With the NCAA bracket set and the No. 6 seed Badgers preparing to take on the No. 11 seed Northern Iowa Panthers, the committee selections shook down much like the talking heads expected. The Illinois Fighting Illini received the No. 1 seed in the convenient Chicago bracket, as North Carolina, Duke and Washington filled out the No. 1 seeds.
The surprising Huskies popped into the final No. 1 slot, aided by their Pacific 10 Conference tournament championship-the first in school history-as well as Wake Forest's disappointing showing in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, losing to North Carolina State in the second round.
Washington was placed in the Albuquerque regional, North Carolina received the Syracuse regional draw and Duke ended up in the Austin regional.
While the Illini get to play the rest of their season close to home, the Badgers (11-5 Big Ten, 22-8 overall) are headed to Oklahoma City for their first-round draw with the Panthers (11-7 Missouri Valley Conference, 21-10 overall), a team most Badgers are unfamiliar with. Yet, senior forward Mike Wilkinson is eager for the start of the NCAA tournament.
\We'll learn a lot more [about Northern Iowa] next week, but it will be a lot of fun,"" he said. ""It should be a good game, they're pretty good.""
""I know they're a tough, tough team,"" senior forward Zach Morley added.
The Panthers boast four starters who average over 10 points a game and are led by Ben Jacobson. The junior guard averages 17.8 points per game and shoots 45.3 percent from downtown.
Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan, however, is familiar with UNI head coach Greg McDermott, a player Ryan coached against while still at UW-Platteville.
""Greg and I have had a couple laughs over the experience because most of the Northern Iowa people laughed at our warm-ups, our uniforms,"" Ryan said of the 1986 match-up. ""We came out from Platteville, [the fans were] kind of like, 'Who are these guys?'""
The Big Ten received five bids as Minnesota earned a No. 8 seed and Iowa a No. 10. With Illinois taking a No. 1 seed and Michigan State occupying a No. 5, the Badgers were pretty much locked into a No. 6 spot. None of the Badgers were too concerned with their placement in the tournament, however. Badger sophomore forward Alando Tucker was more focused on the things the team can control.
""It's fair enough,"" Tucker said of the seeding. ""We have to take it. We can't cry about what we have or what we should be or what we are. We're a team that just takes what we get and go on from there. We still have a lot to learn, but I think we're a confident team and we're going to go in there with the mind frame that we can beat anybody that we play.""
It is the time of the year when you win or go home, something that was not lost on Badger senior guard Sharif Chambliss. Chambliss will be returning to the tournament for the first time since his freshman year at Penn State.
""We just know we have to take it game by game,"" Chambliss said. ""You lose, you go home. I know nobody on this team wants to go home.\
