Category: Athletics

Noted: Antonio Freeman said the players appreciated the vibrant atmosphere in the stadium. The UW athletic department said just less than 22,500 tickets were sold.

Single-game tickets to Wisconsin’s home games go on sale at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, July 20 that’s according to the UW Athletic Department.

Tickets are available for seven games.

As Corey Clement looks to carry the torch for Wisconsin’s running game in 2015, he’ll also seek to carry on the Badgers’ tradition of taking home the Doak Walker Award.

Clement was named Thursday to the preseason watch list for the honor, which is presented annually to the nation’s top running back. He doesn’t have to look far for an example of what it takes to win, either. Former UW teammate Melvin Gordon claimed the Doak Walker Award last season while rushing for 2,587 yards and scoring 32 total touchdowns.

Wisconsin women’s hockey players Mellissa Channell, Emily Clark, Sam Cogan, Ann-Renée Desbiens, Sydney McKibbon and Sarah Nurse earned invitations to the 2015 Hockey Canada National Women’s Development Team Selection Camp, Aug. 6-16, in Calgary, Alberta.

The six Badgers are among 43 invitees vying for spots on the 23-player team that will travel to Lake Placid, New York, for a three-game set against the United States’ Women’s Under-22 team Aug. 19-22.

Wisconsin men’s soccer head coach John Trask announced Thursday the addition of six student-athletes who will join the Badgers for the 2015 season.

Sam Brotherton (Auckland, New Zealand), Elan Koenig (Los Angeles), Abdul Kooistra (Madison), Isaac Schlenker (Milwaukee), Sully Tesch (Park City, Utah) and Jack Wells (Milwaukee) will join the Badgers this fall.

The University of Wisconsin men’s soccer team announced the addition of six players Thursday, including three in-state products.

While he did not leave Colorado with a spot on the U.S. roster for the Pan American Games, Nigel Hayes returned to Madison this week with two things that will come in very helpful during his junior season with the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team.

He didn’t know it yet, but Kyle Costigan’s hope for an NFL career began falling apart during his sophomore season.

The University of Wisconsin offensive lineman had sat out all but three games as a redshirt freshman because of a foot injury, an experience he wouldn’t stand for during the remainder of his college career.

Having already landed on the Maxwell Award watch list earlier this month, it was no surprise that University of Wisconsin running back Corey Clement was named to the Doak Walker Award preseason watch list Thursday.

The award, given annually to the nation’s top running back, is one the Badgers have taken home two of the past three seasons, and UW is the only school that has produced three different winners of the trophy.

Watch lists for three national defensive awards have been revealed over the last week, and Michael Caputo’s name has appeared on all three.

The Wisconsin senior safety added another preseason honor to his growing resume on Monday when he was named to the 2015 watch list for the Jim Thorpe Award, which is presented annually to the nation’s top defensive back.

Scott Tolzien had just graduated, and we were looking for a quarterback for the 2011 season. We had heard Russell Wilson was available. He only had one season left, but after we checked in with a few people we knew at N.C. State and heard what they had to say about him, we were definitely interested.

Did the UW hoops revival start with the hiring of coach Bo Ryan in 2001? With the surprise trip to the Final Four under coach Dick Bennett in 2000? With the first NCAA tournament bid since 1947 under coach Stu Jackson in 1994? The answer: None of the above. The Badgers’ slow but steady rise to relevance actually had its roots in the 1988-89 season, when a UW team led by scoring stars Trent Jackson and Danny Jones reached the NIT, the school’s first posteason bid of any kind in 42 years.

Wisconsin sophomore kicker Rafael Gaglianone made his way into the Badgers’ record books last season, with his rookie performance good enough to land him consideration for the title of the nation’s top placekicker.

The 30-player preseason watch list for the 2015 Lou Groza Award, presented annually to the best kicker in the country, was announced Thursday by the Palm Beach County Sports Commission.

Quarterback Joel Stave, tailback Corey Clement and defensive back Michael Caputo will join new University of Wisconsin football coach Paul Chryst for Big Ten Conference media day in Chicago later this month.

The league announced Thursday the player representatives for the annual two-day gathering, to be held July 30 and 31 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.

