Ladies and germs, welcome to March. CUE THE MUSIC:
MAINLINE IT DIRECTLY INTO MY VEINS. Greatest month on the calendar. We get tricked into thinking winter is over, it’s light outside past 6pm, March Madess, baseball (?), Lindsey’s birthday. What a tour de force.
Anyway, I’m sure there are games I’m not remembering, but tonight feels like one of the biggest nights at the Kohl Center since the Dekker/Kaminsky Era. In the aftermath of Saturday’s Top 25 bloodletting, the Badgers control their own destiny for an outright Big Ten Title. Pretty decent for a team picked to finish 10th in the conference, eh? Tough, tough season for the ‘#firegard’ haters and loser (of which there are many!). Gard’s got this team playing sticky defense again and has a top 10 draft pick making clutch basket after clutch basket. Throw in the development of guys like Tyler Wahl and Steven Crowl, and Brad Davison having his best shooting season in year he finished his doctorate, and it all adds up to one of the more surprising and fun Badger teams in quite some time.
So tonight is the rematch with Purdue. Wisconsin is #10 in the country, Purdue #8. The last time these two team played the Badgers won at Mackey Arena, which was our first real sign that this Badger team might be something more than a tournament hopeful. You know Purdue is going to want to avenge that game, and you know that Wisconsin knows they’re on the doorstep of history if they can win tonight and Sunday against a poverty Nebraska team.
And I’ll say this as well: If the Badgers win tonight and Sunday, and make a decent run in the Big Ten Tournament, they have a legitimate claim for a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Nobody has more quad-1 wins, nobody has been better in close games (14-1 in games decided by 6 points or less), and with preseason national title favorites Purdue and Illinois in the conference, WINNING that conference would mean a ton.
Now I do want to clarify my hopes and dreams for this team: At this point I don’t feel the same way I did in 2015. Coming off of that Final Four run in 2014, with the whole team back, the feeling the entire 2015 season was that this team was headed back to the Final Four. And they did just that. I think this Badger team has the potential to make that kind of a run, but I also feel like they could lose in the 2nd round. One of those, ‘they could beat anybody but also lose to anybody’ vibes. Either way, I’m not sure even the most optimistic Badger fan expected to be discussing the types of things we’re discussing in this blog on March 1st. This team is fun, this time of year is fun, let’s have FUN!
PS: Apparently MLB and MLBPA met FOURTEEN TIMES yesterday trying to strike a deal to end the lockout. 14! One thing that I’d never be good at: Labor negotiator. 15 minutes into the second meeting of the day I’d concede everything just to avoid more meetings. In any case, live look at all baseball fans expecting to be watching a game in 30 days:
