Wisconsin visits NU, leaves with title
Fearing a mob of giddy Wisconsinites -- as if there's any other kind -- Northwestern called in an extra fleet of university police for Saturday's regular-season finale.
The school worried the 4,000-plus immigrants from the north -- all readily identifiable by their red shirts, red blouses and red pinstriped suits -- would try to rush the Welsh-Ryan Arena floor if and when the Badgers clinched their third Big Ten title since 1947.
The part about the floor-rushing didn't come to pass.
Alas, the other part became crystal clear during a break in the action with 3:44 to go.
"Big Ten champs!" screamed every last Wisconsin fan. "Big Ten champs! Let's go, Badgers!"
With 6-foot-11 senior Brian Butch lording over the tiny Wildcats for 20 points and a career-high-tying 14 rebounds, Wisconsin led from start to finish in a 65-52 clincher before 8,117 in Evanston.
"I think (the fans) wanted an outright championship just as much as we did," said Butch, who received a standing ovation as he left with 2:34 to go. "It was really cool."
The nation's No. 1 scoring defense held Northwestern without a point for the final 5:30 of the first half. That turned a 21-20 fight into a 29-20 halftime margin that never got smaller than 7 points the rest of the way.
"Some teams, you can work with them, show them, but they don't just quite catch on to the point where it's good enough to maybe cut a net down," Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. "But this group, defensively, gave themselves a chance to be champions in the Big Ten."
The 10th-ranked Badgers (26-4, 16-2) weren't one of the top three picks in the Big Ten media's preseason poll.
That looked like a good call when Wisconsin went to Duke and took an 82-58 beating Nov. 27.
But then Badgers senior Michael Flowers hit a last-second 3-pointer to lift Wisconsin to a 67-66 victory at Texas on Dec. 29 -- and they soared from there.
"They both were (huge)," Butch said. "At Duke, we absolutely got our butts kicked. That's all there is to say about it. And then at Texas, you start believing. And once you believe in yourself and the locker room believes, it's cool to see it evolve."
Northwestern felt its team evolved as the Big Ten season wore on, but its record showed otherwise.
The Wildcats (8-21, 1-17) thought they had a shot to knock off the Badgers, but the visitors' size and physicality made things too tough.
Not only did Wisconsin win the boards 38-21, some Wildcats kept encouraging the officials to note how they were being manhandled while trying to run their cuts.
"They're a little bigger and I don't think as agile as some of the other teams that we play," said sophomore Kevin Coble, who led NU with 17 points. "But they make up for it by bumping the cutters and holding you and doing different things to take us out of it.
"It's a unique way of playing and it makes it tough on us. I have bruises, I'll tell you that."