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UW men's basketball: Bo doesn't know Cinderella

Tamira Madsen  —  3/25/2008 4:14 pm

Maintaining a mind-set of staying under the radar has suited the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team well throughout the course of the season.

Coach Bo Ryan always has refused to feed into the national obsession with polls, seeds and pundits' opinions, and that approach won't change as the third-seeded Badgers (31-4) prepare to meet 10th-seeded Davidson (28-6) Friday night in a Sweet 16 game at Ford Field in Detroit.

If you think Ryan is going to offer a nugget on his surging Badgers playing an underdog like Davidson, the seventh-year UW coach won't oblige. He understands basketball analysts and fans enjoy pondering the March Madness matchups at tournament time, but said he is preparing his team to play one more game, and potentially another Sunday at Ford Field en route to the team's first Final Four appearance since 2000.

"People get labels, people say this person is a bully, that's a Cinderella, that's a this, that's a princess," Ryan said. "So what? All that stuff goes on and all we know is, we've got to prepare for the next opponent and play for 40 minutes.

"These guys are adults, they can handle all that. We let the people on the outside do what they do because that's the interest that these games generate and a lot of things will be said, but we just have respect for the game and we're never going to lose that."

Davidson is a tiny North Carolina college of 1,700 students located 19 miles north of Charlotte. The Wildcats own the nation's longest Division I winning streak at 24 games and are paced by speedy sophomore Stephen Curry, a 6-foot-3 guard who has averaged 35 points per game in a pair of NCAA tournament wins over Gonzaga and Georgetown.

Davidson coach Bob McKillop compiled a competitive nonconference slate this season for the Wildcats, champions of the Southern Conference. They played close games -- but suffered setbacks -- against an impressive list of national powers including North Carolina (72-68), Duke (79-73) and UCLA (75-63).

Senior forward Brian Butch was aware of Davidson's high-caliber nonconference opponents and watched the Wildcats battle Georgetown on television. He said that he came away from that game impressed.

"People look at the seeds and make a big deal about it, but for us, they've beaten two great teams to get where they're at now (in the NCAA tournament)," Butch said. "For us we just have to worry about the challenges that they offer us as a team. And we realize that they offer a lot of great challenges.

"Everyone talks about Curry, but they've got a lot of other great players that help them win. They're similar to us where they've got a lot of role players that do a great job and really look to get Curry the ball in positions to score. Yet they make plays themselves, too."

According to the Charlotte Observer, the Davidson men's basketball office was inundated with approximately 100 interview requests on Monday, one day after the Wildcats' 74-70 second-round win against Georgetown.

McKillop, in his 19th season coaching at Davidson, led the squad to its first NCAA tournament victories since 1969. He said he has enjoyed the national spotlight on the program and its players.

Much like Ryan, McKillop said he does not buy into the Cinderella theory. During a Tuesday morning teleconference with reporters, he added that the toughest challenge the Wildcats dealt with during the season has been learning how to play a full game.

"I don't dwell on cliches like Cinderella," McKillop said. "We're a basketball team that has won (28) games and a significant number of games in a row, I don't even know how many.

"We've played a terrifc schedule. We've prepared ourselves for postseason (and) as we faced each challenge in postseason, we've demonstrated that the lessons that we learned from the season are lessons that our guys have had the capacity to learn from, to respond, to implement the changes that we've had to make as we've gone through the season."

Meanwhile, the Badgers are ranked first in the nation in scoring defense at 53.9 points per game. They held their first two opponents of the tournament to their lowest offensive outputs of the season -- 56 for a Cal State Fullerton team that averaged 82.7 points, and 55 for Kansas State, which had averaged 78.7. And Wisconsin held the Wildcats without a made 3-point field goal for the first time in 347 games, dating to 1996.

It's been a string of 12 games since any opponent has beaten or scored more than 70 points against the Badgers -- Purdue accomplished that task with a 72-67 win in early February, one of just two losses for Wisconsin in its last 27 games.

Ryan said playing another game is his main focus, regardless of the perceived caliber of the upcoming opponent, and he has reiterated that goal to the Badgers.

"It's the next game, but it's an opportunity again to have guys compete a little bit longer than other teams," Ryan said. "And that's a nice feeling."

Tamira Madsen  —  3/25/2008 4:14 pm