NCAA Basketball – Wisconsin serves Ohio State its first defeat of the season

by Stephen Lars on Feb.14, 2011, under Basketball, Sports News

Everything that goes up must eventually come down. There is somewhat of a certain beauty when the big teams go down. It’s not just the disappointment of seeing a brilliant team lose its perfect season, or the fight of the underdog to play against the odds and pull off an impressive win. Yes, there is some sort beauty behind the fall of the perfect; perhaps it is something like the upside of failure.

And the Wisconsin Badgers now all about it. The crowd couldn’t resist much longer and stormed in the court as the home team was working its way up to defeat a No.1 ranked team for the first time since 1962. The Badgers put on one heck of a comeback on the second half to close on a 15-point margin to defeat the Ohio State Buckeyes by 71-67.

Playing the underdog is somewhat of an act of sheer faith. Yes, sometimes the spread is so significantly unbalanced that going for the little team is exciting and worth taking your chances. And yet there is a whole other approach when it comes to wagering on sports such as the College Hoops: playing against the team that is breaking all the records.

The Ohio State Buckeyes had had one phenomenal season this year, brining in not only the schools second best ever season starting winning streak. At 24-0 the Buckeyes had only one better record from the season kickoff and it came in 1960-61 when Ohio State went on for a 27-0 start. But then it all went south.

The man of the hour was no other then Jordan Taylor who in 13 minutes was capable of leading the Badgers into an impressive come from behind win over the best team in the Nation. Taylor scored 21 of his 27 points in the second half, working Wisconsin to keep the NCAA Division I basketball championship from having a perfect team since Indiana had its flawless season back in the 1975-76 season.

Taylor was the spark that started the 15-0 fire from the Badgers completing 8 straight points, including back to back three’s that really gave Wisconsin that special boost to build up enough momentum to hold back the Buckeyes desperate attempt for a comeback.

For those of you fond of stats and records, the Wisconsin Badgers have joined Florida as the only team to defeat the same No.1 team in the Nation on both NCAA football and NCAA basketball during the same academic year. As a matter of fact this is the first time that a NCAA team has defeated the No. 1 team in both football and basketball during the same season.

The Badgers have been a good team this season. Even though the squads numbers aren’t as impressive as most fans would like, at 19-5 overall and 9-3 in Big Ten conference play, the Badgers have been quite outstanding when playing at home. One must take into consideration that this is the Badgers 17th straight win at home. Wisconsin was sharp from the three point line, hitting 12 of 24 3 to really guide the team into the upset. But by the halftime break it sure didn’t look like the Badgers would be close after such a big deficit.

Taylor worked the Badgers momentum hitting a floater and two deep 3-pointers, then Wisconsin went on another 10-0 run at the end of the game to hold on to their advantage

NCAA Football – TCU defeats Wisconsin on Rose Bowl

by Stephen Lars on Jan.04, 2011, under Football, Sports News

TCU lost last year’s Fiesta Bowl against Boise State by just a touchdown. The very interesting issue here is that this small bump would be the only negative mark in what has been an otherwise impeccable two seasons for the Texas Christian University football team. The TCU Horned Frogs managed to complete a perfect season ranked as the No. 3 team in the Nation with a 13-0 record that ended with a great win over the Wisconsin Badgers for the BCS Rose Bowl played at Pasadena, California.

Tank Carder, a defensive linesman for the Horned Frogs was able to jump in the right moment to interfere with Scott Tolzien’s last pass in a 2-point conversion that would have forced the game into overtime. The Badgers gave a great battle during the game, but it was just not enough. At the end, TCU claimed a 21-19 win over Wisconsin to win its first ever Rose Bowl.

There had been a lot of questions made in regards to TCU’s performance during the season. Sure, this win has secured this group of talented players (guided no other then by head coach Gary Patterson) a place in the programs football history. Not only is this a great win for the school but also for all the small programs that have had to deal with that sort of monopoly that comes from the bigger and more prestigious football programs in NCAA football.

The Badgers played a good game. That’s is something that not the rest of the teams in the Big Ten can say about themselves. On this New Year’s day the Big Ten Conference went 0-5. What we want to point out is that TCU won in the big scenario against a big school that actually played well. The Badgers committed no turnovers. They needed not to punt until the third quarter and although it was a close game, it was just not as close the Badgers fans would have liked it to be.

On the other hand, the Horned-Frogs did everything they needed to stay in control of the game. TCU’s quarterback Andy Dalton was brilliant. He was there when his team needed him most. He completed 15 of 23 passes for 219 yards and one touchdown. As a matter of fact he was responsible for 247 of TCU’s 301 yards. So yes, it was one heck of a game.

And it was also one heck of a game for non Automatic Qualification schools too. The record for non-AQ schools improved to 5-2 in BCS Bowls. Now, it is uncertain if the Horned Frogs win is of lesser or greater value then what Boise State did in 2007 with their 1-point win over the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl, or what happened in the 2009 Sugar Bowl between Utah and the Alabama Crimson Tide in what certainly would be remembered as one the most epic upsets of BCS history.

What matters is that TCU has proved it deserved to be here. It has proved that they could have been worthy of a National Championship Game. Perhaps things will not change for smaller schools on the long run. But heck, if you have a sweet spot for underdog stories, then you’ll probably appreciate TCU’s effort as this is their second consecutive back-to-back BCS Bowl buster.