“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

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Final Four boundWisconsin advances to first Final Four since 2000

By Jack BaerTHE DAILY CARDINAL

There’s a good chance that the “Frank Kaminsky” game just happened. But for now, head coach Bo Ryan, the Badgers and their massive crowd formed on State Street will only be focused on one thing in the coming week: the Final Four.

In front of an Arizona-heavy, hostile crowd, the No. 2 seed Badgers took down No. 1 seed Arizona in a 64-63 overtime thriller to survive and advance to the tournament’s final week-end in Cowboys Stadium locat-ed in Arlington, Texas.

They were led by the West Regional Most Outstanding Player junior center Frank Kaminsky, who scored 28

points on 11-of-20 shooting. That total is the second high-est in Wisconsin NCAA tour-nament history after Michael Finley’s 36 in 1994.

This will be the first Final Four in Bo Ryan’s career, and the first for Wisconsin since for-mer head coach Dick Bennett’s miracle run in 2000. After 13 straight tournament appear-ances, this was long overdue for the consistent Ryan.

Both teams shot below 40 percent from the field, with Kaminsky and Arizona sopho-more center Kaleb Tarczewski being the only starters to make more than half of their shots. Arizona came into this game ranked as the No. 1 defensive team in the country according

to Ken Pomeroy ratings and showed it through their relent-less ball pressure defense. Open shots were beyond scarce for the Badgers. A saving grace was that despite Arizona freshman forward Aaron Gordon’s 18 rebounds, the smaller Wisconsin team was able to keep it about even with rebounds at 38-39 Arizona.

The game started in Arizona’s favor, with the Wildcats taking a 22-14 lead in the first 13 minutes. Wisconsin was gradually able to claw back both before and after halftime, finally tying the score four minutes into the second half. From there, no team took a lead greater than three points. Regulation’s final score, an

alley-oop from Arizona fresh-man forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and a final step-back jumper from junior guard Traevon Jackson that clanked away put both teams at 54 points and sent them to over-time. Jackson’s shot might have been ill-advised, as Kaminsky was being guarded by 6-foot-3 Arizona junior guard Nick Johnson thanks to an Arizona defensive switch.

In the extra five minutes, the Badgers never trailed. Arizona’s best chance to go ahead for good fell short thanks to a questionable offensive foul on Johnson. Wisconsin failed to inbound the ball and gave Arizona a final shot, but Johnson was unable to get off a

potential game-winner in time.By game’s end, it was clear

Frank Kaminsky’s star in col-lege basketball was ready to shine. He was the clear offen-sive hero of the game, as Jackson was the only other Badger to score in double fig-ures and that was on 4-of-14 shooting. When guarded by the 7-foot Tarczewski, Kaminsky was able to open his perimeter game, knocking down three 3-pointers. When guarded by Gordon, it was post moves and a deadly combination of footwork and length. He also pulled down 11 rebounds, seven of them offensive.

Wisconsin will play Kentucky Saturday at 7:49 p.m. in Arlington, Texas.

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Badgers to play Kentucky in Final FourBy Jack BaerTHE DAILY CARDINAL

All year, there has been a perceived disconnect between Wisconsin’s “eye test” and its resume. Some may look at a Wisconsin team that has maybe two real National Basketball Association prospects and think it can’t compete with the new normal of obscene talent on elite teams, though they’ve been doing it all season.

This narrative showed up when Arizona was favored in the Elite Eight and will return with a vengeance over the coming week as the Badgers prepare for a team that is almost their exact oppo-site: Kentucky, who aces the “eye test” and has fallen short when it comes to game performance.

It’s not often you’re sched-uled to play the preseason No. 1-ranked team and a No. 8 seed at the same time. That takes quite a fall from grace for a premier program. Kentucky struggled all year, going 12-6 during conference play in a weak Southeastern Conference. Its best win was at home over Louisville. After that? Maybe Tennessee, also at home.

That’s a pretty disappoint-ing season for what was argu-ably the greatest recruiting class in college basketball history. According to 247Sports’ consen-sus recruit rankings, Kentucky’s class of 2013 included the No. 2, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 18 ranked fresh-men. That number of recruits in the top 20 is unprecedented and created a team composed pri-marily of freshmen that is sim-ply not natural when it comes to size and athleticism.

