UW-Madison Athletic Department says Junior Forward Sam Dekker announced Friday that he will forego his final season of eligibility at the University of Wisconsin and enter the 2015 NBA Draft.
Wisconsin basketball senior Frank Kaminsky was named the winner of the 2015 John R. Wooden Award on Friday morning. The 6-foot-10 forward has now swept all significant player of the year awards. The John R. Wooden Award is determined by the votes of nearly 1,000 college basketball experts.
In a much-anticipated move, Sam Dekker will leave the University of Wisconsin and enter the NBA draft. He released a letter on his Twitter account @dekker.
Frank Kaminsky did not help Wisconsin win the national title he and his teammates so desperately wanted.
The Wooden Award completes a sweep for Kaminsky of all the major player of the year awards.
Constituents of the UW men’s hockey team became more and more outspoken during its six-month drive to 4-26-5, an atrocious, unprecedented run that concluded with a last-place finish in the Big Ten Conference and the most losses in school history.
Sensing that too many of his players werent executing at the level he expects, Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst delivered a stern and passionate post-practice speech.
INDIANAPOLIS — Across the street from the hotel where the Wisconsin men’s basketball team was staying, Andy North stood next to his wife, Sue, staring blankly into the distance. It was the same look he had 70 minutes earlier while shoulder to shoulder with Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the Badgers’ section at Lucas Oil Stadium.
The tournament’s final game, the Duke/Wisconsin National Championship, netted the highest rating for a NCAA title game in 18 years.
While television viewers watched replays of a controversial out-of-bounds call during Monday night’s national championship game, the referees did not see the same pictures and stuck with their original ruling.
Among the masses watching Monday nights NCAA final, a very select few remembered the last time the Badgers played in the national basketball championship.
Sam Dekker sat in his stall in the Wisconsin locker room, his uniform still on, and, between sobs and sighs, tried to explain as well as he could why the Badgers failed in their quest to win a national championship.
Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan delivered a poignant message to his players minutes after the most bitter defeat of the season, a defeat they may never forget.
UW coach Mike Eaves fired assistants Gary Shuchuk and Matt Walsh, a shocking development that evolved out of discussions Eaves had with UW athletic director Barry Alvarez.
The Wisconsin Badgers men’s basketball team stood out on the national stage this season for reasons the Dukes and Kentuckys of the college sports world can’t touch.Thank you, Coach Bo Ryan and Co., for the example and lift your team gave to our city and state.
The day after the NCAA championship game, UW was the hottest topic on the airwaves, in print or in cyberspace. The Badgers’ 68-63 loss to Duke and their uncharacteristically negative postgame demeanor turned into a national discussion.
The Wisconsin Badgers men’s basketball team came up a little bit short in the national championship game against Duke on Monday. Joy Cardin and UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank discuss what the program means for the university, especially its great run in 2015.
No one in the Wisconsin locker room was ready. Not one.
One of most historic seasons in Wisconsin men’s basketball history ended in not-so-great fashion for the Badgers, as they fell to Duke 68-63 in Monday night’s national championship game.
The best season in Wisconsin men’s basketball history will end on the most disappointing of notes.
The package deal has delivered Duke another national championship.
Madison police said five people were arrested on State Street after the Badgers lost to Duke in the NCAA Championship game Monday night.
More than a dozen employees and volunteers at the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County are singing the praises of their boss tonight.
It has been quite the journey for the Badgers and for their fans. Despite the outcome, fans who traveled to Indianapolis for the Championship game say its a season they’ll never forget.
Police said there were no major issues Monday night as fans filed out of the bars on State Street following the Badgers loss to Duke.
The Wisconsin Badgers are devastated after their loss in the NCAA Mens Basketball Championship Game.
The last time the Badgers played in an NCAA championship basketball game, the mascot wasnt named Bucky and the most popular winter sport wasnt basketball, according to fun facts released Monday by UW-Madison in advance of the Badgers showdown tonight with the Duke Blue Devils.
Badgers fans had staked out seats in taverns, the Memorial Union and other spots with the expectation of seeing Wisconsin beat Duke on Monday night in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game in Indianapolis.
Final Four heartbreak. A remarkable season — arguably the most memorable in the history of the Wisconsin basketball program — ended in the same gut-wrenching manner as last season.
Badgers coach Bo Ryan was asked, as many coaches are at the end of a season, what he will remember most about seniors Kaminsky, Traevon Jackson, Duje Dukan and Josh Gasser. His response showed how much the group meant to him. “If you’ve ever played on a team, if you were ever in the service, if you were ever with a company for a long period of time, there’s things that happen and things that develop. It’s hard to describe ’em. It’s just an inner feeling that you have. But this group was so together and enjoyed each other’s company and could needle each other. They did a lot of good things.”
The Badgers’ dream of winning an NCAA title — a season-long mission for a team that won more games than any other in program history — ended with a 68-63 loss to Duke on Monday night in the championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Columnist praises Badger team because they “enthusiastically embraced a prominent, stressful project and insisted that we all tag along … confidently told us about their intent to do something big and bold … doggedly showed us the necessities for handling adversity … passionately demonstrated the value of respect and friendship … (and) joyfully maximized every step of the journey.”
