Wednesday Night Stories: March Madness

Tomorrow is a wonderful day.

The Badgers and the NCAA Tournament meet again.

Let me explain the two steadfast rules of Badger athletics.

1. We will play to the level of our competition.

Football, for example, Wisconsin will eek by an inferior team like San Diego State 13-6 at home one week. But, then the next week, beat a top 5 team. We play well against good teams and bad against bad teams. No game is a guaranteed win, but also no game is a guaranteed loss.

This means I wasn't surprised that a Badger team that earlier knocked off the undefeated Ohio State squad later put up 33 points against Penn State. Not surprising at all.

2. We will defy expectations.

This applies positively and negatively.

If Wisconsin is a pre-season favorite, we will be awful. If we are a pre-season underdog, we will be a top-10 team. Take this year for example, picked by some to finish 8th or 9th in the Big 10 for football we went to the Rose Bowl. Same for basketball, and the Badgers spent a good chunk of the season as a top 12 team.

However, remember back to my senior year when on a glorious Monday our basketball team arose to the #1 spot in the rankings . . . then on Tuesday we lost to a forgettable Indiana team. This is what we do. So please, please root against us.

Knowing this you can enter my world and look back on the 2009 NCAA Tournament. I was in East Asia and looking at a 13 hour time difference, but the Badgers has somehow managed to grab a 12 seed and get in the tournament, thus keeping our consecutive NCAA streak alive. Better yet, we won our first round game against Florida State in overtime and advanced to the 2nd round.

So for the 2nd round game, a few of us decided to stay up and watch it.

Only thing is, with the time change the game would be at 2:20 in the morning. It would be starting at 2:20 in the morning.

So, ending around 4:30.

But a couple other Badgers came over to our apartment and through the wonder of the internet we all watched the game. While trying to remain quiet so our French roommate who hadn't yet become fully converted to the wonders of Wisconsin could sleep. He eventually came around later in the year. No one can resist Wisconsin for too long.

All in all, even though we ended up losing to Xavier and losing a lot of sleep, but it was a pretty fantastic night.

Here's the the 2011 edition.

Also, if you get nothing out of this. Remember: Bo wants you to read.