Last Wednesday the Wisconsin basketball team and the Kohl Center played the underdog role superbly in a victory over Duke that saw the UW crowd raucous from tip-off to the final buzzer.
Tonight, the No. 20 Badgers will be fulfilling the role of the Blue Devils with the Wisconsin-Green Bay Phoenix trying to pull off the court-storming upset over their Big Ten Conference in-state rival.
The Badgers have beaten the Phoenix in 10 consecutive years — including two games at Green Bay — and are 15-0 against UW-GB in the program’s history.
Wisconsin has won the last three games by an average of 18.3 points per contest. Ever humble, however, UW head coach Bo Ryan is still paying Green Bay ultimate respect.
“Well, familiarity means there’s style of play and everything else,” he said. “They’ll know it. We’ll know theirs, but then still you have to get it done. So I think each possession is always a challenge, and it’s always for the right to say this or the right to say that. You can’t get any more competitive games that I’ve seen.”
The Phoenix have started the season hot, going 8-2 through their first 10 games and are on a four-game winning streak, but haven’t played a major conference team yet.
Much like Wisconsin’s last opponent, Grambling State, Green Bay boasts talented guards that carry the majority of the scoring. Led by Rahmon Fletcher at 17.2 points per game, the Phoenix start three guards averaging more than 10 points per game.
“But their guards are pretty good at Green Bay, and their bigs are coming along and adding quite a bit to the team,” Ryan said. “They’re on a roll. I mean, we know what we’re going into up there. It’s going to be a heck of a battle.”
The game against Green Bay starts a four-game stretch where three of Wisconsin’s opponents will be in-state rivals.
Playing Marquette and UW-Milwaukee in the next two weeks, the rivalry games come with bragging rights, along with battles for in-state recruits.
With familiarity between the programs, the games often take on a physical mindset.
“I know that sounds corny, but we are ambassadors, and especially here at the University of Wisconsin,” Ryan said of in-state rivalry games. “No matter who is coaching here, you are an ambassador for the game because of the attention that’s drawn to the game here.”
Playing its first game since being ranked in top-25 polls, UW may face some challenges that come with a national ranking.
But this is Wisconsin and a Bo Ryan coached team, so probably not.
“It is a good accomplishment, but it really doesn’t mean a lot to us,” UW senior guard Jason Bohannon added. “We like to stay focused on one game at a time. We have to get to where we want to be in March and get to where we want to be come the Big Ten season.”
“You know, I don’t, these guys are ranked in high school now,” Ryan added. “I mean, think I saw a … ranking once for 11- and 12-year-olds. I mean, rankings are something that they’re so familiar with at this stage. I don’t even know if our guys would know one way or the other if we were or weren’t ranked, because they always know the next team wants to beat us, and we want to beat the next team, so let’s just move on. But it’s good and it’s said every time.”
