College Basketball Michigan Wolverines vs Wisconsin Badgers Start Time, Betting Odds

This is Michigan’s first Big Ten Tournament title in 19 years and many would argue that Beilein has done his best coaching job this season. Minnesota’s RPI was.612 and Wisconsin’s was.597; is fifteen-tenths worth a three-seed difference?

The Big Ten wasn’t good this season.

In the middle of a second half in a critical NCAA Tournament game, Beilein isn’t going to hesitate to roll out Wilson at the five instead of Mark Donnal.

The Badgers (25-9) settled for their fourth runner-up performance in the league tournament — and the knowledge that, yes, they are capable of playing better than they did while losing five of six games down the stretch this season.

As it had so often before, Wisconsin answered right back with Showalter sticking a triple at the 3:34 mark, but the Badgers had no more comebacks and MI won the game going away.

“When the event first happened, basketball was the last thing that was on my mind”, said Derrick Walton Jr., who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Minnesota, the most improved team in the country, was making its first Big Ten semifinal appearance since 2010.

And the celebration will continue when MI hops on a plane for the second time since the crash with a championship trophy from a tournament they nearly missed. The Wolverines struggled to stop Wisconsin guard Bronson Koenig, who did not play against MI in Ann Arbor.

PREDICTION: Happ, Hayes and Koenig prove too much for this relatively inexperienced Virginia Tech squad to handle.

Brown shows toughness: Brown contributed eight points and eight rebounds Saturday and was active on both ends of the floor. MI finished with a 33-32 halftime lead, sparked by a 2-minute stretch with three straight 3s from Walton. Defensively, other than maybe one game or a game and a half, we’ve been pretty consistent.

Zak Showalter was fabulous. Forwards Nigel Hayes and Ethan Happ added 14 points and 11 rebounds each. “It was a huge three when we cut it to six”. MI is officially making its 23rd NCAA Tournament appearance and its seventh in the last nine years. According to a UW official, Iverson flew home to OH late Friday because of a death in the family.

The Wildcats struggled against UW’s defense Saturday and finished 3 of 14 from three-point range (21.4%) and 18 of 52 overall (34.6%). He hit 10 of 23 shots and finished with 25 points and seven assists in Northwestern’s 66-59 victory over UW on February 12 at the Kohl Center.

SMU should have not only been above Cincinnati, but they also should have been somewhere around a No. 4 seed in a worst-case scenario.

Both teams are safely in the field with no fear of missing out.

The Badgers’ dominance started on the defensive end and Northwestern rarely got an uncontested shot.

U.Va. has played UNC-Wilmington three times, going 3-0 against the Seahawks.

MI scored the first six points of the second half to take a 39-32 lead on a basket by D.J. Wilson, who had 17 points. Its second-leading scorer (Justin Jackson) had just two more points than Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whose son plays for Northwestern.

UW had an immediate response.

Scottie Lindsey was the only player to score in double figures for Northwestern with 16. Against Northwestern, Happ made 8-of-11 from the free-throw line. Koenig, who was the star Friday against IN, was just 3-for-12 from the field and 2-of-9 from 3-point range, finishing with eight points against the Wildcats.

Northwestern 72, Maryland 64 • Northwestern roared into the semifinal round with an upset of Maryland (24-8). Walton then sparked another run with consecutive triples to give U-M its largest lead of the half, 30-20, with 5:22 left.