"It's very exciting. This is where, in high school or junior high, where you wanted to be one day," UW senior Kammron Taylor said. "Now to actually be part of something like that, on one of the top teams in the country, it's pretty unbelievable."
Senior forward Jason Chappell couldn't agree more.
"It's great," Chappell said. "It's the best time of the year for most sports fans."
For many players, the love of the NCAA Tournament stems back to long before they were ever actually part of it, way before the players ever wore the cardinal and white.
"Just watching every game, it's a tradition," senior Alando Tucker said, adding that where he grew up in Lockport, Ill., the NCAA Tournament was an event that had to be planned around. "It's almost like a religion — it had to be set; everything had to be set in stone, and you have to get there and watch it."
Taylor remembers watching a graduate of his high school hit pay dirt in the NCAA Tournament, back before he joined the Badgers.
"My favorite moment growing up was when a guy by the name of Khalid El-Amin — he was a point guard from my high school — he led UConn to the national champ in '99," Taylor said.
It's become a common practice for members of the everyday workforce to take a personal day on the first (and sometimes second) days of the NCAA Tournament, to enjoy the absolute glut of college basketball (32 games in two days). However, that practice hasn't been limited to professionals.
When back in prep school, senior forward Jason Chappell would try to get out of class to watch the plethora of tournament action.
"I remember I used to always ask my mom if I could miss school to watch some of the games at home," Chappell said.
When that didn't work, Chappell had to resort to more desperate measures to keep up on the happenings of the NCAA Tournament.
"I actually bought a portable 2-inch screen TV, a little pocket one, and I watched the games in class when the teachers gave us breaks," said Chappell.
The son of former Wake Forest (and March Madness) star Len Chappell also began to rethink who he rooted for in the Big Dance when he reached Madison, just as all players have to adjust from being a fan to being one of the principle characters of the spectacle.
"When I was young I was a fan of a whole bunch of teams," said Chappell. "Now I kind of don't like anybody but us."
Now players aren't allowed to take part in bracket pools that have become the symbol of college hoops hoopla. But that doesn't mean that they didn't back in the day.
"I did pretty much anything any other kid would do," said Tucker, whose success on the basketball court as a collegian didn't extend to his success at bracketology. "Printing out brackets in school, filing them out, seeing how right I would be in my predictions … I was the worst at it."
Even head coach Bo Ryan would fill out brackets … just not himself. When still coaching at UW-Platteville, Ryan would allow his class to make T-shirts out of their NCAA brackets.
"The kids were always real excited about it," Ryan said.
The shirts were emblazoned with "Pioneer Basketball," and Ryan said that it was often his students' favorite part of the semester.
"I'll tell you what," he said. "Those kids couldn't wait to fill those brackets out."
While basketball fans around America are anxious for the tournament to begin, the Badger senior class of Tucker, Taylor and Chappell are excited and somewhat nervous for an entirely different reason.
"It's going to be huge for me, Tuck and Kam. The next game we lose is going to be our last," Chappell said. "We're all going to be playing our hardest and playing our best because the next game we lose is going to be the last time we ever play for Wisconsin."
Still, the players can still appreciate, remember and to some extent live the thrill that is the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament.
"Why do you think everybody gets so excited? Because it's a great sport," said Ryan, before adding a key additional fact. "And the fact that you can beat 50 cents out of your neighbor if you pick a better bracket and your teams advance. Yeah, it is exciting."
