It’s rare that the word “stunning” could be used for a No. 1 seed knocking off a fellow No. 1 seed in the Final Four, but when one of those top seeds had been 38-0, well, that’s a different story.
Wisconsin will face Duke in the 2015 national championship game
Two of the nation’s top players will lead two of the nation’s top teams against one another in what figures to be an unforgettable National Championship Game on Monday night.
The Wisconsin Badgers are headed to their first National Championship Game since 1941 thanks to a 71-64 upset of previously unbeaten Kentucky on Saturday night. The victory was sweet revenge for a Badger squad that lost to UK by one in the closing seconds of the 2014 Final Four.
In the title game, Wisconsin will face a Duke squad that beat them 80-70 in Madison back on Dec. 3. It will also feature the two big men who have been at the head of the national Player of the Year race all season long: senior Frank Kaminsky and freshman Jahlil Okafor.
Here’s a look at the Badgers.
Record:
36-3
Seed:
No. 1 in West Region.
How they got here:
Round of 64: Defeated No. 16 Coastal Carolina, 86-72
Round of 32: Defeated No. 8 Oregon, 72-65
Sweet 16: Defeated No. 4 North Carolina, 79-72
Elite Eight: Defeated No. 2 Arizona, 85-78
Final Four: Defeated No. 1 Kentucky, 71-64
Past championship game appearances:
1941: Defeated Washington State, 39-34
Why they can win it all:
Because if you can beat Kentucky on a night when the Wildcats shoot 48.1 percent from the floor, you can beat anybody. Wisconsin is great, not good, on every area of the floor. Bronson Koenig and Traevon Jackson are working brilliantly as a two-headed monster at the point, Sam Dekker is playing the best basketball of his career, and Kaminsky is starting to haul in all the national POY hardware for a reason.
Why they might not win it all:
Because we've seen this story before, and it didn't end well for the Badgers. Sure, "that was a long time ago" ... but it still involved almost all of the same players, and it still happened. Duke dominated Wisconsin the way no other team has come close to doing this season, limiting Dekker to just five points and watching its own backcourt of Tyus Jones and Quinn Cook light up UW to the tune of a combined 35 points on 11-of-16 from the field.
SB Nation presents: Why Duke has what it takes to win the 2015 NCAA Tournament
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