Each week leading up to the announcement of the NCAA Tournament field on Selection Sunday, March 12, Andy Baggot will take a look at Wisconsin's potential tournament regional destinations.
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BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin men's basketball team appears well on its way to making a 19th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance, but its postseason life won't be known for a while yet.
The Badgers have four Big Ten Conference regular-season games remaining followed by the league tournament, so a lot can happen between now and Selection Sunday on March 12.
But there are people making a living off of forecasting the 68-team NCAA tournament field and there are college basketball followers who take those projections seriously.
UW fans are no different.
A check of three prominent bracket gurus this week has 16th-ranked Wisconsin earning a No. 5 seed at this point, but Joe Lunardi of ESPN, Jerry Palm of CBS Sports and Shelby Mast of USA Today have the Badgers assigned to different regions opening against three different opponents.
Notable, too, is that none of the projectionists have UW (22-5 overall) playing first- and second-round games at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.
Lunardi has Wisconsin in the West regional in what would be a re-match with Syracuse on March 16 in Buffalo, New York. The Badgers thumped the Orange, 77-60, on Nov. 29. The winner of Lunardi's potential pairing would face the West Virginia-Princeton survivor on March 18.
Palm has the Badgers in the Midwest regional facing Nevada on March 17 in Sacramento, California. The winner gets either UCLA or Princeton on March 19.
Mast has UW in the South regional going up against Monmouth on March 17 in Sacramento. Like Palm, Mast's bracket has the survivor drawing either UCLA or Princeton on March 19.
The Badgers are tied with Purdue for first place in the Big Ten Conference with four regular-season games remaining, so their status is fluid.
Wisconsin fans should be rooting against the 14th-ranked Boilermakers (22-5) for reasons that go beyond the standings.
Both Lunardi and Mast have sent Purdue to the Bradley Center for its opening games. Mast also has another Big Ten rival, Minnesota, slotted in Milwaukee.
Scanning all three projected brackets, other Midwest teams to keep an eye on for Milwaukee placement seem to be Notre Dame, Creighton, Cincinnati and Butler.
For obvious reasons, the Badgers would like to have that fan-friendly assignment, which could mean the difference between an early exit and a fourth-straight berth in the Sweet 16.
The four regional sites are San Jose, California, Kansas City, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee and New York City. They will be staged March 23 to 26.
The Final Four will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 1 and 3.
