For this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, not even storms kept Lucas and Oates away from the recording studio.

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The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  The Wisconsin Sportscast is brought to you by Ridge Top Exteriors and Leopold's Books Bar Caffè.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the transfer portal is open, which means big news for Badger Men’s Basketball. John Blackwell has announced that he is officially entering the portal. Badger fans might be mad or upset at him for the decision, but we should be thanking Blackwell and the Badgers for the three years we got to have him in Madison. That’s pretty rare in the new NCAA! Lucas was a bit surprised by the move, but Oates was not. It’s a smart move for both his career and his financial future. He’ll probably get a few NBA tryouts to find out if and where he might be drafted, but most likely next year will be the most money he’s ever going to make playing basketball. He likely won’t be a second round NBA draft pick, and he’ll likely end up in either the G League or in Europe. Any money he could make there won’t compare to the millions he can be making if he can get some big schools in a bidding war.

Greg Gard has always had success with the transfer portal, and the Badgers have already added an exciting face to the roster. The 22 year old Owen Foxwell already has some experience playing guard in Australia. If he works out, he could be joining Nolan Winter, Austin Rapp and Will Garlock on the starting line next year, so long as Garlock continues to step up as he had to end the season. Gard has around 2,000 players to pick from in the transfer portal, and he’s shown that he’s able to find guys like Nick Boyd when he needs one more star player that nobody is paying attention to.

Finishing off the college basketball season, Michigan has beat UConn to take home the NCAA National Championship. The millions they’ve spent on players has paid off! UConn tried to bully Michigan early, but that didn’t work and Michigan ended up bullying them instead. Michigan only made two triples in the championship game, but went 25 for 28 at the free throw line. With the Men’s Basketball National Championship secured in the Big 10, college sports is falling right into the lap of the conference. Add in football, women’s basketball, women’s hockey and maybe men’s hockey into the mix, and it’s clear that the talent is going to where the money is, and that resource is in the Big 10. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Oate’s NCAA Men’s Basketball brackets are alive, if just barely. After UConn beat Michigan State and Duke, a lot of people’s brackets probably look pretty similar. Duke had a good team, sure, but it was built on freshmen. When your team is filled with freshmen, they’re going to make some freshmen mistakes, and that’s exactly what happened to Duke. UConn, meanwhile, has great team construction and a great coach in Dan Hurley. That said, Hurley needs to tone down the theatrics a bit before he does real damage to his team. Refs don’t like it if you complain after every call, and Hurley is one who does just that. Every time he gets close to an official, he gets close to going over the line and hurting his team.

UConn will take on Illinois in the Final Four, two teams that most people didn’t expect to be facing each other in the tournament. Illinois has really stepped up their defense compared to the beginning of the season, positioning themselves as almost a mini-Michigan on defense. They’re playing like the big team they are and using their size to their benefit. But UConn has a certain toughness in them that’ll make them hard to beat. On the other side of the bracket is Michigan vs Arizona in a battle between two big heavyweights. Arizona is maybe the only team in the NCAA that doesn’t rely on threes to win games anymore, and ultimately that makes them really difficult to contend with. There are three games left in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and all three look to be great battles between great teams. 

Meanwhile in the NBA, did anyone notice that the Bucks have missed the postseason for the first time in a decade? If anyone is paying attention regularly, they shouldn’t be surprised . They’ve been sliding ever since their championship, and this year they’re looking almost like a G League team. Doc Rivers may have gotten into the Hall of Fame, but he needs to leave Milwaukee and the team needs to figure out what’ll happen with Giannis. At this point, anything they do will be welcome as long as it’s part of a complete makeover. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, we have to celebrate Mark Johnson on his ninth career NCAA Women’s Hockey National Championship. That puts him in the running for most national championships in college sports, and he’s in some good company. Mark Johnson has really created a dynasty in Madison, fostering a serious program that develops and recruits perfectly and contends for titles nearly every year. Some credit has to be due to Ohio State; the past four years have been a duel between Wisconsin and Ohio State in the National Championship and it’s always a close and competitive game. Johnson was much more demonstrative than his usual calm and cool self this last weekend. Ohio State went on a bit of a run, and he had to do something to get them to stand back up. The UW isn’t exactly one to honor their legends too much, but something should be done for Mark Johnson. There’s even the perfect plaza between the Kohl Center and LaBahn Arena that would be a great spot for a statue.

