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Historically brutal tourney run isn't weighing on these goofy Badgers

INDIANAPOLIS – If anyone can laugh, skip and sing their way through a minefield, it apparently is the Wisconsin Badgers.

America’s loosest college basketball team is attempting to complete the most arduous trek for a No. 1 seed in NCAA tournament history. The Badgers’ path to immortality is brutal – Kentucky on a Saturday and Duke on a Monday to end it all – but they seem to be having too much fun to notice how hard this is.

This is a group that giggles its way through press conferences. That dispatched backup forward Vitto Brown to be part of a quartet that sang the national anthem Saturday. That has starting forward Nigel Hayes dishing out polysyllabic Words of the Day to NCAA stenographers (Sunday’s offerings were logorrhea and succedaneum). That attending the Player of the Year award presentation for Frank Kaminsky en masse Thursday, commandeered the microphone and asked him questions.

The lovable dorks of the Dance are showing no sign of stress.

“It’s fun to be around these guys,” said 6-foot-9 forward Sam Dekker, his huge sneakers sticking out like clown shoes beneath the Lucas Oil Stadium press-conference podium Sunday. “Some people tell us on Twitter, they’ll be like, ‘Focus, guys!’ But that’s just us. We know when we have to focus. When we get on court it’s all business, which is how it should be. But when we’re doing this stuff, you should just be yourself, not get too caught up in it. Yeah, that’s how we live.”

The Badgers are living refreshingly right. But it will have to be all business Monday, when Wisconsin tries to win its first national title in 74 years against Duke.

If they get this done, it will be one of the greatest NCAA tournament runs ever. Period.

Bo Ryan reacts to a call during Wisconsin's win over Kentucky on Saturday. (AP)
Bo Ryan reacts to a call during Wisconsin's win over Kentucky on Saturday. (AP)

The Badgers will have completed the toughest run for a No. 1 seed since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. They have faced the highest possible seed in all six rounds: No. 16 Coastal Carolina, No. 8 Oregon, No. 4 North Carolina, No. 2 Arizona, overall No. 1 (and undefeated) Kentucky, and now No. 1 Duke. That's never been done.

Using Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, those are teams ranked No. 1 (Kentucky), No. 2 (Arizona), No. 4 (Duke), No. 12 (North Carolina), No. 38 (Oregon) and No. 134 (Coastal Carolina). With Nos. 1, 2 and 4 in succession.

There has been no going through the back door to the brink of history. No benefitting from a bracket collapse. No overmatched underdog wandering in their way.

The greatest test and greatest triumph came Saturday night, when Wisconsin defeated 38-0 Kentucky, 71-64. This was a victory one year in the making, ever since the Wildcats eliminated the Badgers by a single point in the 2014 Final Four. It was the biggest victory in school history – and now they’ll have to follow it up with an even bigger victory two nights later.

“When the bracket came out, we were happy we got the No. 1 seed, but we saw the teams we had to play, the inevitable game against a great Kentucky team, and knew it would be difficult,” Hayes said. “But that old cliché: if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. If we win a national championship, we can look back at the team we beat to do it.”

There is a clearly analogous situation from 1991, one I wrote about last week, in which the Final Four perpetrator was none other than Duke. But there is another famous sporting analogy, and it was offered up Sunday by Badgers coach Bo Ryan. He referenced the Miracle on Ice of 1980, when the underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team shocked the mighty Soviet Union on a Friday but then had to come back two days later to beat Finland in the gold medal game.

“I’ve been reminded on a few text messages that Finland is Duke,” Ryan said.

What Ryan didn’t mention: the Americans were emotionally flat against the Finns, trailing 2-1 after two periods. According to lore, that prompted U.S. coach Herb Brooks to tell his team during the second intermission, “If you lose this game, you’ll take it to your grave. Your [bleeping] grave.”

The U.S. responded with three goals in the third period to complete the quest.

Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky looks at a camera during a press conference Sunday. (AP)
Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky looks at a camera during a press conference Sunday. (AP)

Wisconsin may face a similar emotional challenge Monday night – against a team that likely is better at basketball than Finland was at hockey. Do the Badgers have enough in the tank for what figures to be a second straight slobberknocker in Indy?

They talked a good game Sunday – they always talk a good game – but the proof will be on the floor Monday night. Wisconsin undoubtedly will hope that any deficiency in the physical reservoir is made up for in motivational energy.

This is, after all, what the Badgers have built for all year. And, truth be told, what some of them came to Wisconsin to do.

Ryan had built an excellent program – a perennial winner – but one that came with a ceiling. There were no Final Fours until last year. There seemed to be a sense that being good was good enough – but the players on this team set their sights on being great.

“We wanted to change the culture,” Dekker said. “They won Big Ten championships, but we wanted to win national championships. We didn’t want to be OK with ‘good enough.’ We expect to be at the top and be the best.”

If Wisconsin wins Monday, it will be the best. And it will have completed one of the best tournament runs ever – arguably the very best. And the embraceably dorky Badgers will have laughed, skipped and sang their way to the title.