March Madness - Badgers Devour Wildcats in Epic Rematch - Wisconsin Moves to Final

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After a season of hype, consistent winning form, and a whole lot of basketball tradition, the epic semi-final rematch between the Kentucky Wildcats and Wisconsin Badgers lived up to the drama.

Just last year in the same match up in the national semi-finals, Kentucky edged Wisconsin by one point on a buzzer beater,  This year Wisconsin turned the tables and shocked the basketball world by ending Kentucky's historic 38 game winning streak two victories shy of perfection.

The final scoreboard read Wisconsin 71-64 but the grit and determination of the Badger squad in battling back from deficits was the determining factor.  Kentucky, as usual, fought back from deficits of nine-points in the first-half and 8 points in the second-half and with six minutes left in the game held a four point lead after outscoring Wisconsin 16-4.

Suddenly the Kentucky magic that saved their unbeaten season time-and-again went cold.  The team of destiny fell flat and only scored four points the rest of the game.  Wisconsin stars Frank Kaminsky, the MVP of the game, and Sam Dekker rallied the Badgers to a seven-point victory.

Shock waves swept through the Kentucky Blue nation as tears of sadness rather than joy were shed at the end of the game.  Twice in the closing minutes, bad calls by the refs went against UK, but they had plenty of opportunities to save the victory and did not.

For Wisconsin, the blue-collar team of basketball again rallied behind the most valuable player of the year in college basketball, Kaminsky, and the team never lost sight of their goal.  You see, it was never their intent to avenge the loss last year in the semi-final to Kentucky.

The Badgers focused solely on winning only the second national championship in history for Wisconsin, the last coming 74 long years ago.  To accomplish their mission, they have one more game, against mighty Duke, four-time national champion, Monday night in the finals.

Wisconsin was able to trade punches with Kentucky for the entire game because its front court shot well enough from the perimeter to force the Wildcats' big men out of the paint, opening up driving lanes for the Badgers.

In the end, Kentucky wasted a series of possessions after it built its four-point lead.
The Wildcats repeatedly bled the clock dry, put the ball in the hands of one of the Harrison twins and asked them to create off the dribble against Koenig, but they were not able to score with anywhere near the ease they did during a first half when they combined for 18 points.

Three straight Kentucky possessions ended in shot-clock violations during the final five minutes and the twins were unable to get the better of the matchup with Bronson Koenig.

UK Coach John Calipari looked at the stat sheet: Kentucky had only six turnovers, hit 90% of its free throws, made 48% of its field goals, and lost.

He said his team struggled to guard Wisconsin's players, and the rebound battle -- which Wisconsin won by 12 -- was crucial.

Kamisky, who turned 22 on Saturday, was asked how the Badgers out rebounded a team that is the tallest in basketball.

"We stayed into them, attacking them, trying to do whatever we can," he said. "Just trying to keep them off the glass was one of our main priorities."

 Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan said, "These guys just gutted it out."

Regardless of why it happened, the ending was still a shock for the legions of Kentucky fans making the trip to Indianapolis.  When most people expected Kentucky to move to the final step of a perfect season in the finals, the Badgers were the ones left celebrating.

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Pythagoras & Aristotle Report on March Madness - How peculiar those Americans - The Sweet Sixteen

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Enough from the sports analysts, arm chair point guards, loud mouth fanatics, news and entertainment personalities, geeks and computers, after two or three rounds, the first of many odd math facts attached to March Madness, we have sixteen teams left.

The bracket says three rounds were played but reality says we went from 64 to 32 teams (1st round), then 32 to 16 teams (2nd round).  My math says two rounds.  We have left 16 to 8 (3rd round), 8 to 4 (4th round), 4 to 2 (5th round), and the championship (6th round).  Since when did a play in by a couple of teams constitute a tournament round?

Clearly, no one involved in the billion dollar March Madness money machine worries about details like accuracy, math, or specifics, just the bottom line.  Well the bottom line started out with Kentucky the favorite and after two or three rounds, nothing has changed.

The first rounds destroyed the East coast, or specifically the Northeast, as a perennial powerhouse of teams which seems a logical shift, but that is part of the analysis to come.