These guys would be consid-ered a large team in the NBA. In

college, they have become mon-sters among boys when it comes to size. The three guards who get regular playing time, James Young, Aaron Harrison and Andrew Harrison, all measure at least 6 feet 6 inches in height. No guard in Wisconsin’s rotation is taller than 6 feet 3 inches.

To combat this, Wisconsin is going to have to move the ball around the perimeter quickly and negate some of Kentucky’s length with ball fakes. Very few teams are able to bang against the Wildcats down low, but for-wards Frank Kaminsky and

Nigel Hayes’ combination of skill and quickness could give them a chance in the paint.

Kentucky head coach John Calipari likes to use his team’s length and the speed that comes with blue chip recruits to create a dribble-drive system that looks NBA-esque at times. The guards slash into the paint and either try a point-blank shot or get the ball to a big man, either through a pass or offen-sive rebound.

The focus on interior scoring starts with freshman forward Julius Randle, the consensus

No. 2 recruit in Kentucky’s class. Randle is considered a future NBA lottery pick and can play with a ferocity and strength that is borderline unstoppable, averaging 15.1 points per game and 10.1 rebounds per game. Guarding him is going to require a heroic defensive effort from sophomore forward Sam Dekker or Hayes.

This attack on the rim helped the Wildcats lead the country in offensive rebounding and rank fifth nationally in free throws attempted per game. On defense, they rank eighth in blocks per

game. Their size simply allows them to do things that other teams can’t.

So how does a team like this lose as much as they have? It comes down to two things: out-side shooting and team unity. Kentucky ranks 273rd national-ly in 3-pointers per game. While the guards are big, their outside shot is weak. The Wildcats’ three guards collectively shoot 34.4 percent from deep, which would rank fifth on Wisconsin if their shots were combined into a hypothetical player. This lack of reliable outside shots should see Wisconsin pack in its defense and force the guards to show they can hit threes.

The other reason for Kentucky’s struggles has been a little more intangible, as the dis-connect between some of the five-star recruits comes more from behavior and body language.

In many of Kentucky’s losses, a disconnect can be in seen in the play between the Harrison twins and their team-mates. Neither player is very efficient when it comes to mov-ing the ball, and both are below 1.5 in assist-to-turnover ratio. Forcing the two players into bad passes and cutting off their passing lanes to a strong front-court will be key.

Overall, Kentucky has the look of a scary team. Every play-er who sees minutes for them could have a future in the NBA. But they’re young. They make mistakes. The have flaws in their system. If Wisconsin can main-tain its discipline and pester the freshmen into making mistakes, the Badgers could make their first national championship game since World War II.

‘This one’s for Butch:’ The story behind Ryan’s historic runBy Zach RastallTHE DAILY CARDINAL

Over a 38-year span from 1976 to 2013, Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan and his dad, Butch, attended every single Final Four.

Even during the years at Wisconsin where Ryan had to endure the pain of coming up short in the NCAA tour-nament, he would still attend with his dad. Butch never let his son hang his head for too long either, telling him after every agonizing March defeat that next year would be the year he and the Badgers would get there themselves.

Unfortunately, Butch Ryan will never see his son coach in the Final Four. Butch passed away last August after suffering a broken hip along with a bout of pneumonia. His death came just eight months after Bo’s mother, Louise, passed away.

So when the No. 2 seed Badgers punched their ticket to Arlington by outlasting Arizona in an overtime thriller Saturday, it was an emotional win for Bo Ryan, especially considering the significance of the day.

“It should always be about the players, but I’m going to get one comment in,” Ryan said. “Today would have been my dad’s 90th birthday. I just

thought I’d throw that in.”Despite winning four nation-

al titles during his tenure at UW-Platteville and building one of the country’s most consistent programs at Wisconsin, Bo was never quite able to get over the NCAA tournament hump. This left him with the distinction of being the best active coach in the country to never reach the Final Four.

That all changed with Wisconsin’s memorable vic-tory over the Wildcats in the Elite Eight, which advanced the Badgers to the final weekend of the tournament for the first time since 2000, when the team was coached by Dick Bennett.

The win was also extreme-ly gratifying for the group of tight-knit Wisconsin players, who have made it no secret they wanted to be the team that finally got their coach to the Final Four.

“It’s very special being a senior and being the first class to get him to the Final Four,” senior guard Ben Brust said.