Downtown Indianapolis was a sea of red as Badgers fans swarmed to town determined not to miss out on a chance to witness history as the University of Wisconsin basketball team played in the national championship game for the first time since 1941.
Hoop Scoop, a college basketball website, released its annual rankings of the top 60 college basketball coaches this week and Bo Ryan comes in at No. 6.
As painful as it was for UW to fall one game short of its goal, a five-point loss to a fellow No. 1 seed in a closely contested national championship game shouldn’t shake anyone’s belief that this Badgers team was everything the players told us it was. It failed to end a 74-year drought between NCAA titles for the school, but UW made believers out of just about everyone with its stunningly efficient offensive play, its steely resolve late in games and its news-conference antics that amused the nation.
UW-Madison fans, so hopeful this was the year, took Monday’s 68-63 loss to Duke in the NCAA championship game with varying amounts of sadness, grief and frustration.
INDIANAPOLIS — This Duke team was forged not over years but months, weeks, days. Its genesis was a Friday afternoon in November 2013, when the star high schoolers Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor coordinated their commitments to Coach Mike Krzyzewski and a Blue Devils program that was changing before his eyes.
It was a wild night for Madison when the Badgers defeated the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday. Now with the final big game against Duke coming up, the city is preparing for a lot more of March Madness.
While O’Brien and Nytes admit they miss plenty about their birthplace and their college town, they’ve made a life for themselves in Indy. O’Brien spends his days at Printing Partner while Nytes has served 12 years on city council and is most recently the CEO of the city’s library.
‘It’s hard to be humble when you’re from Wisconsin,’ UW alum, accordion player says.
Otis Christianson may only be 4 months old, but he has attended seven Badgers games — six at the Kohl Center and one with his own ticket at Lucas Oil Stadium Saturday night.
“This has been a long time coming for me,” Dr. Tami Cassis said. “I’m Boo Hoo Badger. I’m hardcore. He’s Big Blue Nation. Mr. Big Blue Nation.”
The group of goofballs continued their comedy routine during their National Championship Press Conference. They’re playing for the first national title at Wisconsin since 1941, but they still had a little fun with their answers.
The Final Four schools represented in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament are powerhouses not only on the court, but also in the research lab.
Before the Badgers take on the NCAA championship, they took over Twitter this past weekend. #OnWisconsin remained a top trend in Wisconsin on Twitter through Monday morning.
As we’re counting down the hours until this year’s NCAA championship game, Badgers head coach Bo Ryan says he’s looking forward to one specific moment after Wisconsin’s victory.
It’s a rare occasion for Traevon Jackson here at the Final Four, the opportunity to share his successes with his father in attendance. Jim Jackson is an analyst for the Big Ten Network and spends much of the college basketball season on the road, but this week Jim is in Indy, able to watch his son in person.
The Badger basketball players are about to play the biggest game of their lives. Yet, they had a hard time staying focused at the press conference for the national championship.
Walking along State Street Sunday morning, you’d never know that less than 12 hours earlier the historic strip was jam-packed with thousands of screaming Badger fans. Students were singing songs in the streets, swinging from trees and chanting 38-1, a playful jab at Kentucky’s perfect season coming to an end at the hands of the Badgers.
Michael Braley, who owns Braley Design, said he created a shirt reading simply “38-Wisconsin” after the Badgers bested the Wildcats in a national semifinal game this weekend.
The Badgers must somehow regroup from the biggest victory in modern school history and play Duke for the real national championship tonight at Lucas Oil Stadium. And they have less than 48 hours to do it.
Two men who didn’t even know each other when Wisconsin played Kentucky in last year’s Final Four are now linked by blood.
Alvarez, a member of the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame, admits to experiencing a non-football event that sits on a higher plane.That happened last April when the UW men’s basketball team advanced to the NCAA Final Four in Arlington, Texas.
Bohannon, a 24-year-old from Marion, Iowa, is still at UW working on two major projects. One is an MBA to go along with his undergraduate degree in economics and master’s in life science communications. The other is a book about that magical season a year ago.
Kaminsky may be the biggest rock star on the team, but he’s not the only one as the Badgers prepare for their second consecutive Final Four appearance.
Jackson, who returned to the lineup last week after missing 19 consecutive games while recovering from a broken right foot, said he’s feeling more comfortable now that he has two games under his belt.
With 116 victories in his four seasons as a starter he missed the 2012-13 season due to knee surgery, Gasser has played in more wins than anyone who has worn a UW uniform. Fellow senior Duje Dukan, who redshirted the same year Gasser did, has been there for every one of those wins, though he played sparingly his first two seasons. Another teammate, senior Frank Kaminsky, has played in 113 victories, but he didn’t get major minutes until his junior season.
Ryan, 67, takes a 357-124 record at UW into tonight’s championship game. His quest for the Hall of Fame was built largely on the profound impact he has had at the Division I and III levels.
UW-Madison officials and local police are preparing for potentially one of the most historic parties the city has seen if the Badger men’s basketball team wins the national championship Monday.
What’s Bo Ryan’s secret? Barry Alvarez, the University of Wisconsin athletic director, gets asked that a lot. People want to know how Ryan does it, how he wins and wins with players some big-time college basketball programs wouldn’t touch, how his teams consistently display toughness and character.
