Category: Athletics

Dear Editor: This past weekend my wife, my two young sons and I drove from our home in Kearney, Neb., to Madison to cheer on my alma mater, the University of North Dakota, in the NCAA Midwest Regional Hockey Tournament.

My wife purchased a set of great tickets: center ice, second row behind the bench, right in the middle of Badger territory.

I can honestly say that it was the best hockey weekend of my 30-plus years of life. My team ended up winning by the narrowest of margins, but they’ve won before — that’s not the reason for such a statement. What made this trip so special was how great the Wisconsin fans were. I wouldn’t have had a better time with my own friends! Loyal, fun, friendly, courteous, loud, proud, enviable.

When Kyle Turris makes his scheduled NHL debut Thursday night, it will represent all sorts of truths about the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team.

Some are admirable.

Some are hard.

University of Wisconsin athletes Jolene Anderson and Janese Banks were invited to participate in the WNBA’s pre-draft camp Friday and Saturday in Tampa, Fla., on the campus of the University of Tampa.

The 14-team league will hold its annual draft on April 9.

Brad Thorson, a once-promising offensive line recruit from Homestead High School, is leaving the University of Wisconsin football program.

“Brad is going to explore other options,” UW coach Bret Bielema said near the end of practice Tuesday morning. “He is not with us any more. I had a discussion with him yesterday.”

That discussion came two days after Thorson was involved in an incident during practice Saturday that left defensive end Dan Moore sidelined for at least the remainder of the spring with a knee injury.

UW hockey player Kyle Turris, an 18-year-old center from New Westminster, British Columbia, has agreed to sign a NHL entry level contract with Phoenix, thus bypassing his final three years of college eligibility.

Metro Transit ‘s popular and often packed “Bucky Bus ” shuttles on football Saturdays seem over.

The city, UW-Madison and others, in fact, are looking to the private sector to provide the shuttles for Badger games and other special events.

Former Wisconsin quarterback Tyler Donovan has signed a three-year contract with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League, according to his Brookfield-based agent.

Sitting in the Dane County Regional Airport Monday night, waiting for a flight out of Madison to begin his new life, Kyle Turris reflected on his one and only season as a member of the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team.

Former University of Wisconsin quarterback Tyler Donovan recently signed a three-year contract with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League, according to his agent, John Paul Perla Jr. of Brookfield.

Donovan, who threw for 2,607 yards and last season while leading the Badgers to a 9-4 record in his lone season as the primary starter, agreed to terms on March 18 after participating in a minicamp in Edmonton earlier this month.

The Eskimos are bringing four quarterbacks to camp, including Ricky Rae, who was fourth overall in passing yards last year in the CFL.

DETROIT â?? Michael Flowers continued to play relentless defense into the final minute Friday night. Joe Krabbenhoft crashed to the floor while attempting to contest a shot late in the game. Brian Butch still was battling for rebounds until he went to the bench with 22.1 seconds to play.

Ultimately, though, the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team will play together no more this season.

After a record-setting 2006-07 season, the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team sustained its level of success in 2007-08.

After establishing a school-record number of victories (30), earning the first No. 1 ranking in school history and the highest NCAA tournament seed (No. 2) in program history a year ago, the Badgers did even better in many regards this season.

Five months into the season, when you can count the number of competitive lives you have remaining on one hand, it’s awfully hard to change who you are.

Soft doesn’t become edgy. Plodding doesn’t become smooth. Unreliable doesn’t become proficient. It just doesn’t work that way.

The perilous thing about riding high on a wave is that there’s really only one way to go. The University of Wisconsin, 20 minutes away from an improbable berth in the Frozen Four, came crashing down before it could successfully navigate the final crest.

North Dakota salvaged its season with a stunning minute of play early in the third period, rallying from a two-goal deficit to tie the Midwest Regional final.

Then the Sioux, playing like the tournament veterans that they are, left the Badgers watching an opponent celebrate on their home ice.

Mike Flowers didn’t even want to look.

With 22.1 seconds left in the Midwest Regional semifinal Friday night, coach Bo Ryan raised the white flag, sending in freshmen Jon Leuer, Keaton Nankivil and Tim Jarmusz to relieve Flowers and fellow seniors Brian Butch and Greg Stiemsma. As Jarmusz trotted toward Flowers, the Madison native stared off into the distance, took the towel without turning his head and made the long, slow walk to the Badgers’ bench for the last time.

