Joe Lunardi, also the head of communications at Saint Joseph's University, predicts NCAA brackets in his weekly installment of 'Bracketology' every Monday. In this past installment, Lunardi lists Wisconsin has a No. 2 seed and ranks them as the sixth best team in the nation
Why the praise for Wisconsin
In the polls Wisconsin is the fourth rated Big Ten team, yet they were undefeated in the conference. So most of my ratings are based upon what would the committee do today. Right now Wisconsin would be the first team in from the Big Ten. That's where I'm coming from.
What to attribute Wisconsin's success to
I think historically that Wisconsin has played a style that not a lot of other teams do and it's confounding to other teams. Yet, that same style, because they don't score a lot of points, and they don't wing 95-85, they don't get a lot of wow out of it. Most of the time when they win big games, it's 68-60 and people go, 'So what'?
Why the lack of national respect for Badger basketball
I'll say this to the folks who are under-informed. Wisconsin's basketball history doesn't bowl you over. There aren't multiple Final Fours over periods of years. Certainly in the last eight or ten years, they're one of the top dozen programs in the country.
Michigan State won a championship and went to three straight Final Fours and Illinois won 37 games and was number one for 10 weeks last year. Those kind of things are going to get you noticed.
Wisconsin just goes about being Wisconsin and makes a Sweet 16 here, and a regional there and a final four once in this era and doesn't get as much television. They're not in a major media market. That's just reality.
