Wisconsin v Duke -- National Title Game

Yeah, bring on the Dookies.

IMO, Duke is better than Kentucky.  Great game coming.

Yea, I agree ... Duke starting 5 is better than KYs.

Really duke is better then Kentucky???  Great..... At least they gotmthemrevenge factor right??

@Eric_Edholm: Wisconsin better beat Finland

Think I'll just repost this here, from earlier tonight...

@slmandel: Outside the Duke locker room, Okafor's dad and uncle putting on a show for the media. Chiding AP voters for only giving him 5 votes for POY.

Just effin great....I have a money bracket where I had Duke vs. Kentucky with Duke winning it all.....

 

Thanks a lot Badgers.....DICKS!

Dekker gonna have his handsful with Justice.

Oregon- out for revenge, almost beat us last year, gonna be tough to beat

 

UNC- gonna be tough to get past, came up big in ACC tourney, lots of great athletes

 

Arizona- out for revenge, almost beat us last year, gonna be tough to beat

 

Kentucky- undefeated, much deeper and more talented. Beat us last year, gonna be tough to beat

 

Duke- Beat us this year at home, a number one seed and in the Final 4 all the time. Okafor and Justice are awesome, gonna be tough to beat.

 

Fvck 'em Bucky!!

 

 

Guess Bucky should've been a two seed.

And Justice is going to have a cake walk?

Curious the last time a 1 seed faced every possible top seeded opponent on the way to a championship

Reports indicate Bo is not elected to the HOF,  Calipardi is.  Could be a motivating factor for the lads.

 

 

As opposed to the mundane task of winning a championship?

every little bit helps

The Badgers are certainly battle tested and won't be phased by Duke.  The center is really good but their guards are very quick and athletic and can get to the hoop in a hurry.  The X factor might just be Gasser and his D

What a ride - it's time to seal the deal

The Badgers are playing like a team so completely focused and determined I simply don't expect them to lose anymore. Duke is going to be tough, but how can you bet against these guys at this point? Their D was absolutely incredible last night. 3 straight shot clock violations? They ramped up the pressure on a very talented team, and pushed them over the edge.

I think Duke is better offensively. The Badgers will need to defend the 3 point line and the paint better than last time. And Dekker/Hayes were no-shows last time. Pretty sure that's not happening this time around...

In the first Duke game, Dekker was playing at about 50% from the ankle injury and Hayes picked up his second foul with 8 minutes to go in the firest half and sat, and then his third 3 minutes into the second half, and his 4th with 6 minutes left. 

 

Jackson kept them in it with a career night. 

 

Okafor seems to be getting a little Greg Jennings attitude to him. His father complaining about POY voting and seems go just want to be done with the college thing. 

 

Wisconsin players don't want this to end, the one and dones are looking forward to the NBA lottery. Maybe that will make a difference. 

No team in college basketball is better offensively than the Badgers.  

Duke shot 65 %, Badgers 40.  Duke 9 fast break pointS, Bucky zero. Shoot a bit better, tighten up the D a little and limit the break and the trophy goes to Madison......where it belongs.

The Badgers played and beat two of the best college teams (defensively) in recent history with AZ and Kentucky.  Duke is good but the other two teams were historically good on D.

Move the ball, don't foul, and don't turn it over and they should be OK

Answer to your question Elk ...
ESPN radio the other day said ... If Bucky played Duke and won they will be the only team in the history if the tournament that do it.
The "toughest" schedule to go thru the NCAA tournament ... EVER.

The other thing to remember about the first game vs. Duke is that Rasheed Sulaimon scored 14 points for the Blue Devils.  He has since been dismissed from the team for (allegedly) raping a couple of girls.

 

Link

I think the schedule is an interesting point

This team may have faced the toughest gauntlet ever when you look at the qualify of teams they have played recently and I am not even including Michigan State in the BT tourney.

Arizona and Kentucky statistically had two of the best seasons defensively in NCAA history and the Badgers took them apart.   UNC was no slouch either. 

Now there is Duke which is a very good overall team sitting between them and a title.   Given what they have accomplished already it would almost seem a surprise if they didn't win tonight.

By tournament seeding, if Bucky wins they will indeed have faced the toughest collective opponents since the tournament expanded.

 

http://www.jsonline.com/sports...731z1-298736821.html

UW (36-3) is one victory away from navigating the most demanding path to a national title since the tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

If the Badgers can take down No. 1- seeded Duke (34-4) at 8:18 p.m. Monday at Lucas Oil Stadium, they will have beaten a No. 16, a No. 8, a No. 4, a No. 2 and two No. 1-seeded teams to win the title.

Since 1985, only Arizona in 1997 and Kansas in 2008 have beaten two No. 1-seeded teams in the Final Four.

But a victory over Duke would put UW's opponent seeding total at 32, the lowest possible for a No. 1-seeded team.

The 1993 North Carolina team holds the current mark with an opponent seeding total of 33.

And did we mention UW faces Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is in the title game for the ninth time, with a 4-4 mark?

Duke's players are better, more athletic, and the roster is deeper.  All are very true but where have we heard this before?  At this point I would never bet against Bo and his team.

 

F'm Bucky!!!

Great article just posted at Grantland about the Badgers. 

