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BOSTON, Mass. -- The Badgers advanced to the 2012 Sweet 16, and that meant @BadgerMBB sent out 16 Tweets with observations and commentary leading up to the matchup between No. 4 Wisconsin and top-seeded Syracuse.

Patrick Herb and Karl Anderson were in Boston with the team. Check out the Field of 68 and Field of 32 to see what you missed while the team was in Albuquerque.

16. Seems like an appropriate way to launch the #Badgers #Fieldof16. Beautiful Boston: http://t.co/tXxqmDEv

15. Scout team has a new weapon at its disposal for practice tonight. Former #Badgers big-man Paul Grant. http://t.co/69ybODtA

14. Snooping around TD Garden & found a familiar name. @GregStiemsma with a nice corner locker. http://t.co/r5JQ0uq5

13. #Badgers photoshoot going on. Amusing watching these clowns try to look tough. http://t.co/d9Xc6Ndp

12. Found out-parquet floor was special ordered for Garden & seats are black/gold cuz Bruins own bldg http://t.co/n2FOFZLT

11. It gives me great pleasure to announce that no #Badgers players, staff, families, band, cheerleaders got sick last night.

10. Unlike ABQ when #Badgers had early games, today they're using their shoot-around at TD Garden. http://t.co/VsB5bqs7

9. After practice the team peeked into @Celtics locker room... They're just fans like the rest of us. http://t.co/b2xCNE6l

8. Bo Ryan left a note for a certain #Celtics player he knows. http://t.co/v6NZQAf0

7. Unofficial superstition poll: Of the 9 UW staff that wore suits in Albuquerque, 5 packed the exact same 2 suits for Boston.

6. @Packers legend Antonio Freeman will be at tonight's game wearing the #Badgers red. As Al Michaels would say, "He did what?"

5. #Badgers send-off at hotel... First goosebumps of the day http://t.co/LDktb2yo

4. Even teams' warm-up drills are contrasting. Syracuse is practicing every style of dunk possible, #Badgers shooting jumpers.

3. #Badgers will wear red uniforms in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009 when Bucky was a No. 12 seed.

2. It's gonna feel like a road game in here for Bucky, & I think that's just the way the #Badgers would like it. #RoadWarriors

1. The Gameday blog is live from courtside... let's goooooooo! http://t.co/ASBRlfae

It happens every season, but it remains a jolt. Unless a team goes the distance, the basketball season ends suddenly. A player is in the routine of practices, scouting reports, road trips and all the rest. This time of year is especially hectic. The road trips are longer. The stage is bigger. The lights are brighter.

Then it is over. No more practices. No more scouting reports. No more road trips.

Even for someone who just announces games, it is a jolt. As someone who has seen more practices than I can count, at times it can seem like Groundhog Day. Then I miss it. Imagine how a player feels.

There are years when a team's final game is ugly, when you know that group simply did not have it. Sometimes a team loses because it runs out of gas. This Wisconsin team appeared to have plenty in the tank. It just ran out of time. At least this year's Badgers know they went down swinging against talent-rich Syracuse. One could argue that last Thursday's Sweet 16 game in Boston was the best game of the tournament so far.

For that reason, I left TD Garden feeling both good and lousy for the players, coaches and support staff. Good because the Badgers did nearly everything right. Sure, they could have made a couple of more free throws, or finished another play or two near the basket. That happens with every team nearly every game. The Badgers proved to be the toughest of outs, and there is no shame in that.

I felt lousy because I thought they deserved better. Yeah, I am a touch biased. I wanted to see Jordan Taylor nail one more big shot. Then again, if his final attempt is just another quarter of an inch short, it is an airball, and Mike Bruesewitz is in position to recreate the ending of the NC State-Houston NCAA title game of 1983. If the final attempt is a hair longer, the ball caroms off the rim better, and Bruesewitz probably is still in good position for the board.

So it goes.

That is not how I choose to remember the season.

There are the obvious moments that can make Badger fans smile, such as the thrilling victory at Ohio State, Rob Wilson's 30 point outing against Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament, and the NCAA tournament nail-biter with Vanderbilt.

All of that works fine, but for the last few days, I was thinking about other things. Such as the night before a road game in January. The team was on the bus, returning to the hotel after a practice. On the radio was the 1983 Lionel Ritchie hit "All Night Long," and the players were singing along.

Gotta love it when players less than half my age know a tune that was big when I was in college.

I think about the routine on the airplane before road trips. The radio crew, athletic communications director for basketball Patrick Herb and some others usually are on board before the team arrives. When the rest of the travel party boards the plane, assistant coach Gary Close always acknowledges everyone with "Gentlemen," and then he looks at me and says "Matt." OK, maybe you need to be there, but it is always good for a chuckle.

Then strength and conditioning coach Scott Hettenbach will chime in with his usual wisecracks, leaving those within earshot laughing helplessly, and another trip officially begins.

Finally, I will think about those seemingly endless practices, and how I believe the Badgers have a chance to be pretty good again next year. George Marshall, Jarrod Uthoff and Zach Bohannon are players you have yet to see. My guess is you will like them.

