Wisconsin basketball, James Madison: March Madness preview

The College of Wisconsin males’s basketball workforce enters the NCAA Event on a sizzling streak to proper what was a dreadful February.

However March Insanity is filled with bracket busters and followers hoping for a miracle, and the fifth-seeded Badgers (22-13) are set to play No. 12 James Madison (31-3) at 8:40 p.m. Friday. The Dukes received at Michigan State on the opening night time of the season and beating one other Huge Ten workforce could be validation that Cinderella’s slipper matches the workforce with the fewest losses within the discipline.

The Dukes have been a well-liked upset choose from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi to CBS’ Seth Davis and Clark Kellogg to Sports activities Illustrated’s Pat Forde. However ESPN’s Matchup Predictor backed by analytics provides Wisconsin a 67.6% probability of successful, and ESPN Guess favors the Badgers by 5.5 factors. Although James Madison opened because the shortest odds for a 12 seed to win outright.

At one level the Badgers had been rated No. 6 within the nation by AP voters. That they had began 16-4 however a dreadful stretch through which they misplaced seven of 9 video games knocked them out of Huge Ten title rivalry. However a resurgence main as much as and ending with a run to the Huge Ten Event championship, maybe, bumped them as much as the fifth seed.

Because the Badgers’ slide started on Feb. 1, the Dukes began a run of their very own. James Madison enters Friday on a 13-game successful streak and because the Solar Belt champions. Its finest win was on opening night time of the common season, and it hopes to high that with a NCAA Event win.

BadgerExtra males’s basketball beat author Michael McCleary was joined by Richmond Occasions-Dispatch columnist David Teel to interrupt down Friday’s sport between Wisconsin and James Madison.