[media-credit name=’MEGHAN CONLIN/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]While their teams may have lost, the University of Wisconsin student sections won the favor of UW administrators and police for their behavior during recent home games.

The university administrators and police were initially concerned about student fan behavior when Big Ten rival schools University of Minnesota and University of Illinois visited the Kohl Center this past week for highly anticipated hockey and basketball matchups.

With the games having come and gone, UW administrators and police said student behavior was "great."

"They were two heated rivalries," Vince Sweeney, UW assistant athletic director, said a day after Illinois topped the men's basketball team. "Minnesota had a kid from Madison [left-winger Phil Kessel], and that could've added to the explosiveness, but our students were great."

In anticipation of last weekend's men's hockey series against Minnesota and the Illinois basketball game, the UW athletic department sent all men's basketball and hockey student season ticket holders an e-mail, requesting respective student behavior.

"The main purpose was to raise the level of awareness and prompt discussion," Sweeney said.

However, Zach Kulak, a UW junior and student fan, said he did not believe the e-mail had any effect on student-fan behavior, adding the student section acted just as "rowdy" as normal.

"Someone tried to fire up a 'F-ck Kessel' chant, but the cops nixed that right away," Kulak, a men's hockey season ticket holder, said. "But, for the most part, it was exactly the same thing, and we chanted the same things."

Despite those sentiments, UW Police Department Assistant Chief Dale Burke felt the student section behavior was better than it had been recently.

Burke said he was pleased the student section did not "lower itself" to levels he had witnessed during a home men's hockey series against the University of Denver.

"We're too good, and have been too good in the past, to lower ourselves to that level," Burke said. "I encourage our best and brightest to spend 15 minutes and come up with something clever."

Burke added he saw such "cleverness" Tuesday night during the Illinois game while students distracted Illini free-throw shooters.

"I've been around the country," Burke said. "[Our fans are] right up there with the best of them."