Badgers-Gophers: A '97 classic

March 8, 1997 is a special day for me. It was the day the Badger basketball team beat Minnesota at the Fieldhouse in a dramatic game to clinch a birth in the NCAA tournament. It preceded a great pull-out section we put together for the Cardinal, and propelled a few of us to a memorable trip to Pittsburgh.

And the Notorious B.I.G. was killed that night.

The Big Ten Network brought me back to that day by replaying that game, won 66-65 by Wisconsin, on its recent Wisconsin day. Watched it last night, and here are some thoughts:

-Starting lineup for Wisconsin: Ty Calderwood, David Burkemper, Sam Okey, Sean Daughtery, Paul Grant. That's a big lineup, like ours this year before Flowers was reinserted into the lineup, probably too big and slow to win big.

-Daugherty would have been a good fit in the Swing offense. His game was similar to Butch's, but he was smoother and Butch was more assertive.

-Grant was somewhat clumsy at times, but really athletic and pretty jacked. Not too hard to see why the NBA made him a first rounder. Just checked, and he played 111 minutes in his NBA career, and interestingly had five years between stints with the Bucks and the Jazz.

-Burkemper was rocking some Hasselhoffian chest hair.

-Minnesota had a really good team, so deep and balanced. Courtney James was a stud. Sam Jacobson was an awesome athlete. Quincy Lewis was just flashing what he would become. That doesn't even mention Bobby Jackson, the best of the bunch.

-All that said, looking at Clem Haskins makes my blood boil. He and the athletic department that enabled him got what they deserved.

-Calderwood's shot wasn't pretty, but it was courageous. That kid was just a winner, flat-out. You could see his importance to our program in how the team did the next year when he was injured - the last losing season we've had.

-Did you know Mike Kosolcharoen's dad was an Olympic swimmer for Thailand? Ahh, Special K. My memory's fuzzy, but didn't we do a point-counterpoint in the Cardinal debating whether he should be starting (when he was), with Gitter taking the point that he shouldn't be? And didn't Mike call Gitter up to share his opinion?

-Man, did the Fieldhouse get loud. Always thought the move to the shiny new Kohl Center would mean a diminished home court advantage. Good call.

-The Badgers played great defense in that game, but it looked different than the great defense we play now. It was much more frenetic and scrambling than our current scheme, and probably more than Bennett's usually was. Minnesota was the first and only opponent to score 60 points in the Fieldhouse that year, that's impressive.

-I really like that on the Badgers' last offensive possession, which ended with Calderwood getting fouled, Bennett didn't call timeout. Trust your kids, let them play.

-Okey, Okey, Okey ... what could have been. I wonder how he would have fit in under Bo, or Stu Jackson for that matter.

There were times when I'd go "Huh" or "nice shot" and Jana would say "I thought you were at this game." True, but I didn't remember every last bounce of the ball. I remembered the winning free throws and steal, but that's about it. That's what's great about this series on the BTN, and why I can't wait to watch the other games.

T is for Tanner

That's what Will says when matching letters with the names of his day care friends: "T is for Tanner, L is for Laine, M is for Mason, V is for Vanessa," etc. Every time he says that I think not of the 4-year-old who tells my son what the dentist will be like, but instead Tanner Bronson.

Earlier this season, I wrote of some frustration I felt at times when Tanner got in games that were not yet decided (not often). It stems from the time in the 2005-06 season where we were playing at the Barn in Minneapolis. The Gophers were playing terribly, we were playing pretty well and had taken a big lead, but Minnesota started pressing and it looked like we were playing five on seven.

So Bo brings in Tanner. All right, I thought, apparently he's proven himself enough in practice to earn Bo's trust and enter the game to stop the bleeding. Wrong - Tanner was overmatched, we kept calling timeouts and turning the ball over, and even though we held on and won, it didn't feel that way. After that I never felt comfortable with him in during tough moments.

I would rather remember Tanner's more customary on-court appearances: at the end of lopsided Badger wins. These moments were always fun because a. the Badgers were going to win by a lot, b. it's nice to watch the contributors of the future like Nankivil and Jarmusz and try to determine if guys like Morris Cain can ever contribute, and c. because the scrub team's point guard, Tanner, respected the game.

You watch enough basketball, especially at the younger levels, and you see some ragged play at the end of blowouts. End of the bench players like to get in and make things happen, shoot early and often, and it usually ain't pretty. (This didn't apply to me; I was a scrub, but when I got in with the other benchwarmers in high school our coach shouted to pass the ball to the German foreign exchange student, Christoph Schmidt, who would chuck up an air ball).

Lord knows the Kohl Center crowd wanted Tanner to shoot it. He had arguably the longest run of being that guy - four years of tentative cheers and encouragement every time he caught the ball. He had his opportunities, too, but more often than not passed them up and kept the Swing running until a Gullikson or a Gavinski shot. Every once in awhile he'd shoot and miss, and Matt LePay would say something like "He's lights-out in practice, you should see him." He probably was - but so was David Burkemper.

So when Tanner did score - three field goals, 10 points this season - it was almost as joyous an occasion as a Landry dunk or Bohannon 3-pointer.

The best thing about Tanner is that we can be relatively sure that he's going to make the university proud to have him as an alumnus. It's been well-documented that he wants to be a coach, and had a good run learning from one of the best. Five years from now, when you see the updated Badgercentric coaching tree, it's a good bet Tanner Bronson will be on it, moving his way up the coaching ranks.

Just like the last four years, we'll all be pulling for him.

Alumni basketball game

On his short radio segment tonight following our local news, Bo was talking to LePay about the alumni basketball game, which was played Saturday before the UW-Purdue game. They talked for a while in generalities about how special it is, the great guys, yadda yadda yadda.

In Brian Lucas's courtside blog for the actual game I found this mention of the alumni game:

Tonight's honorary captain is Charlie Wills. He was part of the alumni game that took place earlier today. Sean Mason led all scorers with 19 points to lead the Red team to victory. Dave Mader paced the White team with 16 points.

Not surprising that Mason could still fill it up. That wasn't a bad two-person class - Mason and Sean Dougherty - was it?

Earlier in the week Lucas's daily email mentioned other notables:

... rumored to be in attendance include Clayton Hanson, Dave Mader, David Burkemper, Sean Mason and Charlies Wills ...

What was Burkemper, the ref? Lord knows he's got the whistle.

The game got me thinking about what my dream UW alumni game would be - with guys playing in the shape I'm guessing they're in nowadays, so Joe Franklin and Wes Matthews probably wouldn't qualify. Here's my matchup:

Cardinal: Devin Harris, Sean Mason, Michael Finley, Sean Dougherty, Mike Wilkinson

White: Kammron Taylor, Roy Boone, Kirk Penney, Alando Tucker, Rashard Griffith

Who do you think wins that matchup?