Just before the 2001-02 season, Badger fans around campus cringed at what looked to be a lengthy rebuilding campaign for the young, inexperienced basketball team.

Returning only one key player, Kirk Penney, and boasting a new coach, Bo Ryan — who many regarded as the result of a botched coaching search — enthusiasm among the students for the local hoops team was minimal at best.

Two years, a pair of Big Ten championships, consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament and a trip to the Sweet 16 later, the interest from students on campus has drastically shifted to the other end of the spectrum.

Basketball season tickets are the hardest to obtain, and now that the student section has an identity (recently named “The Grateful Red”) there’s a shared interest among nearly all of the 25,000 undergraduate students attending the university.

With the Badgers’ last second, come-from-behind win over Tulsa last Saturday, a victory which landed the Badgers a trip to the Sweet 16, the aura around campus is dominated by anticipation for Thursday night’s showdown with the No.1 ranked Kentucky Wildcats.

Students on campus aren’t naíve, however; everyone is well aware of the caliber of talent Kentucky brings with them, along with their 25-game winning streak.

But there still is a general sense of optimism that many of the students here are clinging to.

Everyone on campus still remembers when the No. 8-seeded Badgers knocked off top-seeded Arizona in the second round of the 2000 NCAA tournament, en route to their Cinderella run to the Final Four that season.

Perhaps the greatest reason for optimism, though, is the fact that Thursday night’s game is being played just about 250 miles up Interstate 94.

Wisconsin students have become notorious over the years for making the four-hour pilgrimage across the Minnesota border and decorating different Minneapolis sporting arenas with the Badger cardinal and white. The team’s success over the Minnesota Gophers is largely attributable to the hordes of Wisconsin students that cross the Mississippi River for many of the sporting events.

The basketball team, in particular, has recently experienced a great deal of success when competing in the Twin Cities area.

“We love playing in Minnesota. We’ve been down and we’ve come back before and we’ve had some good wins there,” said senior guard Kirk Penney.

And with more than 30,000 seats available for this weekend’s set of games, thousands of UW students have already made plans to spend their weekend in Minneapolis, showing any support they can for a Badger upset.

“I think they are going to be pretty loud, I think they are going to give us whatever they have,” head coach Bo Ryan commented. “And hopefully, that is enough to help us with what we are going to have to deal with between the lines. So we are hoping that they get every seat. We are hoping we get out there and see as much red as possible.”

Adding fuel to the already immense amount of enthusiasm for this weekend’s regional finals is the fact that another in-state school, Marquette, will be playing in the Metrodome as well.

The hope here is that Wisconsin and Marquette fans alike can put their in-state rivalry on hold (one that has become a serious in-state recruiting competition) and fuse together to form a volatile atmosphere for both of their opponents, Kentucky and Pittsburgh.

Students here are well aware of the fact that if both Wisconsin and Marquette win their Thursday night games, a Badger-Golden Eagle showdown, played in Minneapolis, to determine who goes to the Final Four would be considered one of the biggest games in the history of the state of Wisconsin.

In addition to the anticipated support from Marquette fans, both UW players and coaches hope to garner the support of the local Minnesota fans who, despite possessing a sense of animosity toward the Wisconsin sporting world, would like to see a Big Ten team advance farther into the tournament.

Wisconsin students and fans shared the same sentiment when Illinois squared off against Kansas in last year’s Sweet 16 matchup played in the Kohl Center.

And while a solid game plan and sharp execution will play a far more integral role in deciding the fate of Thursday night’s game, a Wisconsin-dominated crowd would certainly go a long way in disrupting Kentucky’s run to New Orleans (site of the Final Four).

Because with a perfect Big Ten record in games played in the Kohl Center over the last two years, Wisconsin fans are well aware of how the Badgers play in front of a home crowd.