Wisconsin Takes No. 4 Seed Out East

After failing to validate its dark horse status in the Big Ten tournament, Wisconsin still fared relatively well I thought on Selection Sunday. The Badgers will be the No. 4 seed in the East region, drawing tournament rookies Wofford in the first round.

Wisconsin plays at 1:50 p.m. CT this Friday in Jacksonville, Fla.

A first-round loss would be embarrassing and shocking, so look past Wofford temporarily. Neither Temple nor Cornell scares me as a possible second-round opponent for Bo Ryan's posse.

Top-seeded Kentucky? That's a different story. DeMarcus Cousins is a load for any team, let along a foul-prone and shallow UW front court. And after Cousins you have Patrick Patterson and Daniel Orton. Not to mention All-Everything frosh John Wall has a gear none of these Badgers have.

The Big Ten received five bids this year, down two from last season's seven. Conference-wise, that total ranks behind the Big East (8), Big XII (7) and ACC (6).

Need help filling out your bracket? Don't say ESPN never tried to help ya ...

Are We There Yet?

I am already sick of people breaking down the seedings. None of it matters; teams executing what they do better than the opponent is the only thing of consequence in the upcoming games. Turnovers, free throws, execution ... these things matter now more than ever. Not even playing close to home makes much of a difference in my opinion. Sticking to a routine and being rested is important, but that can be done away from home if a team is well-prepared. Will Wisconsin perform better in Omaha than it would a few more states away? Doubtful. I want the games to get here as fast as possible, so that the actual stories of competition are the topics of discussion again.

As it is, even those far more intelligent than I are breaking down bracket winners and losers and bemoaning this year's lousy matchups. What I find more interesting is actual statistical analysis in regards to seeding, like the Performance Above Seeding Expectations (PASE) values calculated by Peter Tiernan. Tiernan used PASE stats to identify the top indicators of overachievement in the tournament. It's useful for the brackets that award bonus points for picking upsets I suppose.

I plan on releasing my official picks tomorrow night. Just remember that when picking your national champ this week, choose a team ranked in the RPI top 10 with a winning percentage of at least .850 which has played 10 or more games against the RPI top 50 (and won). And try not to get distracted by those piddly graduation rates.

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Bucky was ranked fifth in the final regular season ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. While only sixth in the AP Poll, I think talk of getting no respect should all but disappear at this point. The ranking is actually an honor considering Duke, which embarrassed the Badgers, is ranked three spots behind them in both polls.

Wisconsin simply is not as battle-tested as it needs to be at this point. The Badgers have only played one decent team (Michigan State) in their past five games. You can only beat the teams you play, but that can mean very little once you reach the final 65. Let's hope Wisconsin can stay healthy then and avoid last year's results, when a 30-win team wound up 11th in the final postseason coaches poll, behind luminaries such as Pittsburgh and Southern Illinois.

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Two more conference teams, Ohio State and Minnesota, continued their seasons via NIT invites. To emphasize how poor the bottom of the Big Ten was this year (as if the committee didn't do enough of that), no additional conference teams were invited to the awful CBI tournament.

Big Ten Champs Grab A 3-Seed

Wisconsin will ride a 10-game winning streak into the NCAA Tournament as a 3-seed in the Midwest region. The Badgers will play Thursday versus Big West champion Cal-State Fullerton (24-8) in Omaha, NE.

I think the Badgers had a legitimate argument to be a #2 over either Duke or Texas based on performance in the last 10 games, but I'm not surprised that the Big Ten seedings were down in general. Wisconsin's thorough domination of Illinois to capture the Big Ten Tournament title did not come into play during the seeding process of course, thus Georgetown's loss to Pittsburgh and Texas' loss to Kansas could not drop them below the Badgers.

Still, UW fared better than other Big Ten teams. CBS' Seth Davis felt fifth-seeded Michigan State was a likely upset candidate, while Purdue fell to a 6-seed. The crumbling Indiana Hoosiers were given an 8-seed and Ohio State saw its bubble burst Sunday afternoon.

Looking ahead, I hope Michael Flowers has the chance to shut down freshman phenom O.J. Mayo. For the record, Wisconsin should advance to the Sweet 16 against either USC or Kansas State in my opinion, but first they will have to get past the 14th-seeded Titans, who have a shutdown defender of their own.

I'm still a little bummed about not getting third shot at Purdue this past weekend. As a consolation, UW has captured both conference championships in the same season for the first time ... hopefully the first of many conference trophy sweeps. More importantly, at 29-4, Wisconsin has every opportunity to win 30 games for the second year in a row and break the school record set last season.

The game also featured a couple of plays that are quickly becoming Wisconsin trademarks. Just as Jim Nance and Billy Packer were discussing the early days of NCAA basketball being financed by NCAA boxing income, Krabbenhoft laid out an Illinois guard with another vicious pick. It was the very same kind that knocked Eric Gordon down and temporarily made thousands of Illini supporters become Badger fans. Secondly, inbounding from under the opponent's basket against full-court pressure, Michael Flowers threw the ball off of the back of unsuspecting Calvin Brock to start an unlikely fast break.

The Badgers, Flowers in particular, routinely proved Packer clueless during the game by burying 3-pointers. Wisconsin hit 9-of-18 treys and only shot two free throws [box score]. Marcus Landry was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player and was joined on the all-tournament team by Flowers, who added three more steals against Illinois.

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Off-topic, today was my first exposure to the very sweet new Pontiac G8 GT commercial which recreates the old Spy Hunter video game. Two thumbs up!

Broken Badgers

AP Photo/Brian Kersey
I wish my first post came under better circumstances. All in all, we saw a brutal finish to the Big Ten Conference Tournament.

Wisconsin did not display the heart of a champion this afternoon. The Badgers folded "like a two-dollar bill." Instead of attacking the intimidating Greg Oden, Wisconsin abandoned any semblance of an interior game plan, jacking up 23 three-pointers (shooting an abysmal 17.4%). Personally, I would have rather seen them go down swinging. I know Greg Stiemsma was ready to take a few swings ... something about Oden's beard gets the Steamer in a chippy mood.

Oddly enough, there were positives. Kam Taylor struggled through a tough first half to lead the team in scoring. He had a decent tourney and seems to have found his touch again. Stiemsma looks like he's growing into his role with increased minutes. And as we all know, Jason Bohannon is a breath of fresh air: 27 mins, 4-7 FGs (9 pts), 4 rebs, 2 assts, 1 blk, 3 TOs, 3 fouls.

The bad news, as expected: UW's bigs (Stiemsma, Marcus Landry, Jason Chappell and Joe Krabbenhoft) combined for eight points on 10 shots.

The result? A #2 seed in the Midwest Bracket and a trendy pick to suffer a second-round upset.