Back a while ago, when we still felt the football team had a chance for a bowl game, I started to look at the preseason men's basketball rankings that were being put out.
Disregarding the Top 10 teams, I immediately headed for the Big Ten rankings. Acknowledging the fact that five seniors were not going to be on the Wisconsin squad, I expected the Badgers to be around seventh or eighth.
However, what I saw disappointed me. Almost every magazine or online page had the Badgers ninth, 10th or dead last.
I thought to myself, \Am I seeing this correctly?"" Unfortunately, I was reading the text right.
Along with these projections come preconceptions. Once you see that a team is not expected to do well, loyalty wanes and you begin to expect things to go poorly.
The opposite, however, is also true'if your team is expected to do well, people jump on the bandwagon just to see what they call ""their team.""
But somebody forgot to tell the Badgers to look at the preseason rankings.
""I don't know, I never worry about them,"" senior forward Charlie Wills said.
That's a good thing, because if they were to listen to them, the Badgers may only have two or three wins right now.
However, this team believes in itself. Heading into the beginning of classes, Wisconsin sports a 10-8 record'nothing of great significance at first glance when compared to previous Badger squads.
But take a closer look and you will see a team that could do some damage later on in the year. In their eight losses, seven have come by fewer than 10 points. Only a road loss to Iowa by 11 points was not winnable by the end.
After starting the year with a 2-5 record, including tough losses to Georgia Tech and a double-overtime heartbreaker at home to Temple, the reason for the team's struggle was that the squad is dominated by freshmen. But two freshmen in particular have stepped up and contributed, allowing the Badgers to play much better basketball.
Freshman guard Devin Harris and redshirt freshman Mike Wilkinson have given this team a boost in offensive productivity. Along with the offense, both bring intensity to the defensive side of the court, exceeding the youth of these men. Harris in particular is an explosive player the likes of which have not been seen since the days of former Badger and current Dallas Maverick Michael Finley.
The key to the better play, although he will never take credit for it, has been junior guard Kirk Penney. Whether it's the rise in his comfort level within Head Coach Bo Ryan's offense, better shot selection or the 20 pounds of muscle that he gained during the offseason, the Auckland, New Zealand native has reaped the rewards.
Penney has averaged nearly 20 points per game in the last 10 games, including a career-high 33 against Marquette.
Now with wins over three ranked teams'Marquette, Illinois and Michigan State'there is a validation of what this team is capable of.
""Before we went into [the Illinois game], we knew we could compete with anybody,"" senior point guard Travon Davis said. ""Now we know we can beat anybody.""
And they are the only ones we should believe.
