FanHouse Trevon Hughes

So you want to know what Wisconsin basketball is all about? Look no further than the second half of the 12th-seeded Badgers' 61-59 first-round overtime win over Florida State late on Friday night, a win culminated by Trevon Hughes' acrobatic three-point play with just two seconds left in the extra session.

Wisconsin trailed at the half, 31-19, after a 12-7 lead disintegrated amidst a cornucopia of missed shots and uncharacteristically shaky defense. So facing an uphill climb, Wisconsin got back to basics. And the second half was like a Bo Ryan instructional video.

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Both Wisconsin and Ohio State should be in the NCAA Tourney, but it never hurts to put that one last stamp on the resume. Today was an opportunity for both to accrue another top-50 RPI victory, when they faced off against each other. The Buckeyes prevailed in a hard-fought battle which included several lead changes and a seven-point Badger lead with only five minutes left.

The victory deadlocks the case for Ohio State, who is now 21-9. On the other hand, we've been assuming Wisconsin was safe. Can we still do so?

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For one half, the Michigan Wolverines were all but trying on their dancing shoes. One half later, they were all but watching Wisconsin waltz into the NCAA tournament.

Michigan's DeShawn Sims-Manny Harris combo did all it could to build on the Wolverines' win over Purdue Thursday, but Wisconsin turned the Wolverines away with their trademark physical defense in the second half. The pressure went up, and the Wolverines' offense went down, managing just 21 points in the second half.

So, can Wisconsin sleepwalk into March Madness and are the Wolverines done, just days after they were all but called a shoo-in?

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Trevon Hughes drove down the court, pulled up at the free throw line and drained a shot with 0.7 seconds left to give Wisconsin a 74-72 win in Virginia Tech (see it here).

The win gives the Big Ten an early 1-0 lead in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Wisconsin lead pretty much the whole game before a 14-5 Hokies run tied the game with seven seconds left. Then Hughes took the inbounds pass and won the game for the Badgers. A.D. Vassallo, who hit the game-tying three for the Hokies, scored 30 points for Virginia Tech in the loss.

The win ended the ACC's 11-game home winning streak in the Challenge and gave the Big Ten one of those key "swing-games" that they needed to win the Challenge.

This is one of those games where if it was the NFL, we'd be bombarded with the cliched "unstoppable force vs. the immovable object" throughout the entire game. Yes, it was the defensive minded Wisconsin Badgers trying to put the clamps on the second-ranked Connecticut Huskies, they of the running and pressing full court style.

As many teams are going to find out this season, you can't really dictate what you want to do to UConn.

"They did what they wanted to do,'' said senior forward Joe Krabbenhoft after the Huskies scored 31 points off the Badgers' turnovers and made four more free throws than the Badgers attempted.

"They wanted us to turn it over, they wanted to get running, they wanted to get to the free throw line. Everything they wanted to do, they successfully accomplished them. That hurts.''

Look, it's hard to tell this to a team full of college kids, but they really don't have anything to hang their heads about at this point in the season. It's difficult to prepare for a team with the obscene talent level of UConn, especially when you've only played the likes of Long Beach State, Iona, and San Diego.

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The Big Ten Diaries recaps the previous night's action in Big Ten Basketball, but of course, you're probably smart enough to figure that out on your own.


Wisconsin Badgers 70 Illinois Fighting Illini 60

Since Bo Ryan took over in Madison, only one Big Ten team has ever come into the Kohl Center and beaten the Badgers. That team is Illinois, but I don't think many people thought the Illini would pull it off this time around, and they didn't.

Trevon Hughes led the way for Wisconsin with 22 points, and senior Brian Butch also scored 16 points and dominated the glass for Wisconsin with 7 rebounds. Jason Bohannon scored only 8 points for Wisconsin, but six of those points came via the three-point shot after Illinois had closed the gap and started to build up some momentum.

For Illinois it's their fourth straight loss, a first under Bruce Weber, and they're now 0-3 in conference play. Still, if there's anything positive to be taken from this game it's that they shot better on Thursday than they have been lately. Though that's not saying much, as Illinois only hit 41% of it's shots, but they did hit 6-of-10 from beyond the arc.

Unfortunately for the Illini, on the night their outside shots started falling, they couldn't get any help on the inside as Shaun Pruitt and Brian Randle battled foul trouble all night.