With a tournament appearance in all 11 years as the head coach of the Wisconsin men’s basketball team, Bo Ryan has made it this far three times before.

But he’s only advanced from the Sweet 16 once.
Come Thursday evening, he’ll have another chance when he and the rest of No. 4-seeded Wisconsin (26-9) tip off with top-seeded Syracuse (33-2) at the TD Garden in Boston.

The Badgers are coming off two impressive showings in the East Region of the NCAA tournament. A 73-49 win over No. 13 Montana in the Round of 64 came before a 60-57 victory over fifth-seeded Vanderbilt that clinched UW’s second consecutive Sweet 16 appearance – a run achieved for the first time in school history.

Meanwhile, the Orange, despite being a team of top-seed caliber, was tested early in its 28th tournament appearance under head coach Jim Boeheim. Syracuse barely worked its way past 16-seeded UNC-Asheville in a 58-55 game that featured two controversial calls by referees that went in ‘Cuse’s favor in final minutes.

Prior to the tournament, Syracuse announced that center Fab Melo, the Big East Defensive Player of the Year, would sit out the rest of the postseason because of academic issues. As a result, many expected the Orange to be the first No. 1 seed knocked out, but in the Round of 32, Syracuse cruised past 8-seed Kansas State, 75-59.

Ask any members of Wisconsin’s coaching staff or roster, and they’ll tell you Melo’s absence hardly makes a difference.

Melo, a 7-foot, 244-pound sophomore, was the centerpiece of Syracuse’s 2-3 zone defense. He’s since been replaced by 6-foot-9, 222-pound forward Rakeem Christmas and 6-foot-10, 213-pound center Baye Keita.

“I don’t know if there’s much difference at all,” assistant coach Gary Close said of a Melo-less Orange. “The two guys that came in – Christmas and Keita – are a lot like Fab: They’re long; they’re athletic.

“They have a responsibility of covering the basket, and they do it well. I don’t think from a defensive standpoint there’s a whole lot of difference without [Melo].”

Melo’s biggest contribution came on defense, where he averaged 2.6 blocks over the course of 30 games while averaging 7.8 points on the other end.

But Syracuse has the depth to absorb the absence.

The Orange rotate nine players of formidable length onto the floor and all are led by guards Kris Joseph and Scoop Jardine, who have 49 and 47 steals on the year, respectively. Joseph leads the way with 13.7 points per game while Jardine paces Syracuse with a team-best 4.8 assists.

“They’re typical New York, east coast guards,” Jeffrey Taylor said, who roomed with Jardine at a basketball camp over the summer. “They believe they can do anything, and quite frankly they probably can; they’re all really talented, skilled with the ball. Especially Scoop; he’s a floor general. He’s extremely driven.

“Rooming with him this summer, talking to him, you can tell he’s not going to let anything stand in his way when it comes to achieving what he wants to achieve.”

With a host of able-bodied scorers and defenders to deal with, the Badgers are sure to face plenty of individual challenges. Wisconsin doesn’t use as expansive of a rotation (seven players average at least 10 minutes), but the last two games seem to indicate the Badgers’ roster is coalescing and peaking as a whole.

Against Vanderbilt, Wisconsin had five players score in double-digits and frustrated the Commodores’ two talented guards, John Jenkins and Taylor, who combined for 7-of-25 shooting for 22 points. Prior to that, Wisconsin shot 47.9 percent from the field against Montana.

The most pleasant emergence over that two-game span for the Badgers is that of forward Mike Bruesewitz. Before the Montana game, the 6-foot-6 junior had not converted a 3-pointer since Feb. 9 against Minnesota – a nine-game streak.

Bruesewitz hit 2-of-3 treys versus the Grizzlies en route to scoring eight points and followed that up by dropping two more 3s and 10 points on the Commodores.

“I think every single one of us, coming into the tournament, knew we could rely on Mike,” Taylor said. “I heard the stat after the (Montana) game, that he hadn’t hit a 3 since Feb. 9, and I don’t think anybody on our team knew that.”