 

http://grantland.com/the-trian...e-seriously-worried/

...The one-and-done phenomenon, which now is best exemplified here by Jahlil Okafor at Duke, is a permanent fact of life in this game, unless and until everybody gets together and changes the system back to the way it was in the days of none-and-done. But there’s a place for Wisconsin, too, a team that has been together long enough to develop little traditions and internal fraternity and goofy clubs within which you can have fun, a private language, and happy codes. You can learn about all the cool stuff in the very strange world in which you play your games together. This, too, is about the spirit of solidarity and of one community. And there is music and laughter and silliness. And then you tune out all the nonsense and just sing with each other.

On the other side Jackson scored 25, don't see that happening tonite. Gasser and the bench need provide a bit more scoring than in the past few games...

Agree completely. My guess is if they play ten times on a neutral court Duke probably wins seven. That said, Bucky only needs to be the better team for forty minutes and I can't pick against them at this point. 

Okafor is lazy down the court both on offense and defense. UW can push the ball up the court and play 5 on 4 a few times during the game. Also I don't think he is a good as Towns, if the Badgers play him like they did Towns, Okafor won't beat them.

 

T. Jones and Winslow slashing to the rim is what is going to be tough to stop IMO.

Don't disagree about Jones and Winslow, but offensively Okafor is miles ahead of Towns IMO. Especially if the refs let him push off with his off- forearm like he does on nearly every post-up play. He shouldn't get the benefit of the doubt if a defender maintains good position but usually does.

I agree FreeSafety.  I also think what will be a huge key is no let down and having dead legs in the early going.  Duke had an easier time of it in their game and I am worried that Bucky may have shot their load and be tired.  BUT if Bucky can come out strong and go right at them?  look out Duke!

I think people are really underestimating the two Kentucky bigs in comparison to Okafor.  He's really good but Duke does not present the same challenges defensively.  Not even close.  

I do think the Duke guards will  be tough but  if Wisconsin plays as well as they did against Kentucky and Arizona they will win by double digits.  Duke is not as good as either of the last two UW opponents.

I've said this before, but Okafor strikes me as a guy that is looking at his year in college as something to get through. He's a great player, but I haven't really seen a lot of evidence that he's a future NBA hall of famer. Contrast that with what Anthony Davis looked like as a one and doner at Kentucky a few years back when Davis looked a future NBA superstar.

 

Okafor doesn't seem like an off the charts explosive athlete, just a good, solid NBA post player. He isn't a defensive force at all (Kentucky probably has 4 guys that are better post defenders), maybe because he just isn't that interested. Maybe he'll be extra motivated to play against he guy he feels unfairly was POY (at least based on what his family was saying this weekend), but he also seems like a guy that isn't happy unless he's the focus of attention. This is not to say he's a bad kid. He just seems to be someone who sees college as a necessary evil and just wants to get to an NBA camp. In other words, he's Kevin Looney or Diamond Stone - not bad guys - just guys that were not going to buy into wanting to share the ball or play tough defense when things get tough. They are wasting time for a year before they are able to play in the NBA.

 

Contrast that with the Badgers. Dekker or Kaminsky could go on to be NBA all-stars and still not have anywhere near as much fun as they are having now. Guys like Dekker, Koenig, Gasser, and Showalter are living the dream that most of us growing up in Wisconsin had when we were in high school. Playing on your in-state team with the entire state behind you and playing for a national title. That's what I pretended to be doing when I was 12-14 years and shooting baskets by myself.

 

Dukan and Kaminsky grew up less than 2 hours from Madison and received almost no other scholarship offers from big time programs.

 

Traevon Jackson's father was one of the best players in Ohio State history and he couldn't even get an offer from them.

 

Nigel Hayes is the only guy in Wisconsin's rotation that either isn't from the state of Wisconsin or was lightly recruited.

 

To sum up, if Wisconsin wins it will be the biggest sports moment in every single one of these player's lives, no matter what they do in the NBA. The team probably won't stop partying (in a good way) for about a month and it will be the biggest non-Packer thing that has ever happened in the state in terms of sports.

 

If Duke wins, they'll jump around a little bit and then the freshman players will be on the phones with their agents before they even leave the arena (Cook is an obvious exception). They'll go back to Duke and have a perfunctory celebration and that will be that. Okafor and the other freshman will have spent about 7 months on campus before leaving. Gasser alone will have spent 5 years on campus at Madison.

 

 

Kentucky bigs are much, much better defensive players. Okafor either isn't capable of that or isn't interested. He may be more motivated to show Kaminsky up since Frank beat him for POY.

People overlook this team in so many ways it's really kid of funny.

Gasser is a problem because he's big for a guard and he simply doesn't get fooled.  He's defended the best guards in the tourney and really gave them fits.

Kaminisly gets all the attention but teams have not been able to effectively match up with Hayes or Dekker either.   Their ability to take you off the dribble or spot up from outside is a problem for just about any team including Duke.

As long as the refs don't go crazy and call a bunch of fouls on UW I think they have a really good chance to win.  They should also have the extra mojo from the crowd because who wouldn't want Wisconsin to close this out? 

Can't wait - and it would be a great story to see them take home the title.

Duke has really improved defensively, and their offense is second only to Bucky's. I am more concerned about Duke than I was about Kentucky.

I am concerned about Duke's ability (guard play) to slash and get to the hoop.   However, the strength of UWs defense is to take that away by packing the lane.   Need to be smart defensively and not rack up silly fouls

The Harrison twins are the same way and gave Wisconsin problems. Gasser will be an unappreciated key again. Koening and Jackson can't guard those types of guys the way that Gasser can. It was no coincidence that after Gasser sat down with his 2nd foul, Kentucky made up the 7 point deficit.