Brust was among the group of four players that attended Butch Ryan’s funeral, along with redshirt senior forward Zach Bohannon, redshirt junior guard Josh Gasser and junior forward Frank Kaminsky.

“Me, Zach, Frank and Josh went out to Philadelphia for [Ryan’s] dad’s funeral,” Brust said. “We learned a lot about just how much of a star Butch was at the Final Four. For coach Ryan to get there on what would have been Butch’s 90th birthday was very cool.”

The significance of the win for Bo Ryan was evident in his postgame interview, where fans got to see a side of the coach most never have before.

When asked about his late father, an emotional Ryan had to fight back tears.

“It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough to be there coaching without him,” Ryan said. “But I can’t imagine him being any happier or my mom who passed away about a year ago.”

It certainly will be difficult for Ryan to travel to the Final Four without his dad for the first time, but attending as a coach instead of a spectator is about the best way he could honor the memory of Butch Ryan.

Bo paid tribute to his late father one last time at the end of his postgame interview Saturday, pointing to the sky while uttering one final sen-tence, perfectly summing up the win’s significance.

“This one’s for Butch.”Head coach Bo Ryan honored his late father after Saturday’s win, remembering 38 years of attending the Final Four together.

SHOAIB ALTAF/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

SHOAIB ALTAF/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Wisconsin will need to show its range against Kentucky because of the Wildcats’ size down low.

newsdailycardinal.com Monday, March 31, 2014 A3l

Police describe post-game gathering as ‘peaceful’By Patricia JohnsonTHE DAILY CARDINAL

With mere seconds left in the Badgers’ Elite Eight bas-ketball game, anxious fans watched as the team beat No. 1 seed Arizona, opening the floodgates for a city-wide stam-pede of celebration.

State Street became the desti-nation for between 8-10,000 stu-dent and nonstudent fans alike to revel in the basketball team’s accomplishment. The gather-ing also drew Madison and UW police who were prepared for a potential night of chaos.

Both Madison and UW Police Departments worked in conjunction with one anoth-er for what turned out to be

a “peaceful” event despite the boisterous crowd, according to UW-Madison Police Department spokesperson Marc Lovicott.

Both departments also increased officers on patrol in anticipation of a mass gather-ing similar to one that hap-pened after the Badgers made it to the Final Four 14 years ago, according to Lovicott.

“Once students started get-ting onto State Street, we did ask other departments, nearby municipalities to come in if they could help us but it really ended up not being necessary,” Lovicott said. “Everyone was really peaceful.”

Although there were many adventurous people in the crowd who climbed on scaf-folding and slender trees plant-ed along State Street, there were very few serious conflicts.

There were “maybe some bumps and bruises but nothing significant that was reported to us,” Lovicott said.

He also said UWPD did not

make any arrests.“We were there just in case,

just to monitor the situation, but everyone was very respect-ful and it was a great celebra-tory night,” Lovicott said.

Lt. Amy Schwartz of the Madison Police Department also expressed her relief for Saturday night’s positive atmosphere.

According to Schwartz, the crowd dissipated shortly after midnight. Schwartz said she was under the impression the MPD had very few student arrests related to the celebration.

Both Schwartz and Lovicott expect the MPD and UWPD to develop operational plans for the upcoming weekend when the Badgers take on the Kentucky Wildcats for the national semifinals.

“I’ve heard from a lot of students that were down there that they’re marking this as the high point of their whole career here at UW and we’re glad that was able to happen,” Schwartz said.

Swarming State Street WIL GIBB/THE DAILY CARDINAL

University and city police patrol State Street after Wisconsin qualified for the NCAA Final Four.

By Adelina YankovaTHE DAILY CARDINAL

When future Badgers and roommates-to-be Abigail Miller and Megan Baker first made plans to meet on University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus Sunday, they did not anticipate joining a crowd of thousands in welcoming home the Wisconsin men’s basketball team.

Like their fellow attend-ees, however, the girls quickly changed plans to accommodate a visit to the Kohl Center following the Badgers’ advancement to the Final Four Saturday night.

Among a sea of red and white, Miller and Baker await-ed the team’s arrival as the UW-Madison marching band played popular Wisconsin cheers, crowd favorites the two admitted they have yet to learn.

The event drew in dedicated Badger fans such as December 2013 graduate Daniel Mann who said he has been dili-

gent about keeping up with Wisconsin basketball.

