Wildcats and Badgers claw their way to Round Three
Two top selections in a lot of March Madness pools meet in the desert on Thursday night as the Kansas State Wildcats take on the Wisconsin Badgers the Southeast Region third round game in Tucson on Saturday.
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#5 Kansas State (23-10, 10-6 Big 12) vs. #4 Wisconsin (24-8, 13-5 Big Ten)
Date/Time: Saturday, March 19, 8:55 PM ET
Venue: McKale Center in Tucson, AZ.
Broadcast: TNT
Money Line: OFF
Spread: Wisconsin Badgers -2.5
Over/Under: 126
Jacob Pullen fought off illness to lead Kansas State as he has all season, lifting the Wildcats to their seventh win in their past eight games and another chance to improve upon last year’s performance, which saw them reach the Elite 8 before losing to Butler.
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Pullen led all scorers with 22 points and three other Wildcats scored in double figures as they held off Utah State, 73-68 Thursday by making all of their free throws down the stretch.
A 64 percent foul-shooting team during the regular season, Kansas State made 11 of 14 from the line in the final 1:08 and 24 of 28 overall.
As for the Badgers, they silenced their critics with a double dose of Jordan Taylor from outside and Jon Leuer from inside as Leuer scored 17, and Taylor added 21 and the Badgers systematically eliminated Belmont 72-58 on Thursday night, for their fifth consecutive NCAA tournament-opening victory in their 13th consecutive tournament appearance.
It was an impressive win for Wisconsin, a 37 percent 3-point shooting team for the season, as they made 7-of-14 in the first half to lead 34-27 at the break. They made 5-of-8 threes in the second half. Six players made at least one.
The Badgers are a power team from a power league. Kansas State is fiery and intense like their head coach Frank Martin. The Badgers are slow and methodical while the Wildcats want to run-and-gun relying on the scoring abilities of Pullen.
The senior guard finished second in the conference in scoring at 19.5 points per contest. Pullen can stroke the three-pointer at a 37.0 percent clip as well.
On the contrary, Wisconsin finished with the fifth toughest defense to score against, allowing just 58.3 points by opponents on average. That will come in handy as they try to shut down Leuer and Taylor who have combined for 36.7 points per game average, accounting for 53.9 percent of their offensive output.
The odds makers have the Wisconsin Badgers as a -2.5 point favorite with an over/under of 126.
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Prediction: If defense wins championships, my money is on Wisconsin.
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