The University of Wisconsin’s season was about to come to a disappointing and surprising end with a 73-56 loss to 10th-seeded Davidson at Ford Field, closing the book on the Badgers’ run from middle-of-the-pack team in the Big Ten at the start of the season to league champion and finally Sweet 16 participant.

An improbable berth in the NCAA 2008 men’s Frozen Four was within their grasp Sunday night.

They had a two-goal lead after two periods against top-seeded North Dakota and were at home in the Kohl Center, with a crowd of 9,816 fans roaring. The University of Wisconsin Badgers had every possible edge.

Then the Fighting Sioux ripped all that away, forging a tie in the first 4-plus minutes of the third period and then getting the winner from junior forward Andrew Kozek just 1 minutes 47 seconds into overtime for a 3-2 victory in the Midwest Regional final.

In sports, no one is irreplaceable.

The University of Wisconsin mens basketball team showed us that this season. Faced with moving on without the schools all-time leading scorer and two other senior starters, the Badgers won a school-record 31 games in 2007-08 and clinched the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles.

Several minutes in to the first half of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Midwest Regional with Davidson vs. Wisconsin, fans continued to pour in to Ford Field.

Fans of the two teams playing in the first game of the night were piqued as the game stayed close through the first half.

Sure there were red cheesehead hats amongst the Badger season ticketholders, but no one beat the Polar Bear. Wearing a Badger head hat, dressed in a hairy white polar bear suit with a #32 jersey in honor of Wisconsin Center Brian Butch, Mike Montalbano looked warm.

MADISON, Wis. — It was a heartbreaking loss for UW hockey fans as the Badgers, one game away from the Frozen Four, lost to WCHA rival North Dakota.

The Badgers dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to the No. 1 seeded team in the NCAA Midwest Regional.

Andrew Kozek’s goal less than two minutes into overtime gave North Dakota the win, sending the Fighting Sioux to the Frozen Four for the fourth straight year.

In reaching the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, the Badgers have not only taken coach Bo Ryan’s teachings to heart but in some respects have taken on the personality of their coach when they’re on the court. When third-seeded Wisconsin (31-4) faces 10th-seeded Davidson (28-6) in the Midwest Regional semifinal at 6:10 tonight at Ford Field, the Badgers will do so with the same even-keel, heady and hard-nosed approach that has served both coach and players so well.

When Wisconsin faces Davidson on Friday night in the N.C.A.A. tournamentâ??s Midwest Region semifinal, the game will be billed as a bout between a mighty program from the powerful Big Ten and a charming little upstart.

That perspective makes for a perfect made-for-television David vs. Goliath story line. But, more accurately, this game is Wisconsin versus the world.

Don’t know about you, but I subscribe to the theory that the best football teams run 50 percent of the time and pass 50 percent of the time. And the best basketball teams are equal parts perimeter- and interior-oriented.

And the best sports schools in America celebrate both sports on equal terms.

In my four blurry years of University of Wisconsin studentry, I did more than learn to make up words. I also ran the table of ineptitude with four bad basketball teams and four football teams that combined for an almost unimaginably foul record of — are you ready for this? — 9-35 during the 1988-91 seasons.

Officials at Ford Field in Detroit say new seating arrangements allowed them to pack in 74,000 ticket holders to this year’s NCAA games.

The laws of economics are making some Badger fans very happy this weekend.

27 News discovered some extremely cheap deals on online ticket websites, including StubHub.

The last time the University of Wisconsin hosted an NCAA men’s hockey regional, it was met with a collective yawn from area fans.
A 1999 regional played at the Alliant Energy Center Coliseum drew only 5,234 fans for the two-day event that featured four games.

The fact the Badgers weren’t one of the six teams in the regional — they failed to make the NCAA field that season — was the biggest reason for the poor ticket sales.

Another low turnout at this weekend’s Midwest Regional hosted by UW appeared likely until everything broke just right for the Badgers last weekend and they were included in the 16-team NCAA tournament field despite a losing record.

