Badger men’s basketball: Wisconsin sells out Sweet 16 ticket allotment

The eighth-seeded Badgers (27-9) will take on No. 4 seed Florida (26-8) at approximately 9 p.m. Friday in the second game of the East region’s semifinal doubleheader at the famed NY venue.

There’s an argument to be made that the selection committee’s low-seeding affront was the best thing that could have happened to Wisconsin – ask famously chip-shouldered Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers about proving the disbelievers wrong – but it feels slightly contrived. But they were also slower-and that’s why their title defense is over. They know the euphoria only a national champion can feel after winning it all almost a year ago. They should be a tough out in the Sweet 16.

“We had some successful years so whenever we think about it, we’ll think about those years and what we accomplished”.

The Wildcats’ early exit marked the 10th straight season the defending champion has failed to reach the Sweet 16.

Wisconsin, which finished second in the Big Ten regular season standings, outlasted No. 9 Virginia Tech 84-74 on Thursday night to advance to play Villanova.

“They understand it’s one game at a time”, Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. I always questioned why everybody underestimated us all the time, every single year before the season, during the season. We have to win six games. For the two games this weekend, he was 4-of-22, and 0-of-8 from beyond the arc.

“All those games we’ve been the underdog”, Hayes said. “You have all types of ranking systems, statistics, analytics guys. And that’s the thing we have”.

Kentucky defeated Wichita State 65-62.

Brown’s shooting stroke for Wisconsin was as smooth as his singing voice, as he knocked down a trio of three-pointers on the way to 10 points, three boards and two assists.

Per the Wisconsin State Journal, it was announced on Tuesday that the Badgers have sold out their allotment of tickets for Friday night’s matchup versus the Florida Gators.

In the end, this Villanova team seemed gassed.

Moe Wagner scored a career-high 26 points and spurred a furious second-half rally to send MI past second-seeded Louisville 73-69 on Sunday and into the Sweet 16.

No. 4 seed Butler (25-8) vs. (OK State’s coach Brad Underwood liked playing MI so much he took the IL job the next day).

“Sometimes”, he said, looking up, “it’s just two great teams and you run out of time”.

The Badgers will take on a Florida team that limped into the tournament following two losses to Vanderbilt in the final weeks of the season.

KWICKIES… This week’s edition of USA Today’s Sports Weekly had an article about Tim Tebow, who was given a $100,000 bonus to play for the New York Mets.

A few Orange County tracksters are among the Southeast Texas high school leaders. WVU was 8-for-14 on threes, including 5-for-6 in the second half. Tip is slated for 10 p.m. This is the last time we’ll be with a group of guys who are this connected. “He can score over you, and if you have size on him, he can score around you with his ball handling”. They average 81.5 points per game and feature three players who averaged double-figures.

JUST BETWEEN US… I found out that the “11th inning rule” that we mentioned last month is really an worldwide rule of baseball that has been used by the World Baseball Classic the past few years.

If ‘Nova had that timeout, it could have called it after the miss with three seconds left, set up a play, thrown the ball down the court with the clock stopped and perhaps gotten off a decent shot to tie.

Considering that success in the context of what Florida has not done – namely, get even average production from leading scorers KeVaughn Allen or Canyon Barry, or truly turn up their transition game off of steals – is fodder for even more good feeling.