Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Thursday, September 04, 2008
Men's basketball: Schedule presents challenges for Badgers
MADISON — A day before getting started with their annual preseason conditioning runs up the hill at Elver Park, members of the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team learned what the climb toward the school's 11th straight NCAA tournament appearance will look like.
UW released its schedule Wednesday morning, a 32-game slate highlighted by at least eight games against teams that played in last season's NCAA tournament.
The Badgers open with an exhibition game against Augustana (S.D.) Nov. 1 at the Kohl Center and, after hosting UW-Whitewater Nov. 11, start the regular season at home against Long Beach State on Nov. 16.
The non-conference schedule seems to build toward a Dec. 23 matchup with Texas at the Kohl Center, with some notable points along the way for a team whose roster includes 11 underclassmen.
UW travels to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the Paradise Jam tournament in late November, and could play as many as two returning NCAA qualifiers in San Diego, Miami (Fla.) or Connecticut.
There are two key road games in December: Dec. 1 at Virginia Tech as part of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and Dec. 6 against Marquette at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.
''With this group, with 11 underclassmen, it's going to be such a day-by-day process,'' said UW associate head coach Greg Gard, who handles the team's scheduling.
''Sometimes you take baby steps and sometimes you take a big leap. I don't think we looked at last year saying, 'Hey, this is where we're going to make our jump' or 'This is the game that's going to make us or define us.' I think you just learn something from every day and obviously every opponent will prepare us for what's next.''
In the past, the Badgers' schedule has been unveiled earlier, but the Big Ten Conference took longer to decide on dates and times with television networks for its league schedule.
''There was a lot of juggling with that, with dates and times and networks, because they wanted to have everything in place before it was all released,'' said Gard, who added UW's non-conference schedule was nearly finalized - some contracts still had to be signed - by the end of the school year in May.
The defending Big Ten champions, who bring back three starters in guard Trevon Hughes, swingman Joe Krabbenhoft and forward Marcus Landry, open league play the same way they did last season: at Michigan (Dec. 31).
UW returns home for games with Penn State (Jan. 3) and Northwestern (Jan. 7) before traveling to West Lafayette, Ind., Jan. 11 for a nationally televised matchup with Purdue on CBS.
That's one of 28 games slated to be shown nationwide on either the Big Ten Network (15 games), one of the ESPN networks (eight) or CBS (one). Four other games will be shown on one of the three; which network will be announced at a later date.
The Badgers face always-tough Michigan State and Ohio State only once during the Big Ten season, and play both during the back end of the schedule - when they'll also see Indiana with new coach Tom Crean twice.
''We never try to look at it as a whole,'' Gard said. ''We've always taken it piece by piece, and just saying, 'OK, let's try to be as good as we can be by Nov. 1, when Augustana comes in.' ''
All stories copyright 2000 - 2006 La Crosse Tribune and other attributed sources.