By now you’ve likely opened up the presents under the tree at your house. However, if you look over in the corner there is something from MadTownBadgers for you, the dedicated Wisconsin Badgers fans.
Yes, we’ve got five gifts everyone is going to love throughout the upcoming year. No playing with these toys and then stuffing them in the closet to never be played with again. That’s how good these gifts are.
What did we here at MTB give you for the upcoming year? Let’s unwrap those gifts, shall we?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58DnxT54STU
Malik Zaire Transferring to Wisconsin
We have seen over the past five games the importance of quality quarterback play across the board at Wisconsin. As freshman quarterback Alex Hornibrook appeared to hit a wall, the UW offense found the needed spark in senior Bart Houston.
The fifth-year senior won’t be around following the Cotton Bowl on January 2nd and outside of Hornibrook, the Badgers currently won’t have a quarterback who has seen a single active snap in a college football game.
While that is a concern, we’ll give you the gift of easing that concern with the announcement that Notre Dame transfer, Malik Zaire, picks the Badgers over North Carolina and a few late suitors. There won’t be any guarantees that Zaire is going to come in and start, but there is no doubting that his experience will be extremely attractive to head coach Paul Chyrst.
In fact, had Chyrst not left for Pitt following the 2011 season, Zaire may have been at Wisconsin all along. Instead, he’ll get to the spot he wanted to be at from the beginning at the very end. That also means the annual tradition of quarterback competition will continue in 2017, with Zaire challenging incumbent Hornibrook for the starting gig.
Having the experience advantage and now the coaching of Chryst, Zaire could be one of the more interesting stories of the 2017 season. But for now, we’ll just give the gift of having two experienced quarterbacks on the roster.
It has been awhile since that happened. It has also been awhile since UW has had an abundance of scholarship quarterbacks, so that is also a nice little stocking-stuffer for you on this holiday.
A Big Ten Basketball Championship (or two)
Winning a Big Ten regular season championship is certainly a great gift, but one look across the conference and you see a league that is far from the ultra-competitive heights it reached just a few years ago.
So, we’re going to up the ante and double up in one box with a combined regular season and tournament title under the tree this season. After all, are we to really believe that Minnesota and Rutgers are suddenly conference title contenders and that Michigan State won’t be competitive either?
That’s what results in the non-conference season are telling us, and if that holds out to be true it could be a very fun year for the Badgers basketball program. There’s no doubt UW is hitting its stride just as conference play comes around, and if they can only get better from here, the B1G is in B-I-G trouble.
However, we’ve got one more basketball gift for you under this tree…
A Men’s Basketball National Championship
If the Badgers are going to win the Big Ten, there’s a big chance they’ll also be in line for a 1, 2, or 3 seed in the NCAA tournament this March. Getting to that level is certainly helpful in doing some good things in the first weekend of the tournament.
After a few stumbles early on in the non-conference season, the Badgers have been a pretty well-oiled machine as of late. Sophomore forward Ethan Happ is just killing it down low, Nigel Hayes has returned to being an well-rounded player on both ends of the court and the bench is deeper than most realized going in to the 2016-17 season.
Teams that get the most out of their bench, have good guard play and know exactly who they are are usually the ones that end up cutting down the nets come March Madness. Wisconsin fits all those categories this season.
After narrowly missing out on a national title two years ago, we’re going to give you the dream of getting back to that title game and actually winning it. Rejoice and be glad, for the Wisconsin Badgers finally get to the top of the mountain in a sport not named Cross Country or Hockey.
Madison will truly go nuts, and it will be glorious.
Men’s Hockey Returns to the NCAA Tournament
This one seemed like wishful thinking just a few months ago, but there is no doubting that first-year head coach Tony Granto has this team playing at a level capable of getting great results in the Big Ten conference.
Of course, the bigger question is if those conference wins are going to be enough to get this team in to the NCAA tournament. Wisconsin currently stands tied for 30th in the Pairwise rankings, which have a huge barring on who makes the NCAA tournament come season’s end.
The good news is that Penn State, Ohio State and Minnesota are all inside the safety zone currently. Penn State sits atop the PairWise rankings, while Ohio State is eighth and Minnesota is 11th in the rankings. Grab a series or two against that group in Big Ten play and Wisconsin is likely to improve its chances.
Additionally, this team is being built for the long-term, and that could mean results in the Big Ten tournament this year. Win that thing and welcome to the NCAA tournament as well.
Of all the gifts, this is the one most are likely to return for the cold, hard cash. However, I firmly believe UW has the setup on this squad to make a serious run in the second half of the season. The hole dug by a current 8-7-1 record isn’t too deep just yet.
The margin for error just so happens to be so slim that UW needs to make sure to take care of sweeping foes like Michigan State and Michigan during the second half of the season.
TJ Watt Returns for His Senior Season
Wisconsin’s defense has survived and thrived in the face of the losses of some of its biggest names of the past decade. Chris Borland’s shoes were supposed to be difficult to replace, however the inside linebacking group has done just fine without him since his departure a few seasons ago.
Joe Schobert’s insane season in 2015 led many to believe his shoes would be difficult to replace at outside linebacker. In stepped the unheralded TJ Watt, who was more famous for being J.J.’s little brother before the season. Now, he’s standing on his own two feet and has NFL scouts drooling over his potential to be an impact player.
It’s hard not to see why, you know, with plays like this on his résumé:
That said, one wouldn’t blame him for leaving early for the NFL if his grade comes out right for him. However, we’re going to be selfish with the knowledge that Vince Biegel is going to depart on the other side of the outside linebacker position.
It certainly would be helpful to not have to replace both talented and All-Big Ten worthy outside linebackers at the same time. Watt takes a look at the landscape and his draft grade and decides it prudent to come back and dominate the stat sheet even more in 2017.
Wisconsin gets arguably its best player back, meanwhile Watt gets to increase his draft stock with even more game tape to prove it wasn’t just because of who was his opposite number in 2016.
That’s a win-win gift if ever there was one for Wisconsin Badgers fans.
We hope you enjoyed the gifts under the tree this season and that you get to spread even more Badgers cheer in the upcoming year.
On Wisconsin!
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