They did it!
The Wisconsin Badgers, who were 5-5 and looking like an NIT team, not an NCAA Tournament team, after 10 games, did it.
UW, which was 6-6 through 12 Big Ten Conference games in early February and the epitome of an inconsistent team which could not stack together three or four strong games, did it.
Greg Gard, who so clearly struggled to find the right lineup combinations when Kobe King was on this roster, found all the proper groupings of players after King left the team in late January.
Wisconsin, which seemed like a bubble team in early February and was still nothing more than a 7 seed with one week left in February, could now get a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. That is entirely realistic and possible.
The Badgers, who lacked Micah Potter for 10 games this season, and did not have either King or Brad Davison for the season-changing February 1 win over Michigan State, reeled off eight straight Big Ten wins to capture the conference’s regular-season championship and a No. 1 seed at next week’s Big Ten Tournament.
This was not and is not Greg Gard’s most talented Wisconsin team. This team did not have a superstar. It did not have a dominant “eff you” takeover player, though D’Mitrik Trice played the role of that kind of performer for one night in Ann Arbor against Michigan on Feb. 27. This Wisconsin team had to do it together. It had to figure out how to play the typically blended basketball the Badgers usually need, when they don’t have a Sam Dekker or Frank Kaminsky on the roster.
There have been better teams in Wisconsin basketball history. There have been more fun and elegant teams in Badger hoops annals. Yet, for this team to win the Big Ten title after ALL the hardship, all the outside interference from the NCAA, all the inner turmoil such as the Erik Helland (strength coach) resignation midway through the season, rates as one of the greatest accomplishments in UW basketball’s existence.
This team — no matter what it does at the Big Ten or NCAA Tournaments — has achieved a piece of immortality. No one in Madison will ever forget the 2020 Badgers, the team everyone (including myself) thought was second-rate… until it won eight straight games and won a trophy.
Champions of the heart, champions of the hardwood, champions of the Big Ten. This is a very B1G deal, and don’t let anyone else in the Big Ten ever forget it.