Meanwhile in Badgers Men’s Basketball, Greg Gard’s team once again failed to make it to the second weekend after their first round loss to High Point. They shouldn’t feel too terrible, High Point is a pretty good team! It’s one thing to say that when they beat the Badgers, but then they went toe-to-toe with Arkansas, even if they ultimately lost in the second round. Their point guard, Rob Martin, shows some real speed on the floor, and High Point has a little money to throw around. The game came down to athleticism, and High Point won out in the end. It was talked about before Thursday that the Badgers would have a tough game and they did. It would have helped, though, if they had gone on one of their three-point runs. They hit their second fewest threes all season, lacking all energy behind the line. Then they got out-rebounded too, against a team that isn’t very big! It was a game of athleticism, and ultimately the Badgers couldn’t hack it.

The Badgers have had a pretty bad run of NCAA Tournament outings in recent years; the last time they made it to the second weekend was in 2017. But now that Madison’s tournament is over, it’s time to look ahead. There are two big questions in front of the Badgers: can Gard find success in the portal again, and who can they get to stick around? On the portal front, they should be able to manage that. That leaves the questions of who’s staying, particularly Blackwell and Winter. They’ll both probably have some real money thrown at them, but the Badgers have some money to throw around too. Blackwell at least might be thinking of the NBA too, but if he were to stay in Madison he might be able to develop just a little more to further his chances. There is a lot of future ahead of the Badgers still, and only time will tell what the team looks like next year. Oates’ hope? There are less than nine big new players on the team next year.

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the brackets for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament are out and Wisconsin is coming in with a 5 seed. Both Lucas and Oates have their brackets filled out already; the NCAA Tournament is always a great few weeks of basketball. Even after retiring from working at the paper, Oates still manages to win more than his fair share of brackets every year. The winner is always a well-balanced team that ranks in the top 20-ish on both offense and defense. Of course, all four 1 seeds this year are ranked in the top ten for both sides of the ball, as it was last year. But you can’t just look at the data; you need to have your own specific values on a basketball team. How much does having a veteran point guard matter in the long run? What about rebounds? Find your value, and mix that in with a frank look at matchups, and you can start to get an idea of how the tournament will shake out. Barring any major upsets, of course. 

But before playing in the NCAA Tournament, the Badgers had to play in the Big 10 Tournament last weekend. Wisconsin had a great showing against Illinois before falling to Michigan on Saturday. In that Illinois game, both Nick Boyd and John Blackwell were both on fire scoring over 30 points a piece. The last time two players scored 30 points each on the Badgers was in 1968, and it was only the third time in school history that it’s happened. Maybe they had a chip on their shoulder after the debacle with their inclusion on the Big 10 All Conference team. They made it to Saturday in this tournament, which is a good effort and gave them a bit of a break before the real fun begins in Portland…

The Badgers take on the #12 High Point Panthers on Thursday afternoon. High Point has some good guards who know how to score, and they’ve racked up 30 wins this season. Now, those wins have been against no-too-impressive teams, but still. While they’re a team that is capable of an upset, both Lucas and Oates think that the Badgers have learned how to succeed enough to move onto the next round. There, their likely opponent will be Arkansas, a team with a lot of history with the Badgers in this tournament. Arkansas might have the best point guard in the country with Darius Acuff Jr. While they may be a team of mostly freshmen, they have a lot of really good freshmen. But after beating Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Illinois, and others just in the past few weeks, the Badgers shouldn’t be afraid of anybody. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Packers made some big moves as the NFL enters the free agency period. None of the moves should come at a particular surprise to anyone. There are a lot of good players leaving Green Bay, who while good are not worth what they’re getting elsewhere to the Packers. The biggest, and maybe least surprising move, is Malik Willis, who’s getting a big payday to join Jeff Hafley with the Dolphins. Willis deserves whatever he got, Oates thinks, as he did more than alright by the Packers. He was a great backup quarterback who caught some people’s attention and is getting rewarded for being a safety net the Packers could trust. The other eye catching move is Romeo Doubs, who’s also getting a big payday with his move to the Patriots. Doubs is a good receiver, but between Christian Watson, Matthew Golden, and Jayden Reed, it didn’t make sense to throw a bunch of money at him.