For insights free of the often-hysterical outbursts by all our specialists, I have channeled Pythagoras, ancient Greek mathematician, and Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher, to get their analysis of what is going on.

First, they offered as background a review of the definition of "Madness", as used in the made-for-TV phrase March Madness.  Does the term "Madness" contribute to the branding of the NCAA championship?

Here is their composite definition:

mad·ness

noun

Madness

The definition of madness:

1. insanity, mental illness, dementia, derangement, lunacy, instability

2. folly, foolishness, idiocy, stupidity, insanity, lunacy, silliness 

3. frenzied or chaotic activity

The synonyms for various states of madness:

1. mania, psychosis,

2. craziness

3. bedlam, mayhem, chaos, pandemonium, craziness, uproar, turmoil, disorder, all hell broken loose, (three-ring) circus

According to my learned ancients, it would appear the term indeed describes the state of chaos resulting from March Madness.

Pythagoras was most interested in the mathematical puzzles, assumptions, thesis and hypothesis involved in seeding, results, conferences, and all the other trivia associated with the payoffs.  Some of his observations included conference power rating, note the numbers represent the conference standings of the tournament teams, not the NCAA seedings.

So far through the first two or three rounds here are conference results.

Atlantic Coast Conference

Conference champion (1) Virginia lost

(2) Duke, (3) Notre Dame, (4) Louisville, (5) North Carolina, (7) North Carolina State won

Pac 12

One team lost

(1) Arizona, (2) Utah, and (4) UCLA won

Big East

Top five teams lost

Only (6) Xavier remains

Big Ten

Five teams lost

(1) Wisconsin and (3) Michigan State remain

Big 12

Five teams lost

(3) Oklahoma and (4) West Virginia remain

SEC

Four teams lost

(1) Kentucky remains

Missouri Valley

One team lost

(1) Wichita State won

West Coast

One team lost

(1) Gonzaga remains

Pythagoras is also curious about the relationship between tournament seedings, and actual results to date, so here are the stats.

Seeds Surviving

 1.        three teams  Kentucky, Wisconsin, Duke

 2.        two teams     Arizona, Gonzaga

 3.        two teams     Notre Dame, Oklahoma

 4.        two teams     North Carolina, Louisville

 5.        two teams     West Virginia, Utah

 6.        one team       Xavier

 7.        two teams     Wichita State, Michigan State

 8.        one team       North Carolina State

11.        one team       UCLA

Other Pythagorean factoids to bear in mind:

No team whose name began with a "V" survived the opening rounds, four teams lost.

Three teams whose name began with a "N" and three whose name began with a "W" made the Sweet Sixteen, along with two whose name began with "U".

North Carolina was the state with the most teams, three, while Kentucky and California had two teams each.

Roughly speaking, the geographic distribution of teams is:

Northeast - 1

Southeast - 3

Midwest - 8

West - 4

Of those from the Midwest, six were east of the Mississippi River, and two were west of the Mississippi River.

As far as mascots, which interested Aristotle, here are the teams, seeding and mascots.  As you can see, there are two Wildcats, Kentucky and Arizona, and little else in common among the schools.  Aristotle seemed most interested in the Spartans of Michigan State.

1 Kentucky Wildcats       

1 Duke Blue Devils      

1 Wisconsin Badgers    

2 Arizona Wildcats       

2 Gonzaga Bulldogs ('Zags)        

3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish   

3 Oklahoma Sooners     

4 Louisville Cardinals      

4 North Carolina Tar Heels      

5 Utah Utes        

5 West Virginia Mountaineers    

6 Xavier Muskeeters          

7  Michigan State Spartans     

7 Wichita State Shockers  

8 NC State Wolfpack       

11 UCLA Bruins

 

   

Of course one stat that is not in the formula is the fan intensity and the cheerleader impact and we can thank the lowest seeded team for bringing along the highest rated cheerleaders to the tourney, eleven seeded UCLA.

So what do my friends Pythagoras & Aristotle think of this unique American past time? 

Stay tuned.

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