In the midst of a three-way tie atop the Big Ten Conference with a win over Minnesota Sunday, the Wisconsin men's baseketball team (19-8 overall, 9-5 Big Ten) will travel to Iowa and Michigan State to close the conference regular season.
And though the Badgers are 2-0 against those teams this year, (both coming at the Kohl Center) UW is poised to finish strong and improve their seed in both the Big Ten and NCAA tournament fields.
Still, the Badgers would need considerable help from other teams in order to finish in the top spot of the conference.
'We're familiar with the teams we have left and were coming into the final grind of the Big Ten,' head coach Bo Ryan said.
Though the game against the Golden Gophers was sloppy at times, the Badgers posted season highs from the free-throw line, going 16 of 17 from the stripe, including 10 of 10 in the final 49 seconds. Overall from the line, Wisconsin was 29 of 36 on the afternoon.
'We shot good today,' sophomore guard Michael Flowers said Sunday. 'We're going to need to hit those down the stretch.'
Just as impressive was the play of freshman forward Kevin Gullikson, who scored a career-high 12 points and made a valinat effort at taking the light away from Ray Nixon during senior night.
'Kevin is in there to give us some energy,' Ryan said. 'He has been improving throughout the season and he's playing some good basketball.'
Back in the polls
Wisconsin climbed back into the Top 25 in the latest ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, behind No. 23 Michigan State and No. 24 Iowa respectively, but still remained absent from the AP Top 25.