The Packers had their biggest shakeups on defense, with Quay Walker, Kingsley Enagbare, and Rashan Gary all out. Again, these were a lot of good players who just didn’t live up to what was needed in Green Bay. Gary is a good player, but he was being payed like a great player. After his poor performance at the end of the last season (finding zero sacks in his last ten games), he needed to step up and he simply didn’t. As for Quay Walker, the newly signed Zaire Franklin is looking like he’ll just be more physical. Were any of these moves surprises? No, but there’s still plenty of time for a big splash to happen.

Meanwhile with the Badgers Men’s Basketball Team, the Big 10 Tournament has begun after the Badgers were largely left out of the all conference team. After a big win at Purdue, the Badgers will play Thursday against a yet-to-be-decided opponent. But how hard should they really be trying to win the tournament? Bo Ryan was never the biggest fan, considering that the more important NCAA Tournament begins just a few days after the Big 10 finals. Lucas and Oates have their strategy: play until you get to Saturday, then take a little bit extra rest. The Badgers have a recent history of playing in the Sunday finals, and then quickly losing in the NCAA Tournament. Ultimately, kids don’t dream of playing in the Big 10 Tournament, they dream of playing on the national stage in March Madness. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates remember Jerome Fishbain, who recently passed away. Fishbain, or Fish, probably knew more people in Wisconsin sports than just about anyone. He coached football all over the midwest, from Milwaukee to Racine to Minnesota to UW Madison. He stayed involved with the Badgers for years, and helped many of the team's coaches one time or another. Fish touched so many people across the entire football world. Lucas and Oates have plenty of stories to share about him, but at the end of the day he was a great guy who lived a great life. 

Turning to Badger Men’s Basketball, who had a bit of a weird west coast trip last weekend. First they lose to Oregon, then they bounce back and beat Washington. Against Oregon, the Badgers just looked sluggish, and weren’t thinking clearly. The announcer called it correctly during the game: Wisconsin is a team with a very high ceiling, but also a very low floor. When they play well, they can take on almost any team out there. But then they go and lose by double digits to Oregon, who is not a particularly great team this year. All we can hope is that they keep up the energy they had against Washington throughout the rest of the year.

The Badgers take on Maryland Wednesday night for senior night in the Kohl Center. Among the seniors being honored are Nick Boyd, Andrew Rohde, Isaac Gard, and of course Braeden Carrington. Carrington is once again showing that he is part of the glue of this Badgers team, even breaking a Wisconsin record by hitting nine three-point shots on 15 attempts against Washington. When he gets into a rhythm, distance doesn’t seem to matter quite as much. Carrington should have some good confidence going into Wednesday night. They’ll need it; the Badgers have lost four of their last five senior nights… 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Oates is back from his Hawaiian excursion, and after updating us on his adventures dives into Olympic Hockey. Both the men’s and women’s US teams took home the gold this year, and it feels particularly good for us in Madison. Olympic women’s hockey was dominated by Badgers this year, with both current and former Badgers playing for both Team USA and Team Canada. The women’s gold medal game was a phenomenal game and a true statement to how Mark Johnson has influenced Olympic hockey. For years now, there have been Badgers on both Team USA and Team Canada, and partly thanks to the Badgers women’s hockey has taken off in the past decade. Just look at someone like Hillary Knight, who’s become such a beacon for women’s hockey in the US that there are current Badgers who have childhood photos of themselves standing next to her. Then you add in some of the current Badgers like Hillary Knight and Laila Edwards and there’s no denying Mark Johnson’s impact on the sport as a whole. The Badgers have eight championships under Johnson now, and while not everyone is always happy about statues, something should be done to recognize the impact he’s had both in Madison and globally. 