On their way to Big Ten championships and the Final Four, all eyes were on the Badgers in 2014-15 and that was confirmed by the attendance figures released by the NCAA on Monday. A capacity average of 17,279 packed the Kohl Center to help UW lead the Big Ten and finish fifth in the nation in home attendance, the program’s highest finish since 2011-12.

Three Badgers who hope to take the college football world by storm this season are among the preseason leaders for a pair of major national awards.

Junior RB Corey Clement was named to the watch list for the Maxwell Award, while junior OLB Vince Biegel and senior S Michael Caputo are among the candidates for the Bednarik Award, the Maxwell Football Club announced Tuesday.

With vivid memories of a run to the Final Four, an Outback Bowl victory and a regional final in volleyball, the Wisconsin athletic department was ranked No. 7 in the CBS Sports Best in College Sports award race for 2014-15.

Greg Gard or the field?

University of Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez announced a number of changes to his staff Monday.

During a Monday news conference announcing both a Milwaukee Bucks pre-season game and training camp in Madison, University of Wisconsin athletics officials voiced their support for a new Bucks arena.

The Milwaukee Bucks plan to play a preseason game at UW-Madison’s Kohl Center and will hold a training camp this fall in the Capital City, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The team plans to announce more details at a news conference in Madison Monday afternoon.

For all the physical and mental adjustments Frank Kaminsky will make in transitioning to the NBA, his goal for now is a simple one: play a consistent game from start to finish.

“It’s been like a tale of two halves in both games,” the former University of Wisconsin standout said after his second game as a rookie with the Charlotte Hornets, playing in the NBA Summer League. “A lot of it for me is feeling things out right now. That might come in the course of a game… the second half felt a lot more comfortable.”

The Milwaukee Bucks plan to play a preseason game at UW-Madison’s Kohl Center and will hold a training camp this fall in the Capital City, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The team plans to announce more details at a news conference in Madison Monday afternoon.

The Milwaukee Bucks will hold training camp in Madison this fall and also will play a preseason game at the Kohl Center, the team will announce Monday at a news conference in Madison.

Training camp will open on Sept. 29 and continue for four days on the UW campus, according to a source, with the Bucks holding sessions at the Badgers’ practice facility, the Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion and Plaza.

Almost four months removed from announcing he was retiring from football because of concerns about brain injury — at age 24 and after just one season in the National Football League — former Wisconsin linebacker Chris Borland hears one question over and over: How can you walk away from all that money?

Fox Sports Wisconsin on Tuesday posted Jesse Temple’s exhaustive article, “An oral history of how Barry Alvarez transformed the Wisconsin Badgers football program.”

When he sat down for an end-of-the-season chat with University of Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan this spring, athletic director Barry Alvarez wasn’t prepared for a bombshell.

Tuesday at Nicholas Johnson Pavilion, Bo Ryan addressed the media for the first time since Monday’s announcement that he’d coach just one more season at UW. The UW men’s basketball coach spoke candidly about his decision to retire. Ryan pointed to the increased demands of modern day college basketball coaches.

Seeing a group of reporters waiting, Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan moved gingerly down the main concourse at the Kohl Center.

Palmer, who served as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Syracuse the past two seasons, replaces Stacy Cantley, who left UW to take a job at Western Carolina.

Ryan’s announcement Monday that 2015-16 will be the 15th and final season of his legendary career at UW eliminated that problem once and for all. However, the Badgers now face another potential hindrance in recruiting: The uncertainty of recruits not knowing who the head coach will be, especially during the current recruiting cycle for the class of 2016.

As a group of reporters awaited Bo Ryan’s arrival at a news conference in the Kohl Center concourse Tuesday afternoon, the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball coach slowly rounded a corner using a cane to help him along. “Be right there,” he said. The prop was a lighthearted jab at reports on the Internet over the weekend that he was set to retire due to failing health. Ryan did end up announcing his retirement in a statement on Monday — he’ll coach through the end of the 2015-16 season, his 15th with the Badgers — but he made it clear in his first public comments a day later that the decision had nothing to do with his health.

Gard is the associate head coach of the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team, and he’s not looking beyond that role despite his profile getting a major boost after Ryan’s announcement on Monday that he would retire following the 2015-16 season.

They were considered, by most reasonable standards of college football, a laughingstock. An embarrassment. Young men who put everything into a season but lacked the overall depth of talent to compete with nearly every Big Ten team.

