To Watch Tonight

Tonight will complete the Ohio State collapse when the #5 Buckeyes Men's Basketball team travels to Madison and the Kohl Center to play #4 Wisconsin.

This should be a superb matchup. Numbers wise, the two teams couldn't be closer, with the biggest margin come in PPG, where the difference is 3 points.

The biggest concern is how well UW will handle big man Greg Oden. Sure, we've got a couple of big guys, but they're mostly doofy looking white dudes who could very easily be overmatched.

Wisconsin is a team that looks to exploit mismatches, and I'm not sure how many they'll find tonight.

Surely the "name recognition" players couldn't be more different. Oden's a guy people can't miss. At 7 foot, he's not someone any team will be able to look past. He's averaging 14.4 ppg and, not surprisingly, 9.5 rpg.

Alando Tucker's a big less obvious. He's 6-6. Until this year, he wasn't a household, or even a SportsCenter name. But he's averaging over 20 points a game, along with 4.6 boards per game.

What should be key to the matchup is whether it's Alando's advantage in ppg or Oden's advantage in rpg that play the biggest role.

I'm going to argue that this game is most important to the Badgers. We're still the team with something to prove. Everyone knew Ohio State was going to be here, but coming into the season, UW was ranked in the teens.

This game should be the difference maker in terms of conference championships. But, as this article argues, this game has a lot of perception implications for the Big Ten. Everyone's down on the Big Ten, saying it's having an uninspiring and not-so-prolific year. And while that may be true, tonight's matchup pits two likely Final Four teams.


Today's odd fact that may actually affect tonight's game: Since Bo Ryan became head coach, the Badgers are 39-2 at the Kohl Center, losing only to Illinois each of the last two seasons.


Here We Go Badgers, Here We Go!

(I was going to say Go Big Red, but that wouldn't really narrow it down, would it?)