For $50 and the board, Alex, what is High Point? 

Not just a church on Madison’s west side, apparently.

March Madness is taking Blaska’s tormented mind out of the Straits of Hormuz while still broadening our limited horizons. There’s even a league called the Horizon League! (UW-Green Bay and Milwaukee are in it.) It’s one of 31 guaranteed a berth in the 68-team NCAA basketball tournament this week. (Thirty-one conferences!)

Michigan’s head coach Saturday referred to one of our Badgers as “the Lithuanian.” Cut the coach some slack. You pronounce “Aleksas Bieliauskas.” The coach’s number 2-ranked Wolverines play a center from Spain. Number 1 Duke has an Italian born to Senegalese parents. Illinois has Serbs, Croats, and Montenegrins. Something like 1,500 foreigners played college basketball this season right under now-departed Kristi Noem’s pert nose.

One of our favorite furriners is Purdue’s Oscar Cluff. An Aussie. Great name, great beard. Abe Lincoln in shorts. Stands 6’ 11” at 255 pounds, at least 5 of which are beard. Said to have an “NBA-ready body.” (Ours is La-Z-Boy-ready.) (Badgers have an Aussie, too: Austen Rapp.)

Purdue is the second seed among the 16 teams in Wisconsin’s bracket. We beat them once already and on the road — one of five wins against top 20 teams. Mr. Cluff may match up again with our Nolan Winter, who is taller by one inch but 20 pounds lighter, clean-shaven, and from Minnesota.

Not the Midwest?

NCAA geographers stuck Wisconsin in the West region as the 5th seed playing in Portland OR Thursday 03-19-26 against 12-seeded High Point University, from North Carolina. 

Turns out it’s a private Methodist school; enrolls 6,550 — an eighth of UW-Madison’s student body. Has a school of dentistry, UW does not. Charges $66,420 for tuition, room & board — half-again more than UW-Madison’s out-of-state tariff.

For $50 Alex, where is High Point? Population 114,000, it’s pretty darn near the middle of the state, between Charlotte NC and Winston tastes good like a cigarette should-Salem. Known as “the furniture capital of the world.” (If it is known at all.) Has the world’s largest chest of drawers. (Apparently, the ball of twine was already taken.) Madison has Brett Hulsey. 

On CBS, former Ohio State star Clark Kellogg picked High Point for the upset. The New York Times claims “Wisconsin popped up as the most vulnerable potential top-five seed.” Live By the Three, Die By the Three. The NY Times (fake news!) faults Bucky’s “inability to grab offensive boards or force turnovers.” Does seem if our threes miss, the ball goes the other way. 

→ On the other hand, CNN (not fake news!) says the Badgers could be a bracket buster!

Blaska’s Bottom Line: High Point pulls down only one more rebound per game than Wisconsin but does average 90.9 points a game, third-most among Division One schools, to the Badgers’ 83.0 points — still good for 35th among 365 teams. (Three hundred and sixty-five!) The Panthers play in the not-so Big South conference against teams like Gardner-Webb and Winthrop (or is it Winthorpe in Trading Places?). Not the ACC, not the Big East (Marquette), and sure as hell not the Big Ass Ten. Wisconsin does seem to play up or down to its opponents.

Losing in the first round would be (you knew this was coming, right?) a low point.

Will the Badgers get past the second round?

for the first time in 10 years?