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Badgers ready for Cal State Fullerton
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Also by Associated Press:
- Badgers ready for Cal State Fullerton (March 19, 2008)
- Badgers back in WNIT (March 18, 2008)
- NCAA Tournament field set (March 16, 2008)
- Virginia Tech, Arizona State get NIT top seeds as consolation prize (March 16, 2008)
Related Stories:
- Known for baseball prominence, Titans looking to make mark in basketball tournament (March 20, 2008)
- Hoosiers get a reality check (October 29, 2002)
- UW prepares for first round (November 29, 2001)
- Ryan, Badgers look to end 2-game road skid (March 2, 2004)
- Ryan, UW keeping their eyes on the prize (March 9, 2004)
by Associated Press
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Bo
Ryan’s advice to his Wisconsin team as it prepares to face Cal State Fullerton
in the first round of the NCAA tournaments: Don’t blink.
He
did. It wasn’t pleasant.
“They’ll
get the ball up in a hurry,” Ryan said. “I was looking at one game
film today and I must have blinked, but they were laying it in at the other end
after a make. Must have been a slow blink.”
Despite
being Big Ten champions and ranked sixth in the nation, the Badgers will have
to stay alert to avoid an upset Thursday in Omaha, Neb.
The
14th-seeded Titans (24-8, 12-4 Big West) beat UC Irvine on Saturday night to
win the conference tournament. Josh Akognon scored 23 points and was picked as
tournament MVP.
No.
3 seed Wisconsin (29-4, 16-2), beat Illinois 61-48 to win the tournament title
Sunday, to go with its regular season championship.
Ryan
put his team through a light shooting workout Monday — “no diving for
loose balls, no chasing, no pinching, no rabbit punches,” he said — but he
said he saw plenty of shortcomings during the conference tournament that his
players will focus on when the heavy-duty workouts resume Tuesday.
Last
year, the Badgers were without injured leading rebounder Brian Butch and got
bounced by UNLV in the second round. But he has been healthy all this season
and is averaging almost 13 points and seven rebounds a game.
“We
know we’ve got tough competition down the road,” Ryan said. “But the
other teams playing us know they’ve got a team that’s going to battle them,
too, and I like the group that I have going into these games.”
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