Six All-Americans and a pioneering administrator make up the decorated seven-member Wisconsin Athletics Hall of Fame class of 2015. The class includes an NCAA champion, NHL, NBA and NFL players, as well as two Olympians.

Making up the 2015 class is volleyball player Lizzy Fitzgerald, men’s soccer player Mike Gentile, men’s basketball’s Devin Harris, football star Jim Leonhard, men’s hockey skater Brian Rafalski, women’s hockey trailblazer Kerry Weiland, as well as longtime administrator Paula Bonner.

Bo Ryan has been the fire-breathing face of Wisconsin basketball for 14 seasons, pushing the Badgers to never-before-seen heights. After 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, seven Sweet 16s, four Big Ten titles, two Final Fours and a berth in last year’s national championship game, the hard-charging 67-year-old Ryan has only one more season left in him.

Is Greg Gard adequately prepared to take over the Wisconsin men’s basketball program when Bo Ryan retires after the 2015-16 season?

The 2015 class includes volleyball player Lizzy Fitzgerald, men’s soccer player Mike Gentile, men’s basketball’s Devin Harris, football star Jim Leonhard, men’s hockey player Brian Rafalski, women’s hockey player Kerry Weiland, and longtime administrator Paula Bonner.

Several former UW players also endorsed the longtime assistant basketball to take over the program following the 2015-16 season, Ryan’s 15th and final campaign with the Badgers.

When freshman Luke Opilka decided to attend the 2015 NHL Draft, he was looking forward to hearing his name called over the public address system at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida. He never could have expected the team that picked him would be his hometown St. Louis Blues.

Opilka, the first of two current Badgers to get selected in this year’s draft, went in the fifth round, 146th overall, to the Blues.

Sam Dekker’s mom, Carol Dekker, tweeted a picture of Sam Sunday with the caption, “From NBA to lawn boy!” The picture of the first-round draft pick mowing lawn went viral Sunday afternoon. The Houston Rockets drafted Dekker as the 18th pick of the 2015 draft Thursday night.

Watt skated on the ice in the first period wearing a hockey sweater with his familiar number 99. Watt took two penalty shots against NHL goaltender and former Badger Brian Elliott and slapped one in, much to the delight of more than 2,000 fans in attendance.

Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium, about 300 kids attended the Russell Wilson Passing Academy camp, run by the former UW quarterback.

Two former Badger standouts now know where they’ll begin their NBA careers. Frank Kaminsky was picked 9th overall by the Charlotte Hornets. Sam Dekker went 18th to the Houston Rockets.

Though it was a weeknight, loyal fans still headed out to Regent Street to celebrate. “It’s good to see Wisconsin be up there for a change,” one Badger fan at Lucky’s bar said.

For the first time in school history, two Badgers were selected in the first round of the same NBA Draft, as Frank Kaminsky went ninth overall to the Charlotte Hornets and Sam Dekker was taken 18th by the Houston Rockets at the 2015 NBA Draft inside the Barclays Center on Thursday night.

While much of the buzz around the NBA draft has centered around a successful night for Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker, both first round draft picks, an old sports headline is resurfacing.

In Kaminsky’s blog “The Moose Basketball” he mentioned the Charlotte Bobcats (same franchise, same fan base as the Hornets) as a reason why the NBA seemed “boring.” Kaminsky was blogging to announce that he would return to Wisconsin for his senior year. The blog read in part, “I know the NBA has their crazy fans and all, but if you look at all of their games, there are games when teams like the Bobcats get hardly any fans, and it looks flat out boring.”

“Growing up in Chicago, Michael Jordan is everything there,” Frank Kaminsky said Thursday night shortly after the Jordan-owned Charlotte Hornets selected the former Wisconsin standout with the ninth pick in the NBA draft. “He still is. I had all of his posters on my wall. ‘Space Jam’ was my favorite movie.”

Now, the Lisle, Ill., native gets to head to Charlotte to play for the man who was his idol when he was growing up a mere half-hour drive from Chicago.

Imagine making an NBA salary without even having to waste money on jackets. For former Wisconsin star Sam Dekker, that’s reality now. “Yeah, I literally thought of that right away,” said Dekker. “I was like, I can throw away some of those big coats I’ve got.”