Think Sunday's win at Minnesota was just another notch in Bo Ryan's Border Battle title belt?
Think again.
Sure, it was the 12th time Wisconsin has topped Minnesota in 13 tries, but it might have been the most important of those wins.
New head coach Tubby Smith is and will be changing Minnesota basketball for the better. The worry here in Wisconsin is that he will be putting up a road block at the St. Croix River keeping Minnesota recruits in and Wisconsin recruiters out.
Bo Ryan's current roster includes two Minnesota natives and another big time player, Joe Krabbenhoft, who was given an offer by the Gophers. Next year, two more Minnesota natives will don a Badger jersey: four-star recruit Jared Berggren (6'10 center) and three-star point guard Jordan Taylor.
But Tubby never really had a good crack at those players after taking the job last spring. You know he has the capability and credibility to close the Minnesota borders now.
Sunday's game was among the biggest of the season for Smith's program. For one, it was a possible NCAA Tournament resumé builder, but it was also a program resumé builder for possible recruits. His players knew it too.
""This is a huge game for us right now, and for the future, with Coach trying to get the program started,"" Minnesota senior Spencer Tollackson told the Pioneer Press before the game.
""For a lot of reasons, it's important for us to find a way to win,"" Smith added in the same story.
The players knew it, the coaches knew it and, most importantly, the recruits knew it. Minnesota had to prove that they could hang with the Badgers.
But they couldn't.
Before you could say ""Gopher on a stick,"" Wisconsin was up 29-10 and never looked back. The 63-47 win was not only convincing, it was a reality check for Smith, who clearly does not have the team he wants in Minneapolis.
Before the game, the Gophers celebrated Tubby's 400th victory. I'm sure somewhere in the Badgers' corner there was someone screaming, ""543!"" That's how many wins Ryan has, even if some of them didn't come at Kentucky.
Two four-star Minnesota recruits were at Williams Arena Sunday, according to a source close to the Badgers. Rodney Williams, a 6'6"" small forward from New Hope, Minn., and Royce White, a 6'7"" power forward from Minneapolis, Minn., are very talented players who are on the radars of both Bo Ryan and Tubby Smith.
According to Scout.com, both schools have offered scholarships to White, who has offers from 14 schools, including the likes of Arizona, Illinois, Michigan State and Texas.
But this weekend it seemed as if White was stuck in a tug-of-war with one arm in the state of 10,000 lakes and the other in Duluth, Wis., ready to bolt down I-94 to Madison.
It's way too early to speculate where either of these kids will end up, but for one February weekend a very talented forward from Minneapolis was the symbol of the birth of a new rivalry: Bo Ryan vs. Tubby Smith.
And as they would say in tennis, ""Advantage Ryan.""
E-mail Adam at hoge@wisc.edu to talk more about basketball recruiting.
