It did not take long for Warren Buffet to get out of the woods. By the second day, any and all hopes of claiming the investor’s billion-dollar reward for a perfect bracket were dashed by the slew of upsets that earn the NCAA men’s basketball tournament the name March Madness. Jabari Parker, hailed by many as the NBA’s next superstar, suffered an unceremonious end to his Duke career at the hands of 14-seed Mercer. Harvard repeated last year’s spoiler effort with a win over five-seed Cincinnati. Undefeated Wichita State failed to advance out of the second round. Above all these previously unsuspected outcomes, it is possible that the success of a favored team is the most unexpected storyline of the tournament thus far.
This weekend in Arlington, Tex., the Wisconsin Badgers join the Florida Gators, the Connecticut Huskies and the Kentucky Wildcats in the Final Four. A perennial Big Ten power, Wisconsin has played in the tournament for the past 12 years but has largely disappointed its high seedings, failing to advance past the Sweet Sixteen in all but one of those years. Though this year’s Badgers are the first to make the National Semifinals in Head Coach Bo Ryan’s 13-year tenure, and their opponents have won a combined five championships in the past decade, I predict that they will be the team cutting down the nets on the last night of the season. Here is the roadmap to their championship.
In the Western Regional Final against Arizona, junior forward Frank Kaminsky put his Wisconsin teammates on his back to the tune of 28 points and 11 rebounds in the one-point overtime victory. Displaying his versatility, the seven-footer made three out of five three-pointers and shot 55 percent from the field overall. Another strong performance against Kentucky in the Final Four will be crucial in order for his team to advance.
This season, the Wildcats averaged 41.3 rebounds per game, ranking fifth in the nation in that category. Much of their production on the boards came from first-year phenoms Julius Randle and Willie Cauley-Stein. Randle, also the team’s leading scorer with 15 points per game, racked up 10.5 rebounds per game while Cauley-Stein added 6.5. Unfortunately for Kentucky, the Wildcats will likely have to do battle in Arlington without their tallest player — 7-foot center Cauley-Stein has missed the past game and a half with an ankle injury. His absence would open up Wisconsin’s ability to run its offense through Kaminsky, who would hold an advantageous mismatch against the 6-foot-9 Randle or 6-foot-8 Alex Poythress. Lastly, the Badgers’ more experienced upperclassmen, embodied by leader Traevon Jackson, will further tip the scales in their favor against another John Calipari-coached team that features five first-year starters.
In the other semifinal, red-hot senior Shabazz Napier is doing his best to replicate the magic Kemba Walker displayed in leading the Huskies to their last National Championship three years ago. Napier, a first-year on that 2011 team, has averaged 23.3 points per game over four tournament games. He leads seventh-seeded UConn into its clash with the top overall seed, Florida. The Gators, a senior-led team devoid of one-and-done NBA talent, have won their past thirty contests. Who, you ask, was the last team to beat them? Back on Dec. 2, then-No. 12 UConn defeated the Gators in a 65-64 thriller. History repeats itself until it doesn’t, and early April can be a strange time for teams that tore through the regular season. UConn, like its champion predecessors, is peaking when it matters most and will have the best player on the floor. Like Walker in 2011, Napier has been dynamite with the ball in his hands late in tight games, typified by his three clutch free throws at the end of regulation that buried Michigan State once and for all. That is enough for me to push UConn forward into the championship game.
In the National Championship game, Kaminsky once again will be the beneficiary of size mismatches. In addition to leading the Huskies in scoring, Napier, a point guard, is tied for the team lead in rebounds per game. This is not a good sign for a team hoping to slow down a dominant big man. UConn’s other leading rebounder, DeAndre Daniels, has the height to match up decently with the Badgers’ best player but is still undersized at 6-foot-9, 195 pounds.
While matchups such as these are important to keep in mind, intangibles are as important as any factor in determining college basketball’s ultimate master. With all due respect to the loyalty Napier showed his alma mater — he declined to transfer despite Connecticut’s NCAA tournament ban last season — the best narrative of the weekend is Coach Ryan’s first Final Four. Every year, the Badgers’ coach would attend the games with his father, yearning to one day coach on the big stage. Butch Ryan will not be in the stands to watch his son’s dream become reality Saturday, having passed away last August at the age of 89. The players’ excitement at reaching this point is as much for their coach as for themselves. There is still work to do, though. Two more wins and they will secure the first National Championship for Wisconsin men’s basketball in over 70 years.
They have the talent, they have the experience and they have that elusive extra ingredient. They are not Cinderella, but the slipper fits. The Wisconsin Badgers will be your 2014 National Champions.
Jack Blasberg ’16 always does his best to replicate Kemba Walker. Ask him about his step-back jumper at john_blasberg@brown.edu.
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