Those three, plus the continued development of the other returning players and the additions of Zak Showalter and Sam Dekker, should make for quite the battle for minutes.

As for Taylor and Wilson, Bo Ryan put it best when he told the CBS crew that followed the team during the tournament, "They will be able to step away from here, once the sting of this eases up a little bit, they will realize what they have accomplished, and also how well they played for the name on the front of the jersey."

Perhaps that is the best memory of all. Their love of the game, and their love of the school they have represented so well. It was a pleasure watching them in a Wisconsin uniform.

Now, what time does practice start?

This will serve as a final snapshot of Jordan Taylor in his Wisconsin game jersey:  Taylor politely answering all questions at his locker following Thursday's loss to Syracuse in an NCAA East Regional semifinal; Taylor dutifully staying true to his core beliefs despite the pain.

On Taylor's left is fellow senior Rob Wilson, who's looking inconsolable; his body very nearly curled up in the fetal position. On Taylor's right is junior Mike Bruesewitz, who's looking drawn and tired; his legs stretched out, his head back, his eyes vacant.

Taylor is first asked about the gamesmanship with Syracuse guard Scoop Jardine, a fifth-year senior. Taylor and Jardine were roommates at the Deron Williams elite guard basketball camp in Chicago over the summer. They attended the Chris Paul camp, too.

At the 10-minute mark of the second half, Jardine buried a 3-point shot to push the Orange into a 51-47 lead. A smiling Taylor brought the ball up and immediately answered Jardine with a 3-point hit -- one of his five triples, matching a season-high.

Acknowledging Jardine, and the competitiveness that exists between them, he said, "It's a very serious game. At the same time you've got to have some fun.

"Above everything else, I've had a ton of fun during my four years here. I wouldn't trade it for anything.''

Taylor was later told that UW coach Bo Ryan had praised him for his work in grooming Wisconsin's front line of Bruesewitz, Jared Berggren and Ryan Evans. Their development has been instrumental to the growth of the Badgers throughout the season.

Given that Berggren and Evans, in particular, had seen so very little playing time last season -- Berggren averaged 6.9 minutes and Evans averaged 11.6 while serving as understudys to Jon Leuer and Keaton Nankivil -- how far had they come as a group?

"Really far,'' Taylor said. "It's kind of a tough question to answer, just because I feel like they had that in them -- they just had to come out and show it. I'm sure I had a small role in that. But I didn't put all the talent in Ryan and Jared and Mike.

"That's not me. That's them working on their games hard in the offseason. My job was to try and get them the ball and encourage them -- be a leader for them. I did a decent job with that but, obviously, came up a little bit short.

"I hope that I helped them a little bit this year and I hope that I helped them move forward for next year, because they're going to have a really good team.''

All things considered, if Taylor had been given the ball and one possession -- one shot to win or lose against Syracuse, one shot to either advance his team to the Elite Eight or go home if that shot missed -- would he have accepted that proposition beforehand?

"I was thinking about it before the game,'' Taylor said. "I just had a weird feeling that it was going to come down to one possession. I mean obviously that's easy to say now. I just had a weird feeling that it was going to come down to that.

"I feel like seven-out-of-10, eight-out-of-10 times, we're going to get a score there. It's just unfortunate we didn't.  Like I said earlier, hats off to Syracuse. They did a very good job of defending on that last possession. It was great defense.

"They did just enough to win.''

Berggren was presented the scenario: one shot to win or lose. Take it or leave it?

"Yeah, absolutely, I'd take it,'' he said. "To be in that kind of game back and forth -- they made runs, we made runs -- it's a lot of fun. That's what this tournament is all about. It's about guys playing with everything on the line and giving it all they have.

"To be down one (point) with the ball in our hands for one last possession, I never had a doubt; I believed to the very last second that we were going to win that game. To see the ball not go in at the end is heartbreaking.

"Until the final horn sounded and the ball didn't go in, I was still believing and hoping and praying and wishing that we'd be playing Saturday. But that's not the case.''

UW assistant coach Gary Close, who had put together the scouting report on Syracuse, felt that Badgers would have a chance to win the game if they made at least 10 3-point shots, had 10 or fewer turnovers, and had 10 or more offensive rebounds.

That was his formula: 10 + 10 + 10 = victory.

They finished with 14 3-point shots, six turnovers and eight offensive rebounds. "Maybe a couple of offensive rebounds would have gotten us one more bucket,'' he said.

So close, yet so ... painful.

"It was a one-point game in the Sweet 16 and we were one point short -- it's pretty tough to swallow,'' Bruesewitz summarized. "We did some good stuff. We made shots, played well as a team. It just wasn't enough, at least this time. We came up a little short.''

Sizing up the UW locker room, Close observed, "There's a lot of potential in here and they (the returning players) will get better. That's what this program is all about.''

From 1-3 in the Big Ten to one shot from the Elite Eight.

That's what this season was all about.

Karl Anderson and Patrick Herb had the action covered as the Badgers battled Syracuse in the Sweet 16 of the 2012 NCAA Tournament at TD Garden in Boston, a game the Badgers lost, 64-63. An archive of the live Gameday Blog from courtside can be found below.