalyst for their rise, especially on the defensive end.
Great insights from someone who knows more about coaching past the high school level than anyone on this board.
It must be even harder now with the NIL money and the ability for the players to transfer every year with no requirement to sit out a year.
The challenge for Gard is whether to "waste" time going after the 5 star guys or not. The biggest hit his program has taken (other than the Tucker nonsense) was when they lost Herro. They offered Herro early, he verbally committed, and then when he took off in the recruiting rankings based on summer AAU before his senior year, Calipari swoops in and gets him to decommit. Nothing changed other than a guy with better NBA connections got interested (and likely some under the table shoe company money). The previous four years for Wisconsin had been Sweet 16 (loss on a circus shot in OT at the buzzer), Sweet 16, Title game, Final 4 for Wisconsin. Dekker and Kaminsky were both lottery picks. It wasn't like you couldn't succeed at Wisconsin, but even after being one of the top programs in the country for years Gard wasn't able to keep a guy like Herro even after investing years in recruiting him.
Herro comes across as an entitled, arrogant guy even as a pro, so maybe he wouldn't have been a good fit for the culture once he hit the big time in terms of recruiting rankings. One of my work colleagues went to Kentucky and then weren't that happy with him (he never seemed invested in playing in college other than to bide his time until he could declare for the draft and especially seemed to not put much effort in on defense). The problem was that Gard had committed his scholarship and then couldn't recruit another guy they could have gotten (Halliburton). So do you invest time in recruiting in-state 5-stars like Herro, Jalen Johnson, Kevon Looney, and Diamond Stone if the one-and-done factories are just going to get them 90% of the time anyway? That's the criticism Gard gets, but the one time he did what everyone wants him to do with Herro, it may have cost them Halliburton (a 3 star guy who developed during his senior year of high school and after he got to college).