“My heart was beating so fast that I wouldn’t need to work out ever again,” Mann said about watching the game, adding jokingly, “I’m from Minnesota so we don’t get much winning teams very often and just to have some team in a championship game is very exciting.”

While fellow spectator Kaylynn Johnson does not consider herself a basketball fanatic, she said she shared in the excitement of the game and urged her friends to join her at the Kohl Center.

“I don’t know much about basketball, but even I was ner-vous. I think [at] Wisconsin everybody’s a family, every-one’s a team,” Johnson said, gesturing across the aisle. “I don’t know anybody over on that side, but I feel like we all come together and we’re all just

one big Badger family.”Support for the Badgers

has been pouring in from all areas of the state, as pointed out by UW-Madison freshman Pamela Voegeli, who watched last night’s game at her home in Beloit, Wis.

“My whole hometown today, that’s all anybody was talking about,” Voegeli said. “I went to church, I went to a couple restaurants and … all they were talking about was the Badgers and how good they did and how good they will do.”

As the Badgers took the stage alongside head coach Bo Ryan, the crowd erupted in applause followed by more cheers as players spoke of the game ahead.

“We won some hardware, we finally got it, but, you know, our slogan is kind of ‘Why not us?’” redshirt junior guard Josh Gasser said. “Why can’t we fin-ish this thing off, why can’t we

win two more games?”Ryan expressed gratitude

toward the fans as he displayed part of the net he cut from a basket last night.

“I just wish we could take

this and put it into about 100,000 pieces and give [a piece to] every fan, everybody that supported us, the people like you that helped make all this possible,” Ryan said.

Campus welcomes Badgers back home following Elite Eight victory

DREW GILMORE/THE DAILY CARDINAL

UW-Madison fans show support for the men’s basketball team upon their homecoming at the Kohl Center Sunday.

Q&A with Arizona student reportersBy Emily GerberTHE DAILY CARDINAL

While Badger fans celebrat-ed the men’s basketball NCAA overtime win Saturday across Madison, fans of the University of Arizona took to the streets for a different reason. The Daily Cardinal spoke to Arizona sophomore Ethan McSweeney and freshman Jazmine Foster-Hall, the news editor and assis-tant news editor of The Daily Wildcat Sunday, to gain insight on the Tucson riots.

The Daily Cardinal: Can you describe the overall scene after the game? We have seen a lot of videos, but what was it like actually being there?

Ethan McSweeney: It was pretty crazy. I guess things started after the game ended – it was really close, we missed that shot at the buzzer.

There are all of these bars on University Boulevard, and so people were watching the game there and toward the end of the game people were overflowing out of the bars onto the sidewalks trying to watch the end of the game. When we lost, fans started leaving but because everyone was leaving at the same time, people were walking in the streets, police were trying to herd people off of the streets.

Jazmine Foster-Hall: I would say approximately 20 minutes after game ended was when rioting began.

EM: There were riot police already on University Boulevard before the game even ended. They lined up across University Boulevard, and they formed a wall on the street and people just startied chanting “U of A.”

They ran on to this streetcar platform, and people just saw all the riot police lined up and they started throwing stuff at

the police and they moved into the intersection in front of the police. And then the Tucson Police declared “unlawful assembly” and gave the orders in both English and Spanish.

That’s when they started firing pepper balls and throwing pepper gas canisters at fans. It was kind of a slow process of trying to move people down University Boulevard and out of the area. While they were advancing down the road they were just continually firing pepper balls and throwing pepper canisters.

DC: How do you think last night and this morning’s events will affect the relationship of students and the community with the police in the future?

EM: I don’t want to speculate, but fans and students were pretty upset with police.

JF-H: The crowd was chanting “fuck the police” at points.

EM: And they were throwing beer, they were throwing objects—firecrackers, smokebombs—at the police.

DC: How would you describe the mood on campus today? Have things died down a little bit or are they still pretty hostile?

JF-H: Students are certainly still talking about it. The majority of the students I’ve run into or that I’ve overheard speaking were definitely talking about the events from last night. The ones that I overheard were complaining about the actions of the police. I cannot say that that represents the mentality as a whole, but it does seem to be a pretty big topic of conversation on campus right now.

EM: It’s really the only thing people are talking about.

