Every year, in almost every sport, a batch of wide-eyed freshmen show up on the college sports scene eager to begin their careers. Then, before they know it, these rookies transform into veterans on the cusp of graduation about to face the real world. It’s a bittersweet time with uncertainty… Read more »

While many students partook in various festivities on Mifflin Street Saturday afternoon, the Wisconsin men’s track and field team was hard at work at the McClimon Track Complex, competing in its last regular season meet. The No. 11-ranked Badgers took home wins in 13 events in the Wisconsin Open, which… Read more »

Competitive, tough, a bulldog, fun, caring and laid-back are the words Wisconsin softball head coach Yvette Healy and pitchers Cassandra Darrah and Meghan McIntosh used to describe Tracie Adix. They may seem paradoxical, but the two separate phrases are apt descriptions of the Badgers’ third-year pitching coach. Like Adix, plenty… Read more »

Warm weather has officially arrived here in Madison and spring has truly begun — or at least it appears here to stay. But with the warmer weather, bright sunshine, tanning bodies on Bascom Hill and iconic chairs returning to the Terrace, there is still a slight feeling that something is… Read more »

With a slightly more spring-like afternoon Wednesday at Goodman Diamond, warmer temperatures did not accompany hotter hitters in a Big Ten doubleheader between Wisconsin and Northwestern. But despite only scraping together eight hits between the two games, the Badgers found a way to score seven runs, taking the two games… Read more »

Anyone who watches baseball or softball knows that the position that most often comes at a premium with a shortage of quality players is the catcher. It’s hard enough to find someone who wants to crouch behind a player wielding a metal weapon — in this case it’s called a… Read more »

Big fly. Round-tripper. Salami. Tater. Those are just a few colorful synonyms for a home run, which played a big part in the Wisconsin softball team’s weekend sweep of Big Ten rival Ohio State at Goodman Diamond. Thanks to three timely home runs, the Badgers pulled off 7-6 and 3-1… Read more »

Wisconsin set a record this year, but it wasn’t by playing games. Instead the Badgers accomplished, if it can be called that, a school record of 37 games without playing a single one at Goodman Diamond. However, whether for better or worse, the Badgers finally played their first home games… Read more »

For what is now the ninth weekend in a row, the Wisconsin softball team will play on the road starting Friday night in Lincoln, Neb. Yet for something so familiar for the Badgers – they have played every single game on the road this year – there is something completely… Read more »

Growing up a Chicago Cubs’ fan in south central Wisconsin, I often had many disputes with my friends about which was the better team; the Cubs or the Milwaukee Brewers. Naturally, I was always outnumbered and I therefore received a great deal of ridicule for being a fan of a… Read more »

Spring. That special time of year when April showers bring May flowers and other various forms of glorious new life. But, as Wisconsin residents know, spring oftentimes is just an extension of the winter season, with the same dreary cold weather and maybe a patch of snow replaced here and there… Read more »

Only six days short of seven years ago, the memory is still as vivid in my mind as when it happened. The date was March 26, 2006. After a typical Wisconsin winter, it was finally springtime and, at about 50 degrees in the late afternoon, it was warm enough outside… Read more »

Winter and the winter sports season are slowly drawing to a close here at Wisconsin, and although brighter days and greener pastures are fast-approaching with spring on the horizon, many of the sports teams are about to head into a hibernation of sorts, at least competition-wise. However, the volleyball team… Read more »

Four years ago, right around the time of Wisconsin’s first scrimmage of the spring football season, quarterback Curt Phillips tore his ACL. Then a few months later, in October, Phillips tore the same right ACL. Then, in the summer of 2010, Phillips underwent surgery again on the ACL, which had become infected. And… Read more »

The last Wisconsin men’s hockey game that I attended was Sunday, Feb. 24, when the Badgers took on first-year Division 1 program Penn State at a sparsely populated Kohl Center. Two out of the three things that I just stated sound completely and utterly wrong in the eyes of any… Read more »

The Christmas trees are long gone, the stockings are no longer hung by the fireplace with care and there are no more reindeer in the front yard, but somewhere off in the distance with a finely tuned ear, Andy Williams’ voice can still be heard. That’s because it’s March, the… Read more »

Tiera Stephen is the lone senior on the Wisconsin women’s basketball team and Thursday night was most likely her final game taking to the Kohl Center floor. Even with a greater sense of urgency from Stephen with her career winding down, the Badgers were unable to tie the game late… Read more »

Words are merely symbols that try to represent what people see, hear and do. And although oftentimes these representations are accurate, there are times when even words fall short and cannot describe someone to their full extent. One such person is Wisconsin women’s basketball assistant coach Alysiah Bond, who through… Read more »

I thought my classes were complicated — I know I’m a freshman, but I’m still getting used to college here. Then I tried to understand the National Collegiate Athletic Association. For those who haven’t heard about what happened at University of Miami a little over a year and a half… Read more »

Wisconsin (11-15 overall, 3-10 Big Ten) has struggled mightily on the road this season, going 1-10 in games away from the friendly confines of the Kohl Center. But the Badgers have a chance Saturday to double their abysmal road win total, when they take on a very comparable Northwestern team.… Read more »

It’s often said life can work in mysterious ways, and everything — whether good or bad — happens for a reason. Even the most disappointing, heartbreaking moments can have a lining of silver behind them that is not at first visible. When the Wisconsin women’s basketball team (11-13, 3-8 Big… Read more »

If anyone failed to stop and look around while at the Wisconsin women’s basketball game Sunday afternoon, they might have missed it. In one of the shortest games in recent memory — taking only an hour and a half from start to finish — the Badgers got off to a… Read more »