Turning to Badgers Men’s Basketball, they handily defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes Sunday night. Hawkeyes coach Ben McCollum is known as a defensive coach, and he had a plan to stop Nick Boyd at the beginning of the night. But Boyd turned out to be unstoppable and could make his way to the rim whenever he wanted. Wisconsin’s offense seems designed to help Boyd get to the rim, and that ends up helping the entire team. Austin Rapp has taken a particular step forward, as long as he stays healthy. But he’s a guy who can reliably make 15-20 points when you need him to and has established himself as a true difference maker on the team. Boyd, Rapp, Blackwell, and Winter have all put themselves together to make a very good basketball team. But are they better than last year? It’s hard to say, it is certainly a different team. But with several must-win games on the horizon, they need to stay consistent, especially in their three-point shooting. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Badgers’ PA Guy Mike Mahnke is back on the show having survived the storming of the Kohl Center Friday night. It was a big win for the Badgers over Michigan State where they were able to maintain control nearly the entire game. Even Tom Izzo knew that Wisconsin had his number by a certain point in the game, and the Badgers ended the night with a big 92-71 victory. You add in some of the other big wins they’ve had recently and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the fans stormed the court. It was a pretty tame court storming from Mike’s perspective on the court, and even the players were pumped by it all. I guess fans are too busy celebrating and taking pictures these days to harass or “spit” on the other team, as they allegedly did back in 2011. 

Wisconsin’s win over Michigan State earned them a top 25 national ranking. They hope to keep the victory streak going at Ohio State, though that game took place after the recording of this podcast. Instead, Mike and Lucas take a look at the bigger prize: Sunday’s game against the Iowa Buckeye. The Buckeyes have a new coach in Ben McCollum - a Bo Ryan-type coach who ditches the sportsjacket for a white shirt and tie. He’s replacing Fran McCaffery, whose tantrums and outbursts will be missed in Madison. Fran certainly helped the Badgers last year, when Wisconsin beat Iowa in a game that broke multiple records. The Badgers scored 116 points that game, setting a new record for most points scored by Wisconsin in the Kohl Center. But even still, Blackwell turned out to be the star of that game, and not the at-the-time star John Tonje. Blackwell is the new star of the Badgers, sharing the role with Nick Boyd. You always get nervous when a team has two stars, but they’ve made it work. It takes a while for a team to find their chemistry, especially with so many transfers, but both the two stars and everyone else on the team has taken some great leaps forward since November. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Tom Oates is out on assignment so Mike Lucas is joined by the Badgers’ public address announcer, Mike Mahnke. Mike’s been watching everything the Olympics has to offer, from hockey to luge to ice dancing, but this year has been all about curling. Team USA took home the silver in mixed doubles curling this year, narrowly losing the gold to Sweden. It feels natural to get into curling in Wisconsin; it’s sort of a combination of shuffleboard, bowling and darts.

Lucas, meanwhile, has been enjoying women’s hockey. Team USA defeated Team Canada on Tuesday in a 5-0 blowout with former Badger Hillary Knight as team captain. There are six total Badgers on Team USA this year, and another five on Team Canada. With so many Badgers to watch, it’s hard not to love. 

Meanwhile, both Mike and Lucas had one word for the Super Bowl: lackluster. For Mike, this year was about the commercials. Some were good, some were weak, and some were downright creepy. 

Moving to what Mike knows best, the Badgers men's basketball team played Illinois Tuesday night (though the show was recorded before tipoff, Wisconsin won a thriller in overtime against the No. 8-ranked Illini). The Badgers were coming off a tough loss to Indiana, one that included questionable foul calls that were hard to take. But sometimes that sort of thing will happen when they were down by as much as they were at halftime.

Coming up, the Badgers will return to the Kohl Center Friday night to take on Tom Izzo and Michigan State. Izzo has had a long and sometimes contentious relationship with Madison, but you have to respect him as a coach. He’s become one of Mike’s favorite coaches to watch on the bench, and even Greg Gard considers him a friend. That said, all that will probably be going out the window on Friday night. 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced each week by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.