It may seem like dAcjA vu when the Badgers take the United Center court Friday in Chicago, but the stakes will hardly be the same as they were last weekend.
While the NCAA Tournament is fun and games for the most part with the fans, every team in the big dance knows that one slip-up means the season is over. When you have been a top-five team for most of the season and even been at the top of the polls for a week, slip-ups are unacceptable and the UW men's basketball team knows that this season: it's Final Four or bust.
""I mean that's what we set our sights on at the beginning of the season,"" senior guard Kammron Taylor said Tuesday. ""That's our goal right now. We got to take it a game at a time and to get there we have to win [four] games. I really think a Final Four will make this a successful season.""
Taylor is familiar with going deep in the tournament as UW advanced to the 2005 Elite Eight when he was a sophomore. Wisconsin was a No. 6 seed that year, however, and that run was slightly unexpected. Everyone knows that the expectations are higher this season, but head coach Bo Ryan downplayed the increased pressure to win.
""Why wouldn't you expect to get the next one? You got to go into a game believing, ‘Okay if we do this, we do this.' I would hope that's the case,"" Ryan said.
With a No. 2 seed in the Midwest bracket, UW starts the tournament against the 15th-seeded Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders, which topped Northwestern State in its conference championship game to earn its first ever NCAA Tournament berth. Northwestern State represented the Southland Conference last season and beat Iowa which was a No. 3 seed. Upsets happen, but the No. 15 seed has only beaten a No. 2 seed four times and Ryan said that his team has to approach a tournament game like any other game.
""We play in tournaments, we play in conference tournaments, sometimes there's a midseason tournament,"" Ryan said. ""It's still about the game. The game never changes. You better take care of the ball and you better play good D. The other team better do the same or they are going to be in trouble too. It's no different than any other game.""
Wisconsin will maneuver its way through the Midwest bracket, which includes teams like Florida, Oregon, Notre Dame and even a good Winthrop team that took the Badgers to overtime in the Kohl Center back in December.
Florida is the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament, but UW would not see the Gators until the Elite Eight in a matchup many would want to see. The hype around possible matchups like that is big for fans, but Ryan said that the excitement around the tournament is something his players have to be careful about.
""It is exciting, but we can't get caught up in all that,"" Ryan said. ""We just got to do what we have been doing for three or four months.""
Still, players obviously dream about Final Four appearances when they are young, and it must be in the heads of a team that has been so highly-touted for the entire year.
""You got to seize the moment when you are in it. You can't dream about it all the time. You dream at first, but then you got to go do something about it,"" Ryan said.
Doing something about it starts Friday in Chicago at approximately 1:55 p.m.
