LOS ANGELES - At the beginning of the season - a galaxy that, in reflection, seems far, far away - the Wisconsin men's basketball team official Twitter account started tweeting out tweets with the hashtag #MakeEmBelieve. Players joined in on the fun on their personal accounts as well, prompting many questions to be raised about the team's new self-proclaimed motto.

#MakeEmBelieve? Seems a little strange for a team that had just come off a Final Four appearance; had been unanimously selected to win the Big Ten; and was ranked in the top-five of virtually every preseason poll.

At the time, players defended the motto not as one describing their desire to prove that they were a good team, but rather to prove that they were for real.

"I think a lot of teams out there aren't necessarily scared to play us or maybe think last season could have been a fluke," Josh Gasser said at Big Ten media day. "Make 'em believe, making other people believe we're for real; that we can really make some noise. That all this attention (we're getting), and that Final Four run last year wasn't a fluke. It's something that's going to consistently be happening here at Wisconsin."

But the Wisconsin program has always been faced with those critics saying they don't belong and that even a blind mouse finds the cheese every once in a while. Coming up with a team motto that seemingly is based around the fact that players and coaches were listening to the outside voices and decided they wanted to talk back is peculiar. It's even more so with a Bo Ryan coached squad.

That is, until you know the story behind #MakeEmBelieve, it's origins, and it's importance on Wisconsin's journey to Indianapolis.

As teams often do, the Badgers spend a majority of their summer giving back to the communities that support them throughout the year. While holding one of their instructional basketball camps for young children, the Badgers taught eight, nine, ten year olds the fundamentals of the game, just as Ryan does for them during the season.

The intention of the camp was to have some fun while learning the game of basketball. But that didn't mean the Badgers couldn't still be competitive.

"I started out telling everybody 'okay, no prisoners," Vitto Brown recalled of his message to his team before they played with the young kids. "'Everybody is live; let's get this work.'"

"No prisoners; quit playin wit 'em; we said it all," Bronson Koenig recalled while holding in laughter.

At the conclusion of the day-long camp, which was held in Frank Kaminsky's hometown of Lisle, Ill., the Badgers and the kids in attendance took part in a game of knockout.

Knockout, a staple of many instructional camps, is a game where individuals line up single file at the free-throw line. There are two basketballs used for the game, with each player attempting a free throw. If a free throw is made, the participant goes to the back of the line and awaits his or her next turn. If a free throw is missed, the participant must get the rebound and make a layup before the person behind him or her makes a shot, thus forcing elimination.

In this game of knockout, all of the children had been eliminated as well as all of the Badgers except for Brown and Kaminsky. Before the final round, the kids got to choose who they wanted to win. To nobody's surprise, the kids all picked Kaminsky.

"It's kind of funny because it was in my hometown," Kaminsky said. "It was me and Vitto and the little kids got to choose who they wanted (to win), but then all of the guys (on the team) started cheering for Vitto."

"I heard (Bronson) on the side and he was like 'Make 'Em Believe V' because all of the odds were against me," Brown described. "I ended up winning and then it stuck."

"It became our motto because it's more friendly than 'no prisoners.'"

The odds had not been stacked against the Badgers all season until Saturday's Regional Final matchup with Arizona. The odds makers see the Wildcats as 1.5-point favorites, marking the first time all season the Badgers will be the under dog.

Stirred, but never shaken, the Badgers won't change anything in the face of adversity, because they've been on a course to prove they belong all season long.

"We've been doing it all year and we want to keep it going. I didn't know we were the underdog until you guys told me, but we're just going to treat it like we've treated every game all year," Zak Showalter told the media on Friday. "We have our goals that we're still going for."

Arizona will be out seeking revenge for last season's 64-63 heart-breaking overtime loss to Wisconsin in last season's Elite 8, and will be trying to get head coach Sean Miller to his first Final Four, so the common perception surrounding Saturday's game is that the Wildcats will have more to play for.

But believing that would be ill advised if you were to ask the Badgers.

"They're going to be exceptionally motivated with what happened last year and how close they came to the Final Four. But in my opinion, we should be just as motivated because we are trying to win a national championship," Gasser said. "We should bring it just as hard because we have something to defend. We want to get back to the Final Four; we want to win the whole thing.

"If that doesn't motivate us, then we're in the wrong spot."

And if you don't believe them now, their play on Saturday just might make you.