Although Davidson's Stephen Curry was the star of the game, my favorite individual effort of Wisconsin's loss to Davidson Friday night was the way Wisconsin's Michael Flowers went from flat on his back to upright on his feet, in this video courtesy of Awful Announcing, which also shows a rather spectacular play from Curry:

Yes, I know, the Curry play meant something to the game and Flowers getting up from off the ground meant nothing, but I always used to like it when Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty did that get-up move in their old WWF days as The Rockers. To me, the Flowers play was the play of the night.

LeBron James wasn't wearing a specific hat during the Davidson - Wisconsin game on Friday night, but he was there as a guest of Davidson College, who apparently decided they had unlimited tickets to their win tonight. Clearly, though, Stephen Curry and the Wildcats had all intentions of impressing James, as evidenced by Curry's ridiculous reverse layup during the second half. Thankfully, even though CBS doesn't always bring the HD thunder to every arena, they were able to capture LBJ's reaction pretty well.



Yeah, that's probably the correct way to react.

During the second half of today's Wisconsin-Kansas State game, Wildcats forward Bill Walker made a short jumper in the paint right over Badgers center Brian Butch.

The two got tangled up after the shot, and as Walker backed off, Butch then pushed him to the ground. The referees were right on top of it and immediately called a technical foul. A good call, as Butch clearly deserved to get T'd up -- except that when they went over to the scorer's table, they called a double technical: One on Butch and one on Walker.

CBS showed a replay several times, and I've yet to see Walker do anything that would even remotely constitute a technical. One of the CBS announcers said, "Walker got in there and elbowed him in the nose," but that's not what I saw when they showed the replay.

Maybe I just missed what Walker did, but unfortunately I think the reality is that this was a case of the referees trying so hard to be fair that they ended up being unfair: They thought they needed to treat the players equally, even though what the players had done wasn't equal. Butch deserved a technical and Walker didn't.

As for the game, Wisconsin leads 60-49 with less than nine minutes to go in the second half.

The above chart, which comes courtesy of an excellent NCAA preview piece at Ballhype, plots college basketball teams based on their offensive and defensive efficiency, based on Ken Pomeroy's ratings. And it shows why people who take a sabermetric approach to college basketball are nearly unanimous when they say Kansas should be the favorite to win it all.

The chart puts teams with better offenses closer to the right, and teams with better defenses closer to the top. Although Ballhype has six charts and analyzes all 64 Tournament teams, (which is why you should click the link), this chart focuses on the upper right quadrant, meaning you won't see the bad offenses to the left and the bad defenses at the bottom.
It really is amazing how efficient Kansas is on both offense and defense. According to the Pomeroy ratings, Kansas has the best offense in the land by a fairly significant margin over the second-best, Texas. And Kansas has the third-best defense in the land, a little behind No. 1 Wisconsin and No. 2 Memphis.

The team that comes closest to Kansas in terms of balance is UCLA, which ranks sixth in offense and fourth in defense. And UCLA is, based as much on a hunch as anything else, my own personal pick to win it all. but the statistical advantage that Kansas has over every other team in the country makes it awfully hard to bet against the Jayhawks.

The last week has been rough for bubble teams, but with less than an hour before the NCAA Tournament brackets are announced, those bubble teams finally got a break.

The Big Ten Tournament final went just the way the bubble teams wanted today, as No. 1 seed Wisconsin pummeled No. 10 seed Illinois, preserving an at-large bid that would have vanished if the Illini had made the Big Dance.

The game went pretty much the way you'd expect an Illinois-Wisconsin game to go: The Illini played hard and kept it close for a little while, but the Badgers' superior talent ultimately made for an easy victory. Wisconsin has been the class of the Big Ten all season, and now they're the class of the Big Ten in the postseason as well.

Illinois went on a nice little three-game run to get the chance to play on Sunday of the Big Ten Tournament, but that run wasn't enough to get an NIT berth, and that means one of the most disappointing seasons the Illini have ever had is now, mercifully, over.

Conference: Big Ten
Record: 28-4, 18-2 in conference
RPI: 12
How They Got In: Won Big Ten Tournament
Seed/Bracket: 3/Midwest

Mascot: Badgers. In the 1940s Wisconsin used a live badger and later a live raccoon as the official mascot, but in 1949 they replaced the live animals with a student wearing a Bucky head. Bucky's full name is Buckingham U. Badger.