OMAHA — Somewhere among the socks, shirts and toiletries Michael Flowers packed to take with him to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament is a No. 22 jersey. It is significantly smaller than the No. 22 jersey Flowers wears during games, the one with “Wisconsin” stitched across the front.

Michael Flowers is flying.

But for all the athleticism the University of Wisconsin senior possesses, he isn’t pulling a Michael Jordan and soaring to the hoop. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. He’s crashing to the floor . . . on his back.

This season has been one of the best examples of how well Bo Ryan’s class system works with his University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team.

Wisconsin’s school-record 31 victories and reaching the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 are important milestones for a team that has won with a strong senior class as well as strong juniors and sophomores.

But the freshman class that includes forwards Keaton Nankivil, Jon Leuer and Tim Jarmusz will probably end up benefiting the most from it. And that’s exactly how Ryan, the UW coach, wants it.

If you ask what impressed him the most about the University of Wisconsin during the first two rounds of the NCAA men’s tournament, CBS game analyst Dan Bonner at first won’t mention anything in particular that happened on the basketball court.

He will tell you he was first impressed by the way the Wisconsin players talked and acted off the court

“What I’m going to tell you is corny. It’s been a long time since I have been as impressed with kids and the way they comported themselves, the way they talked, as I was with those Wisconsin kids,” Bonner said during a phone interview Monday. “That’s what impressed me the most, just the quality of the kids that they have.”

Three straight trips to the NCAA title game is a pretty noteworthy accomplishment.

The last one didn’t turn out the way the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team hoped Saturday, but there was some satisfaction in the difficult five-month journey.

Instead of a record-tying third consecutive national title, the Badgers were left to deal with a 4-0 loss to Minnesota-Duluth in the championship game at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center.

Maintaining a mind-set of staying under the radar has suited the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team well throughout the course of the season.

Coach Bo Ryan always has refused to feed into the national obsession with polls, seeds and pundits’ opinions, and that approach won’t change as the third-seeded Badgers (31-4) prepare to meet 10th-seeded Davidson (28-6) Friday night in a Sweet 16 game at Ford Field in Detroit.

If you think Ryan is going to offer a nugget on his surging Badgers playing an underdog like Davidson, the seventh-year UW coach won’t oblige.

In college basketball, nobody really wants to be Goliath.

But Friday night in Detroit in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA mens basketball tournament, the University of Wisconsin Badgers will be Goliath against everyone’s David.

University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach Lisa Stone said Saturday night that it was hard to watch the NCAA tournament knowing the Badgers won’t be playing in the big dance.

It’ll be equally tough for Stone and her squad to follow the rest of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, now that they’re no longer a part of that soiree either. UW’s season came to an ignominious end at the Field House Saturday, as Villanova bounced the Badgers from the WNIT with a 60-54 victory in a second-round matchup before a crowd of 1,382.

There weren’t many words on the voice mail messages that flooded Davis Drewiske’s cell phone in a matter of a few minutes Saturday night.

“It was just a bunch of screaming and yelling,” the University of Wisconsin hockey captain said.

That’s probably well enough, because there might not be words to explain everything that happened to get the Badgers into the NCAA tournament.

DULUTH, Minn. — It was going to be the end of the line either way, so there was no question that the goodbyes they said to three seniors were going to be emotional when they returned to their locker room inside the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.

A shutout loss gave the emotions a tinge of sadness instead of joy for the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team after Saturday’s national championship game.

UW players credited Minnesota-Duluth as a deserving champion after a 4-0 final in the last game of the season, but the Badgers quickly turned to thoughts of a successful season that just didn’t have the perfect ending.

OMAHA, Neb. — Brian Butch spent a moment imagining the task Kansas State coach Frank Martin had trying to prepare, in one day, his freshman-laden team to play the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team in an NCAA tournament game.

“I get a lot of attention drawn towards me and that opens up someone like Trevon,” said Butch, referring to the Badgers’ point guard, Trevon Hughes.

“Now Trevon is going to get a lot of attention and that opens up the next guy. So you try to take away things and you can’t because you have too many guys to make plays,” he concluded.

Jinelle Zaugg, Jessie Vetter and a number of other Badgers ended the last two years as national women’s hockey champions. But not this year.

