Wisconsin loses in Sweet 16 to Butler

I can't really say I'm surprised by this loss. Even aside from how flat the team has looked since the end of the regular season, it's tough to bet on a UW squad to go far in the tournament. The blueprint has been the same all the way back to the pre-Bo days: play defense, and hope someone gets hot. No one did today. At least the Law of Gus tried to make an appearance.

Aside from all the bricks, one thing that drove me craziest in tonight's game was the announcers complaining that Wisconsin was shooting too many jump shots. Hello, Gus Johnson? How many Wisconsin games did you watch this year? That's UW's game. They live and die by the jump shot.

I made a last-minute change to have UW go to the elite 8 in my bracket - I originally had them losing in the second round to K-State. For quite a while, K-State was actually my pick out of the mess that is the southeast bracket. Really though, I didn't like any of the top 5 teams in the bracket. If I had remembered that Butler went to the final four last year that might have been enough for me to pick them to win it. Instead I have Florida winning that region.

Playoff Scenarios

There was a bunch of debate around the interwebs about UW's chances at the Rose Bowl due to their loss at MSU. If MSU, aOSU, and UW end up in a 3-way tie (which is what I think happens), these are the rules (from the Big Ten website):

Unless ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the final BCS poll, the conference champion shall participate in the Rose Bowl. The championship shall be determined on the percentage basis of conference games (tie games counts ½ win and ½ loss). If there is a tie for the championship, the Rose Bowl representative will be determined as follows:

...

If more than two teams tie for the championship, the same selection procedures shall be followed with the following exceptions:

1. If three teams are tied, and if one team defeated both of the other teams, then that team shall be the representative.
2. If three teams are still tied, and if two of the three teams defeated the third team, the third team is eliminated, and the remaining two teams shall revert to the two-team tie procedure.
3. If three teams are still tied, and there is a tie game between two of the three teams, or if two or all three of the teams did not play each other, the representative shall be determined on a percentage basis of all games played.
4. If three teams are still tied, and one of the three teams is eliminated through the percentage basis of all games played, the remaining two teams shall revert to the two-team tie procedure.
5. If three teams are still tied, and all three teams have the same winning percentage of all games played, the highest-ranked team in the final BCS standings shall be the representative.

In this scenario, we have aOSU, MSU, and UW all as one-loss teams: aOSU to UW, UW to MSU, and MSU to Iowa. Cases 1 and 2 will not come into play because they're all one-loss teams. Cases 3 and 4 won't come into play because MSU does not play aOSU and all the teams will have the same overall record. Thus it comes down to case 5, the BCS standings. Since Wisconsin will have lost the least-recently I would say there's a good chance they come out on top, but the big question would be whether Ohio State would re-leapfrog them after a win over Iowa.

Most likely monkey wrenches (in order of likelihood)

1. Michigan State defeats Iowa, goes undefeated. This is my biggest worry - Iowa has to be seriously deflated after the loss to Wisconsin and it remains to see how they'll respond


2. Iowa defeats Ohio State, loses to Michigan State. In this case UW and MSU would be tied at the top of the standings, and MSU would advance on the head-to-head win.


3. Iowa defeats Ohio State and MSU. In this case we'd be looking at a three-way tie between Iowa, MSU, and UW. MSU would got to the Rose Bowl in this case, as Iowa's non-conference loss to AZ would eliminate it per case 3, and then MSU would win on the strength of their win vs UW.


4. Wisconsin loses to Denard Robinson. You never know what will happen in the Big House. Michigan's defense is awful but Robinson can win a game by himself.


5. MSU loses to PSU in the last game of the season. PSU is fading big-time down the stretch, but they're still tough to beat at home, and MSU still looks beatable by a good team.

VICTORY: aOSU 18 - Wisconsin 31 (update: with Packers prediction)

What a game. Wisconsin jumped off to a great start and weathered a second half Ohio State comeback to deliver a convincing victory over the Buckeyes at Camp Randall. Everything was firing on all cylinders tonight. Clay and White were able to move the ball against the Buckeyes front line, with a big assist to the incredible performance by the offensive line. When OSU began shutting down the run in the second half UW opened up the passing game and Tolzien marched the Badgers down the field for the game-sealing TD.

Overrated Heisman candidate Terrelle Pryor showed flashes of why he's a Heisman favorite but generally had a poor game. For the first half he looked exactly like the QB I thought he was - tentative, making poor throws, but not really making any specific mistakes (i.e. he didn't throw any should-be-picks that I can remember). Just generally ineffective. In the second half though - wow. His accuracy suddenly went waaay up and he seemingly surrounded himself with a forcefield whenever any Wisconsin player got near him. He had two or three ridiculous plays where he dodged defenders and made a seemingly desperate heave for an easy first down to a wide open reciever. His only truly awful throw was the last play of the game (an INT).

Generally I've been giving a game ball but so many players did a great job in this game. This was truly a team effort. I do want to recant everything I said about David Gilreath being merely average. He had a great game in the biggest game in his career.

Next week the Badgers travel to Iowa to play one of the toughest teams in the Big Ten with a home field advantage as great as the Badgers. After the emotional win this has a large flashing sign saying "LETDOWN GAME", and I expect Iowa to handle Wisconsin easily.

Update: Packers prediction: Green Bay 20 Miami 17 in an ugly game

Random thoughts on Iowa-Wisconsin

Wisconsin plays Iowa this week in Camp Randall, a huge game for both teams.

For the Badgers, they really need a bounceback win after last week's loss at Ohio State. That was an incredibly frustrating game. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the final score and the state sheet were so far apart - Wisconsin really dominated that game (especially the defense).

For the Hawkeyes, this might be their toughest game of the entire season (excepting maybe a bowl game). After watching UW's defense completely shut down OSU's offense and seeing Iowa's defense (especially their D-Line) shut down Penn State, Iowa should run roughshod over the Buckeyes, in Colombus or not. They're a really good football team.

I'm kind of torn here. Of course I want to root for the Badgers. But I also think that Iowa is easily the best team in the Big Ten, and they need to go undefeated to have a shot at making the National Championship game (which they've already been hosed out of playing in once - I forget the year). Having the Big Ten win something for once would be huge for the conference in general. Ohio State will never be a championship team with Pryor at QB, and they don't have Beanie Wells to bail out the offense anymore either. So I guess I'm just going to root for a great game and see what happens.