Big Wins: A big win at Texas, a conference win at Indiana and two wins over Michigan State.

Losses: Blown out at Duke, lost a tough one to Marquette, swept by Purdue.

Player You Should Know: Senior center Brian Butch leads the Badgers in scoring, rebounding and drawing technical fouls from coach Bo Ryan. The 6-foot-11 Butch isn't the most graceful player you'll ever see, but he's a strong presence in the middle.

Outlook: No Big Ten team looks likely to make it to the Final Four, but if there's one that can do it, it's Wisconsin. The only time all year they've really looked like a bad team was against Duke at Cameron, and if they can avoid that kind of meltdown, they won't be an easy out.

As the NCAA Tournament selection committee puts the finishing touches on this year's brackets, there seems to be an emerging consensus that the final No. 2 seed is down to Wisconsin, which plays Illinois today in the Big Ten Tournament final, and Duke, which lost to Clemson yesterday in the ACC Tournament semifinal.

Luke Winn of SI.com makes the case for Wisconsin:

Wisconsin deserves a No. 2 seed over Duke. The Badgers lost -- by a lot -- to the Blue Devils at Cameron in November, but the selection committee simply cannot deny a team that won the Big Ten regular season title and (most likely) the Big Ten tourney a top-two seed. Especially when stacked up against a Duke team that won neither its conference or nor its postseason tourney.

Most people seem to agree; Gary Parrish and Joe Lunardi both have Wisconsin as a No. 2 seed and Duke as a No. 3. I'm not sure I buy it, though. Duke still has a higher RPI than Wisconsin, and it's hard to get the score of their game in November -- 82-58 -- out of my mind. The ACC is a whole lot better than the Big Ten this year, and as a Big Ten man, I'd have no problem with Duke getting a higher seed than Wisconsin.

UPDATE: The Selection Committee agreed with me; Duke is a 2 seed and Wisconsin is a 3.

Illinois beat Minnesota 54-50 today in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, using a solid defensive performance to get one game away from earning a spot in the Big Dance.

Tomorrow the Illini will play Wisconsin, and if they win they'd be in the NCAA Tournament despite a 17-18 record. So can the Illini beat the Badgers?

It's not very likely. Wisconsin beat Illinois twice in conference play, once by 10 points and once by 14, and there's a reason that Wisconsin is the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and Illinois is the No. 10 seed.

Two points, however, are in the Illini's favor:

1. Wisconsin has nothing to play for -- the Selection Committee will likely have the Badgers slotted before tomorrow's game -- while Illinois has everything to play for.
2. For the conspiracy-minded, the Big Ten referees will know going into the game that an Illinois win would be a good thing for the conference.

But realistically, Wisconsin is the better team and the team everyone should expect to win -- and the team that everyone on the bubble will be rooting for.

The Big Ten Tournament is down to four, and the top half of the bracket has gone as expected, with Wisconsin and Michigan State meeting in today's first semifinal.

But on the bottom half of the bracket, chaos reigns. In the quarterfinals, Illinois upset Purdue and Minnesota upset Indiana, meaning that two teams with losing records in conference play this season will play each other in the conference tournament semifinals today.

And tomorrow, chaos could really reign. The Illinois-Minnesota winner will play the Wisconsin-Michigan State winner in the Big Ten Tournament final. And since the Big Ten Tournament final ends just as the Selection Sunday show begins, that means the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee is going to have a tough task.

Neither Minnesota (RPI 87) nor Illinois (RPI 104) has any business getting an at-large Tournament berth, so the Selection Committee will be forced to work with a contingency plan: Basically, they'll have to make up two brackets, one if the Illinois-Minnesota winner wins the Big Ten, and one if the Wisconsin-Michigan State winner wins the Big Ten. If you're a fan of a bubble team, you're rooting for Wisconsin or Michigan State tomorrow.

If Illinois or Minnesota ends up in the Big Dance, what seed will they get? I'm guessing a 13 or a 14. And if I were a fan of a 3 or 4 seed, I wouldn't want to play them.