Varsity - The Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics

Varsity - March 22, 2012

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Katz says Badgers have tools to advance LUCAS AT LARGE MIKE LUCAS • UWBADGERS.COM B arack-etology had nothing to do with red states and blue states, and it had ev- erything to do with the Big Red and the Orange. President Barack Obama was torn between picking Wisconsin or Syracuse to advance past their Sweet 16 matchup in the NCAA tournament "He definitely went back and forth on that,'' said ESPN.com senior college basketball writer Andy Katz. "He was very close to having Wisconsin go to the Elite Eight.'' In the end, he opted for the Orange. But Obama did get points for predicting that the Badgers would get past Montana and Vanderbilt in their second- and third-round games. This would be Barack-etology IV — the fourth year that Obama has filled out his Big Dance brackets in the company of Katz, a 1990 graduate of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin. The genesis of their friend- ship/partnership was a segment that Katz was taping for "Be- yond the Lines'' on Oregon State coach Craig Robinson, who is Obama's brother-in-law. About 10 days or so before the 2008 election, Katz got his audi- ence with Obama in a Hampton Inn in Dunn, N.C. Former de- fense secretary Colin Powell had endorsed Obama that morning. "They were in a good mood,'' Katz said of Team Obama. 10 » VARSITY MARCH 22, 2012 After the formal interview, there was some time to get to know each other. "I had this epiphany,'' Katz recalled. "I said, 'Hey, if you win this election, I'd love to come to the White House and fill out the brackets with you.' "He said, 'Great, let's do it.''' White House advisor David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs were in the room and Katz pointed at them and said, "You heard it.'' Obama kept his word to Katz, who just happened to be in Albu- querque — his wife is from there and he once worked there — to see the Badgers win a couple of games last week. What will it take to beat Syracuse, a team that has won 33 times and lost only to Notre Dame during the regular season and Cincinnati in the Big East Conference tournament? "I still think that it's a team that does not give them run- outs,'' Katz said. "When they get those run-outs, that's when they can be effective. "If you limit your turnovers, you've got a great chance against them." Is Syracuse more vulnerable without Fab Melo, the Big East Defensive Player of the Year, who was declared ineligible just before the start of the tourna- ment? "They're going to be a little more helter-skelter with their zone because they don't have the anchor inside,'' said Katz, agree- ing that Syracuse must overcome the hit. What can he see about the Badgers that may allow them to have success against that tena- cious 2-3 zone? "Their bigs can make 3s,'' he said, "and the fact that it's not just Jordan Taylor.'' Katz senses that the players take their cue from Bo Ryan in that "It always feels to me that they don't get rattled — there's the feeling that they've been here before.'' This is the second-consecutive year here, the Sweet 16. But a question that has dogged Ryan since he took the Wisconsin job is whether he can get a team to the Final Four. Katz doesn't believe it will hurt Ryan's legacy if he doesn't make it to the tournament's final weekend. "I don't think it hurt Gene Keady,'' he said, "and I don't think it hurt John Chaney, either. "Do people really associate Paul Hewitt with making a Final Four?'' Hewitt got there with Georgia Tech. Bruce Weber got there with Illinois Both, ultimately, still got fired. "Winning it all is different,'' Katz said. Sort of like winning an elec- tion or finishing second.

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