The Badgers, picked to finish 10th preseason, are Big Ten Champions.

THE GLASS FACTORY WITH A LATE NIGHT DEPOSIT AT THE BANK LET’S GOOOOOOOO!

Move over Brian Butch! We’ve got a new #1 bank shot in Badger history!

First things first: There is no one, and The Rock means, NO ONE, better than Matt Lepay in a big moment. He’s always sharp, he’s always excited, it’s insane. And as someone that calls 30-40 college games a year, it’s honestly a little irritating how good he is at what he does. Because an average fan might hear that call and not recognize the brilliance of coming up with, ‘here comes Chucky, a chance for the title,’ in the moment. It sounds like an easy line, but it’s not. The same thing that makes that line great is what makes, ‘DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, YES!’ great. It’s simple, it’s delivered perfectly, and it’s memorable. Those lines are hard to come by in a moment that big.

Also; shout out to Mike Lucas for not going Larry McCarren on that call. Don’t get me wrong, I love McCarren trampling on Wayne Larrivee in big Packer moments are much as the next person, but it’s equally as difficult for Lucas to not stomp on Lepay, as it is for Lepay to come up with that line. A+ work all the way around.

And how about that overall game last night. A huge game on national stage, conference title on the line, on the first day of March. But how often do you have a game hyped up like that and it actually lives up to it’s billing? I would say more often than not those games end up being snoozers or blowouts. But not last night. The Kohl Center was PACKED and LOUD. The student section was full 40 minutes before opening tip! And two of the top teams in the country DUELED. Back and forth, lead changes, momentum swings, that all culminated with Chucky becoming a Badger legend and Wisconsin raising a trophy.

Implications beyond just the share of a Big Ten Title: If the Badgers win on Sunday against Nebraska, and play on Sunday in the Big Ten Tournament Title game, I don’t see how you keep them off of the 1 line. They have the most Quad-1 wins in the country. They beat Houston, they beat St. Mary’s, they beat Purdue twice. They’re nails in close games. They’ve got Coach of the Year and Player of the Year candidates. The resume is fully there. I guess my expectation is still that the committee won’t give it to them, but you legitimately can’t find a team in the country with a better resume.

In conclusion: I am fully in on this team and mentally preparing to have my heart ripped out in 3-ish weeks.

PS: Major League Baseball with a DISGRACEFUL display yesterday. A sport that has seen attendance drop, has seen TV ratings go down, and is having real difficulty connecting with a younger generation, has decided to cancel games over a labor dispute. Smart! A very good way to continue to shovel dirt on yourself in terms of major sports league relevance.

Now look, I’m a diehard. So as much as I’d like to say that I’ll boycott games whenever it is that they start, I won’t. I’ll be at Am Fam Field on Opening Day, I’ll be watching on Bally Sports, etc. But diehards like me are literally a dying breed. The fact that Manfred and the owners can’t see the damage this is going to do is borderline remarkable. It took baseball YEARS, and a steroid fueled home run chase, to come back from the strike in 1994-95. And that was when baseball was popular. Casual fans are going to walk away and never come back.

And the most infuriating part about the whole thing was Manfred’s press conference yesterday where he announced they had not reached a deal and the first two series of the season will be cancelled. A reporter asked him why they just started to negotiate in the last week when they literally had 3 months pass without a conversation. No answer. A reporter asked him where they go from here if this was indeed the, ‘last and best,’ offer from the owners. Manfred said that he didn’t think it was the last and best offer. Then why didn’t they make their best offer if they had any interest in not cancelling games? No answer. It’s so tone deaf and disconnected that it makes you want to punch a hole in the wall.

Where do we go from here? It seems impossible to think anything will get resolved this week or next week. I’ve seen some people guess that we’re looking at an ‘Opening Day,’ on May 1st. I think that’s even optimistic. The owners will be able to sit on their billions longer than the players will be able to sit on their millions, and April/May are generally low revenue months for teams, so I think the owners will be more than content to sit around until June or July. Meanwhile the average fans that spend their money on the product suffer. The people who work at the stadiums suffer. Disgraceful, disgraceful, disgraceful.