INSIDE
MEN'S BASKETBALL
BY PATRICK HERB
@BADGERMBB
SCHEDULE
THIS WEEK
Friday
vs. St. John's
6 p.m.
COMING UP
Nov. 12
#8 Florida
8 p.m.
Nov. 16
at Green Bay
7 p.m.
Nov. 19
North Dakota
7 p.m.
Nov. 21
Bowling Green
7 p.m.
Nov. 23
Oral Roberts 7:30 p.m.
St. John's in South Dakota?
How'd we get here?
Badgers opener is atypical, but makes sense
hen the Badgers
open the season Friday night, they will
do so in atypical fashion, traveling to Sioux Falls, S.D., for a
neutral-site contest with St.
John's.
Wisconsin has not opened
the season away from the Kohl
Center since 2005 when they
played in the Paradise Jam
tournament in St. Thomas.
W
50
//
VARSITY November 7, 2013
Further, UW hasn't opened
against a team from one of the
"Power 6" conferences since
traveling to Tennessee to begin the 2000-01 season.
So how did we get here?
Two reasons ― this game
gives the Badgers a quality
non-conference opponent on
their schedule and UW gets to
help out an old friend.
"This is a great RPI team,"
UW head coach Bo Ryan said of a St.
John's team that played in the NIT last
season. "They've got everybody back;
they're very athletic. It's a team that's going to make some noise."
UW's opener will also mark a reunion
of sorts.
Sanford Health CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft, father of former Badger Joe Krabbenhoft, was looking for two major programs to help with the grand opening of
the brand-new Sanford Pentagon, which
is the cornerstone of a $19-million, 162acre sports complex.
Ryan's connection with the Krabbenhoft family made the Badgers an ideal fit
to participate in the first-ever regularseason game played on the building's
Heritage Court, a 3,200-seat retro-styled
fieldhouse.
"There are some really neat features at
the Pentagon and I'm excited to see it,"
Ryan added. "Plus we get to help Kelby
showcase their new arena. Everybody
wins."
Well, not everybody gets to win. Either
Wisconsin or St. John's will return home
with a loss on their ledger, but the earlyseason experience and resume-building
contest can only help in the long run.
"I'm sure that the opponents that we're
playing non-conference will give us the
test that we need," Ryan concluded. "And
how we respond to them? We'll see."
