In an announcement earlier this afternoon ESPN gave their full lineup for the 2012 Big Ten/ACC Challenge and Wisconsin drew hosting duties against the University of Virginia. The game will take place on November 28th at a time and on a channel to be determined at the moment.
Wisconsin returns home after a few years of road games in the challenge, most recent of which was the narrow loss to North Carolina last season. Overall the Badgers have a 6-7 record in the challenge, which is 3rd best amongst the Big Ten participants, trailing only Ohio State (6-5) and Michigan State (6-6).
Virginia has a 7-5 record in the Challenge which puts them just 5th on the ACC side of the ledger. Boston College leads the way with a 5-1 record while Duke sports an 11-2 record for 2nd best and is followed by Wake Forest at 10-2 and finally Maryland at 6-4, ahead of Virginia.
The most interesting part of this matchup is that Wisconsin will be facing off against a team that’s molded pretty much in the same manner as itself, with a bit of an offensive twist or two though. You want good fundamental basketball that won’t be played at a fast break pace, this is the one to watch for sure.
It’s also Bo Ryan vs. Tony Bennett in what could be one of the best coach vs. coach matchups in the challenge. Tony is of course the son of former Badger head coach Dick Bennett and was an assistant on his staff at Wisconsin as well as under Brad Soderberg and Bo before leaving to assist his dad when he took over at Washington State.
Overall the Badgers and Cavaliers have only met twice before, both on neutral floors with UVa winning in 1974 and Wisconsin taking the latest matchup in 1998. For the third time in last four seasons the Badgers opponent will be coming off of an NCAA tournament appearance of their own.
Last season the Cavaliers finished 22-10 (and made the NCAA tournament where they lost 71-45 to Flordia in their opening matchup. We’ll be breaking this game down a ton and look for us to be featuring the work of our fellow Bloguin brothers over at Lambeth Field for the UVa perspective on this game.
We’ll also be breaking down the full field with early-reactions from our resident basketball reporter, Cole Brown, later today, so check back often for updates!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
