At the start of this school year, I made a decision that I figured would benefit my sports mental health greatly. I decided I was going to stop paying attention to the Wisconsin Badgers Basketball team. I had gone through well-documented heartbreaks, I had seen my favorite players come and go, and I had seen myself come and go from UW Madison. I was going to clean slate it. I was a Milwaukee Panther through and through. "Viva la Pat Baldwin". DeAndre Abram will be my new favorite player to root for (wrong).
It was liberating at the start of the season, "Hey, did you see Aleem Ford miss back to back threes against St. Mary's in the final seconds down 2?" nope. I got chirped when Wisconsin lost to Illinois (70-71) and was reminded that Badger Football also blew a game against Illinois, but I did not care. I was free, a weight that had been on my shoulders for so long had been lifted. Blues became bluer, flowers smelled sweeter, I took up ballroom dancing, derived the quadratic equation, and came up with a viable plan to solve world hunger. Then things changed. Jon had this great idea to start a sports blog about Wisconsin and Minnesota and wanted me to join as a Wisconsin writer. Awesome idea and I have enjoyed every second, however, with this came a problem. I was the only Badger fan on staff. I had to throw myself back into the pit I had just crawled out of. The scars had just closed up when I had to reopen them. Andy Dufresne crawling through 5 football fields of sewage, escaping after 21 years locked up, bathing in the refreshing waters of apathy, only for his "friend" to ask him if he could crawl back into the prison through the sewers for "content".
In the first week of caring, we beat Maryland (56-54), easily the best team in the Big Ten. I was all the way back in. Three games later though, Wisconsin loses by 19 to Purdue (51-70). That loss alone would be a reason for me to give up again, hop off the bandwagon. To make matter worse, my roommate, Sam Lisak, is a Purdue fan. To make matters somehow worse-er, Kobe King, the homegrown player from La Crosse, announced he was leaving UW and seeking to transfer. Then a Twitter war started between Zak Showalter and Tyler Herro, Sam wrote a blog about Greg Gard, and Brad Davison decided now was the time to punch Iowa's Connor McCaffery in the groin and get suspended for a game. Just a trainwreck of a January that Badgers usually save for later in the Tournament.
February started with me in dire straits, but I was bolstered by a solid win against Mich St. (64-63) without Brad. Then, we drop our first game against Minnesota in a blowout (52-70). I threw away all the hope I had in this team, which was next to none anyway. Then something incredible happened. The Badgers decided to rain threes from heaven. They chose to live and die by the three, which is honorable and extremely stressful for any fan watching. Miraculously though, it worked. The next 5 games, the Badgers shot 44% on 28 attempts per game. This was by the win over #19 Michigan where the men in red shot 11-22 from deep. To put this stretch into perspective, UW this season averaged 25 threes a game on 35%. They shot more threes and made more threes for a solid 5 games. This is a pretty good recipe for success.
They followed this 5 game win streak with three more wins over Minnesota, Northwestern, and Indiana. Micah Potter was coming into his own, shooting a beautiful 50% from deep and pairing well with Reuvers in a two big men lineup Gard went to often. After this 9 game total win streak, the Badgers, who I had written off, who everyone viewed as a joke only a month and a half ago, were Co-Big Ten Champions with Maryland. Greg Gard nabbed Big Ten Coach of the year, and Wisconsin owns the 1 seed and a bye going into the Big Ten Tournament.
If you would have asked me the beginning of the season if Wisconsin would make The Tournament, I would have said: "I don't care, but probably a double-digit seed if at all.". If you would have asked me January 28th, when we had 9 losses and just lost a starter to the ever-present Transfer Portal, I would have said "We are not making the tournament, and Brevin Pritzel should be an early 2nd round pick in this draft.". Now? The #18 Badgers are a projected 4 seed in the Tournament. Expectations are low for a team some are calling frauds and overhyped, however, this team seems to thrive when they are written off. That is true Wisconsin basketball, always an underdog no matter the seeds, and always overachieving.
My Prediction? A really close first-round win that we pull off last second, probably Trice doing his best Bronson Koenig impression. Then a prove it blow out win in the second round with Reuvers and/or Potter taking over the game. Then people start overhyping us and we blow a gasket in the Sweet Sixteen, don't hit any of our threes, and the world keeps spinning as the 2019-2020 Badgers join the Pantheon of overachieving Badger teams that, in the end, underachieve somehow. Call me a cynic, but to put any faith in this team to make a DEEP run is just asking to be massively disappointed. I've made that mistake too many times.
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