It was no contest, the 72-55 victory that sent Wisconsin to the Sweet 16. More than that, it was instructive of just how thoroughly dangerous the Badgers can be as this event moves along.

Late Saturday, after Princeton and Boston College had won their respective league tournaments to provide the University of Wisconsin with the final push it needed to move up in the PairWise rankings and qualify for the NCAA Division I men’s hockey tournament, UW defenseman Davis Drewiske got a few phone messages.

“I was talking to (teammate) Michael Davies,” Drewiske said after practice Sunday night. “While I was on the phone with him I got four other calls, four other voice mails.

“No one said a word in any of the voice mails. It was just a bunch of screaming and yelling.

“We’re just really excited.”

As expected, the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team made the NCAA tournament despite having a losing record.

The third-seeded Badgers (15-16-7) will be on home ice for their regional semifinal at 5:30 p.m. Saturday against No. 2 seed Denver (26-13-1), as UW is playing host to the Midwest Regional at the Kohl Center.

DULUTH, Minn. — It’ll be a national championship rematch.

Minnesota-Duluth didn’t record a shot on goal in the second period and was outshot 43-15 for the game but edged New Hampshire 3-2 Thursday in the second Frozen Four women’s hockey semifinal.

The Bulldogs (33-4-1) will play the University of Wisconsin (29-8-3) in Saturday’s championship game. Last season, the Badgers beat UMD 4-1 in Lake Placid, N.Y., for their second straight national title.

OMAHA, Neb. — The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team is like modern art to many folks. They look at it, stare at it and study it but never really understand why anybody is a fan of it.

The Badgers’ 71-56 victory over Cal State Fullerton during a first-round NCAA tournament game Thursday night at the Qwest Center is a great example.

Duluth, Minn. – Wisconsin’s smallest player had the biggest game-changing moment Thursday.

Erika Lawler scored once and added an assist to lead the Badgers past Harvard, 4-1, in the semifinals of the 2008 women’s hockey Frozen Four.

DULUTH, Minn. â?? Mark Johnson skated a couple of analytical shifts before the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey coach produced his most important thought Thursday night.

“On this stage,” he said of the NCAA Frozen Four, “you have to come up with big plays at certain points in the game.”

It helps to have so many seasoned, reliable, capable contributors eager to make those moments come to life.

Mitch Buenger didnâ??t realize he was making Racine swimming history.

During a phone interview Wednesday, the Horlick High School graduate and University of Wisconsin freshman found out that he is just the second Racine swimmer, and the first in three decades, to earn a spot at the NCAA Division I National Swimming and Diving Championships.

Omaha, Neb. – Considering that Wisconsin has won with few if any style points this season, this was a fitting way to begin the NCAA tournament.

The Badgers (30-4) struggled in spells but scrapped and fought their way to a 71-56 victory Thursday night over Cal State Fullerton in the first round of the Midwest Regional at the Qwest Center to earn a second-round berth against 11th-seeded Kansas State at 3:20 p.m. Saturday.

DULUTH, Minn. â?? Jinelle Zaugg has been in this exact spot.

For the third straight year, the senior left winger scored two goals in a NCAA Frozen Four game to lift the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team to victory.

OMAHA, Neb. — Somebody is always trying to show up Jason Bohannon.

When he committed to play for the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team, some fans had the audacity to wish Wauwatosa East’s Jerry Smith had committed instead.

His name is dirt in Iowa even though Bohannon was a prep superstar at Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa, and his dad, Gordy, was a star quarterback for Hayden Fry and the Hawkeyes.

OMAHA, Neb. â?? As of early Wednesday evening, the dislocated right elbow suffered by Brian Butch in last season’s game at Ohio State had been viewed 132,810 times on YouTube.

The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team’s senior starting center, though, hasn’t been able to stomach watching his fall to the floor â?? and ensuing gruesome injury that cost him a chance to play in last year’s NCAA tournament.

OMAHA, Neb. â?? Seeing was believing for Cal State Fullerton senior guard Frank Robinson during Wednesday’s shootaround at the Qwest Center.

Robinson had seen the roster and broken down the DVDs, so he knew the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team was big.