Sports DAILYCARDINAL.COMMONDAY MARCH 31, 2014

Badger basketball season timeline

After losing in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament to then-No. 3 seed Michigan State, No. 2 seed Wisconsin started its tournament run in high fashion with a 75-35 rout of No. 15 seed American, setting a school record for the largest margin of victory in an NCAA game.

From there it was off to the

races, with cruise-control vic-tories over Oregon and Baylor before emerging victorious from an overtime thriller against No. 1 seed Arizona.

The victory propelled the Badgers to their first Final Four appearance in 14 years, and the first in head coach Bo Ryan’s already illustrious career.

SHOAIB ALTAF/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Badger players react to a third-round NCAA Tournament victory over Oregon, in which UW outrebounded the Fighting Ducks 36-26.

As quickly as the January blues set in for Wisconsin, they were over just as fast. A convinc-ing win over Illinois was all it took for the Badgers to regain momentum before going on another eight-game win streak.

In the process UW took down three more AP Top 25 teams, including then-No. 8 Michigan

State and then-No. 15 teams Michigan and Iowa.

In a microcosm of the second half of the season Wisconsin fought back from a 29-19 halftime deficit against Indiana, eventu-ally winning the game 69-58 to exact revenge on the Hoosier team that handed the Badgers their first loss of the year.

COURTNEY KESSLER/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Wisconsin bench players cheer after a made basket against then-No. 8 Michigan State, a game UW went on to win 60-58.

Two months of perfect bas-ketball for Wisconsin culmi-nated in a rout of Illinois Jan. 8, giving this year’s squad sole ownership of the best start in school history, 16 straight wins.

Highlighting the sea-son-opening streak was a Championship at the Cancun Challenge after victories over

St. Louis and West Virginia. Sophomore forward Sam Dekker was also named Tournament MVP, while junior guard Traevon Jackson made the All-Tournament Team.

Over that span, the Badgers beat three Associated Press Top 25 teams, including Illinois, Florida and Iowa.

WIL GIBB/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Redshirt junior guard Josh Gasser celebrates during Wisconsin’s victory over in-state rival Marquette in December.

It has been a season of highs and lows for Wisconsin, marked by the ecstasy of big wins and the stinging pain of unexpected defeat. The Badgers began their 2013-’14 campaign on a steep upward trajectory, beating then-No. 11 Florida in just the third game of the season.

The Gators were admittedly missing five key players, includ-

ing this year’s SEC Player of the Year, senior guard Scottie Wilbekin and SEC Sixth Man of the Year, sophomore forward Dorian Finney-Smith.

Next the Badgers took down a quality Virginia team, giving head coach Bo Ryan his 300th win at Wisconsin, becoming just the ninth Big Ten coach to reach the milestone.

WIL GIBB/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Sophomore forward Sam Dekker lets loose a shot against Florida.

“Everything ends badly, oth-erwise it wouldn’t end.”

Tom Cruise might as well have been talking about the 2013-’14 Badgers in “Cocktail.”

After a spectacular 16-0 start Wisconsin went belly-up in mid-January, losing five of six games over a two-week span, includ-ing two home losses to Michigan

and Northwestern. Cold shooting doomed the

Badgers, who shot 0.413 in their skid compared to 0.459 on the season.

Wisconsin’s silver lining came in the form of freshman forward Nigel Hayes, who had break-out games off the bench against Minnesota and Ohio State.

NICK MONFELI/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

Head coach Bo Ryan addresses his team during a loss to Northwestern at home, one of UW’s four January losses.

1) Big nonconference wins 2) Best start in program history

3) Free fallin’

4) Picking up the pieces

5) A tournament for the ages

Compiled by Brett Bachman

Wisconsin basketball by the numbers:

16

321

Games Wisconsin won to start off the season, a school record

The total number of wins Bo Ryan has as head coach of the Badgers

43 The school record number of points junior center Frank Kaminsky scored against North Dakota ear-lier this season

0 Times Bo Ryan won an Elite Eight game before this season

40Wisconsin’s largest margin of victory in an NCAA

game, a record set against American in the second round of the NCAA Tournament

3 Badger victories over No. 1 seeds this year (Florida, Virginia and Arizona)

Nov. 12and

Dec. 4

Oct. 30-Jan. 8

Jan. 14-Feb. 1

Feb. 4-March 9

March 14-Present