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Published Mar 16, 2025

Wisconsin Earns No.3 Seed in NCAA Tournament, Faces Montana Thursday

Benjamin Worgull • BadgerBlitz

Senior Writer

@TheBadgerNation

Eight Quadrant-1 wins, 18 wins in Quadrant 1 and 2 wins and a trip to the Big Ten Tournament title game were not enough to keep the University of Wisconsin close to home to start its national title run.

Picked to finish in a tie for 12th in the Big Ten, No.18 Wisconsin continues to defy preseason expectations and earned a No.3 seed in the East Region, earning a trip to Denver to play No.14-seed Montana in the NCAA Tournament first round.

The winner will play the winner of No.6 BYU from the Big 12 and the Atlantic-10 regular season/tournament champion VCU on Thursday. The winners will advance to the Regional Semifinals in Newark, N.J. Those games will be played on Thursday, March 27.

The tip from Ball Arena will be at 11:30 a.m. MT (12:30 p.m. CT) and will be televised on TNT.

"A really good seed as a three," head coach Greg Gard said. "That's a credit to our guys (with) 26 wins that they put together. As I've always said, the bad teams are all on spring break, so we'll get ready for Montana."

"This group has had a heck of a year. Picked to finish 12th in the Big Ten, and if you look at the seed line, we're in the top 12 of the country. To win 26 games with the schedule we've played, we left it all on the floor for us all year long. They know they've got a lot of basketball in front of them. We can do some damage here in the next few weeks."

Nine times the Badgers have been a top four seed since 2007, six times earning a No.3 seed or better.

Wisconsin heads into the NCAA Tournament with a No.14 NET ranking, the third-best mark in the Big Ten, and battle-tested away from home. The Badgers went 12-6 away from the Kohl Center this season, including 6-1 in neutral site contests and a mark of 6-5 in true road games. Over the last two seasons, UW has an 11-3 record in neutral site games, a .786 winning percentage that's third among Major Conference teams.

The co-regular season champion of the Big Sky, Montana (25-9) beat Northern Colorado - its co-champ - to earn the league's automatic bid for the first time since 2019. The Grizzlies have the 98th-ranked adjusted offense and the 250th-ranked adjusted defense in the country, according to KenPom.com.

UW defeated Montana, 73-49, in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament.

"They've got a lot of guards that can score," said senior Max Klesmit. "We'll look forward to preparing on that and be ready when we head out there."

With a remade roster highlighted by unanimous first-team All-Big Ten selection John Tonje, Wisconsin won its first eight games of the season, which included a home victory over No.9 Arizona and beating two Power Conference teams to win the Greenbrier Tip-Off in West Virginia.

The victory over the Wildcats - the runner-up in the Big 12 Tournament - represented Wisconsin's best nonconference win with a NET ranking at No.12.

Wisconsin's two roughest patches on the schedule showed resilient bounce back. After losing three straight games to NCAA Tournament teams Michigan, at Marquette, and at Illinois, UW reeled off seven straight wins.

After injuries caused UW to lose three of its final five regular-season games, the team won three straight—including knocking off No.7 Michigan State—to advance to its second straight Big Ten Tournament title game.

The Badgers are 40-26 (.606) all-time in the NCAA tournament, advancing to four Final Fours and winning the 1941 NCAA title. Under Gard, UW has won at least one game in four of its six appearances but is searching for its first regional semifinal appearance since 2017.

Fans were hopeful the Badgers would be playing down I-94 in Fiserv Forum, but playing in Milwaukee has yielded mixed results for the Badgers. Winning its first Big Ten Tournament title in 2004, the Badgers were underseeded as a sixth seed and fell to No.3 Pittsburgh in the second round. As an injury-plagued No.3 seed in 2022, the Badgers shot 29.8 percent and fell to No.14-seed Iowa State in the second round.

Earning a No.2 seed in 2014, UW beat No.15 American in the first round and overcame a 12-point halftime deficit to knock off No.7 Oregon, 85-77, to advance to the Sweet 16. A week later, the Badgers advanced to their first Final Four in 14 years.

"I've seen us get sent away and play really well, and I've seen us get sent close and not maybe play as well," Gard said. "It works both ways. I've seen us play really well in Milwaukee, and I've seen us not play well ... It's going to be against a good team and do what you need to do to take care of business, and put yourself in position to move on."