Nothing But Iron: Elite Fate March 26, 2005 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. But for the fact Bo Ryan is at the helm, I did not see it coming. But for the fact that something spectacular has happened every year since Ryan came here, I did not see it coming. But for the fact that Wisconsin teams, under his direction, have made a habit of exceeding, and sometimes demolishing expectations, I did not see it coming. It is the Elite Eight. Wisconsin, of the med major Big Ten Conference, is one of just eight teams in the whole land to have earned a fourth game in the NCAA tourney. Med major? Oh, sorry. Med is for mediocre. You remember that drivel don’t you? The Big Ten is sooooooooo down this year. Incidentally, for those of you who still can’t shed your infatuation with the Big East, Wisconsin was joined by conferencemates Michigan State, which elimated No. 1 seed Duke, and Illinois, which beat high-intensity Milwaukee (which beat Big East co-champ BC) to advance. That’s 37.5% of the available spots occupied by a single conference. It’s a good thing basketball is played by players and not calculated by so-called experts. We have learned from the dead end roads walked by Duke and Washington, the truncated journeys of many other highly-seeded teams and especially from our own Wisconsin’s path to the regional final, that complaining about one’s seed could well be pointless. At the start of the tourney Wisconsin’s viability looked to be in as much jeopardy as anyone’s, but three games later, no team had better math than the 6-seeded Badgers. That is not an attempt to cheapen their accomplishments, which are monumental, at least in the eyes of a guy whose closet overflows with red t-shirts. By definition, at least by sensible definition, the better team is the team that wins, meaning that Wisconsin was better than the teams that were better than the supposedly better teams that these ultimately better teams beat. To rephrase that in terms less purposely confusing: Bucknell was better than Kansas and North Carolina State was better than U Conn and Wisconsin took them both down anyway. None of this rationalization suggests that Wisconsin will beat or should beat The North Carolina in the Syracuse Regional final on Sunday, however, having seen NC, which for 39 minutes stood for Near Collapse, rattled by the inspired play of No. 5 Villanova, I’ll postpone thoughts of hopelessness until I really need them. Playing NC will be a distinguished test, the kind you want your team to take at or near the end of its season. The Badgers could fail that test, but I recommend that the game be played so we know for sure. The formula for success will be nothing out of the ordinary. Work hard. Play smart. Defend. Dive. Get good opportunities. Pray, at least a little. If things don’t go well (see entire first half against NC State), hang in there until the momentum changes. In short, play the best ball you can until the clock says stop, and see where you are. You’ll either be in St. Louis, or in Madison. Neither is Disneyland, but there are worse places. Besides, its Easter, the day of miracles, and beating North Carolina could not possibly be any harder than coming back from the dead. With a full appreciation of potential careful-what-I-wished for revelations, I divulge that I was pulling for NC last night. Yes, NC is good. Yes, NC has 30 wins. Yes, Patrick has an NC hat.  Yes, it is unlikely another No. 1 seed will fall before the Final Four. But Villanova scared me. The Wildcats were a faster, more-talented version of scrappy Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and I was uneasy with the notion of facing them. Credit the Tar Heels for holding on despite scoring eighty points below their average. This was no small feat, but of the two teams the Tar Heels will have the greatest propensity to play with one eye on the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. Please, be my guest. Transition to peripheral meaningless discussion . . . You suppose Badgers fans will forget, since Roy Williams has since relocated, the disparaging remarks he made about Wisconsin’s blue collar style of play in the Dick Bennett era? I suppose we won’t. Let’s not forget though, that later on, when his Jayhawks played in a regional semifinal in Madison, Williams was pretty contrite about it. Coaches say regretful things just like the rest of us, its just that the rest of us aren’t quoted by angle-hungry sportswriters across the globe. Williams may not have learned his lesson. I heard a rumor that he was overheard saying that Syracuse is not Sea World. On the topic of small mindedness I will close with something small-minded, which is appropriate because, after all, I am a sportswriter, and, whether we get paid or not, that’s what we do. (Just kidding, George.) I have not been impressed with the officiating in a few of these games. I don’t have a problem with the calls themselves–O.K., partial lie–but with the lack of consistency. Sixth-grade touch fouls whistled one minute, assault and battery unheeded the next. Please, just pick one style and go with it. And by the way, according to the rule book, it is not a traveling violation if the ballhandler is first knocked off balance by some clumsy brute lunging for the ball. I acknowledge that the game is fast, and that my TiVo has slow motion so I can figure out whether or not my screamed profanities were actually indicated, but with three experienced officials, who are right on the court, you might think they would be at least as good as TiVo and me. There were two alleged steals near the end of the UW-NC State game, which I initially thought were intentional fouls to put the Badgers on the free throw line. These were part ball and much arm and body. In one sequence Julius Hodge had his hand on Zach Morley’s abdomen just prior to hacking through Morley’s left arm for a break-away score. A chain saw might have been more subtle. I saw similar examples in the NC-Villanova game. Hopefully the NCAA has hired the good refs, meaning those who make bad calls only on blue teams, for the regional finals. Hopefully I will remember that I lack any legitimate credentials to scrutinize NCAA officials. But I suppose that’s not realistic. _____________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sport column, written to objectively celebrate the successes of the author’s favorite sports teams, with secondary purpose of making fun of people including other sportswriters and sometimes even himself. ©2005 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.