Black and white. Night and day. High definition and low definition. On top of the world and at rock bottom. Those are just some examples of how stark the difference in play was for the Wisconsin women’s basketball between its game Thursday and its game Sunday afternoon. Taking what looked… Read more »

The seconds wound down. The shot went up. The horn sounded. The crowd gasped in anxious anticipation, and then the ball fell off the rim, as the Kohl Center flew into a frenzy. That’s how the final five seconds of the Wisconsin women’s basketball game played out Thursday night as… Read more »

A simple view of the world as presented in the movie “Forrest Gump” by Forrest himself is “life was like a box of chocolates;  you never know what you’re gonna get.” Yes, the quote has become somewhat trite and overused since Forrest uttered the words, but it points to how… Read more »

The rock ‘n’ roll band Queen was formed 42 years ago, and although it is well past its prime, perhaps its members should consider going on tour again — if Freddie Mercury was brought back to life — because they are certainly needed in Madison. That’s because the Wisconsin women’s… Read more »

The Wisconsin women’s basketball team was flying high as the fall semester came to a close, riding a four game win-streak into winter break after a 76-47 thrashing of Eastern Illinois at the UW Fieldhouse Dec. 15. But in a season beginning to resemble the 2008 Katy Perry hit song… Read more »

As Wisconsin women’s basketball head coach Bobbie Kelsey’s glasses slipped out of her hand and flew into the stands, the lead and the game were almost lost along with them. Luckily, after Kelsey received a technical foul on that play with a little more than a minute remaining — the… Read more »

If asked to name the first thing that came to mind given the country of Canada, most people would promptly answer with hockey. Although other sports and other leagues exist in Canada, hockey is the national pastime and passion for many Canadians. But for Wisconsin women’s basketball freshman Dakota Whyte,… Read more »

Mistakes are never equated to success in the world of sports, and having a record amount of them is hardly ever followed by the word success. But somehow, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team was able to defy the odds and overcome a season-high 31 turnovers and still win handily over… Read more »

Whether they are receiving praise or blame, head coaches in the world of athletics are almost always the sole focus of critics. The spotlight shines brightly on the head coaches and deservedly so, but all too often assistant coaches are left in the shadows, and their roles in a given… Read more »

Five games into its still young season, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team is slowly beginning to find its identity, and Sunday provided more evidence of what that identity may become.Behind yet another balanced scoring effort, Wisconsin (3-2) thrashed the Evansville Purple Aces (2-3) 73-55 at the Kohl Center. It was… Read more »

Coming off its first win of the season at home Sunday against Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team is headed to the Northwest for its first road trip of the season. Wisconsin (1-0) will square off with the Gonzaga Bulldogs (2-0) Friday night in Spokane, Wash., and then make the… Read more »

On a night where the weather outdoors changed quickly, so did the atmosphere inside the Kohl Center, as the Wisconsin women’s basketball team took down UW-Milwaukee 74-56 Sunday night in front of an announced crowd of 3,619. Although the box score indicated the game was somewhat one-sided, the game was… Read more »

New beginnings and growing pains marked a sub-par season in 2011-12 for the Wisconsin women’s basketball team, a season in which it finished 9-20 overall and 5-11 in Big Ten play. It was Bobbie Kelsey’s first season as head coach of the Badgers, as she took over the helm following… Read more »

In a season marked by disappointment for the coaches and players, the mantra surrounding the Wisconsin men’s soccer team is one of continuous improvement. Everyone involved in the program expected the Badgers (5-7-3, 1-3-0 Big Ten) to build off their 10-win season from a year ago and have even greater… Read more »

Even as the rain came down in droves Wednesday night, no amount of water could put out the fires of competition and urgency in the Wisconsin men’s soccer team. With only five games remaining on Wisconsin’s regular season schedule before the night began, defender Paul Yonga and the rest of… Read more »

As the old adage goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and that will surely be the case Wednesday night when the Wisconsin men’s soccer team takes to the pitch against in-state rival UW-Green Bay. Although the Phoenix (2-8-3, 0-3-2 Horizon League) have had a relatively subpar season to this point, their record… Read more »

No, the end of the world is not looming, but Wisconsin men’s cross country coach Mick Byrne considers today to be a judgment day of sorts, at least with regards to his team. That’s because today is the fourth-annual Wisconsin Adidas Invitational, and not only will there be great competition between… Read more »

Almost every athlete who makes it to the collegiate level experienced some degree of personal success and achievement in high school, but few Wisconsin athletes had as much pre-collegiate success as wrestler Jesse Thielke. During his high school years, Thielke won not just one, but four individual state titles as… Read more »

Coming off a much-needed home victory against Cleveland State, the University of Wisconsin men’s soccer team is looking to build off that momentum and transfer it to the road, as it travels to Bloomington Saturday for a matchup with 14th-ranked Indiana. Indiana is arguably the premier team in Big Ten… Read more »

Growing up in Madison, Alex Brill has witnessed first-hand the dynasty-like success Wisconsin men’s cross country has achieved throughout the last 13 years. He was in third grade when the current string of 13 Big Ten titles began for the University of Wisconsin, and now, as a junior, Brill has… Read more »

The top-ranked Wisconsin men’s cross country team will head to Stony Brook, N.Y., this weekend for its first road meet of the year, serving as somewhat of a homecoming for head coach Mick Byrne. “I think [the guys] are excited about going to New York,” Byrne said. “I’m excited about… Read more »