NCAA Tournament Preview: Wisconsin wears the small shoes in opener against Florida State

Wisconsin vs Florida State - Time and TV: Fri., March 20, 9:55 p.m. ET*, CBS
 * = Approximate time. Game starts 30 minutes after the end of Xavier-Portland State.

The Wisconsin Badgers will do something very unusual this Friday, as they begin their latest NCAA Tournament journey: They'll don the road jerseys of a lower seed. How this consistent program handles a different kind of situation will say a lot about the outcome this battle in Boise.
 
Since he arrived in Madison in the fall of 2001, Bo Ryan has never failed to get the Badgers into the Big Dance. This year, a six-game losing streak endangered Ryan's run of excellence, but the laser-focused coach got his team back on track, riding his horses to the finish line and placing in the money for yet another season. The big goal of getting back to the tournament has been attained, but the price of Wisconsin's struggles must be paid in the form of a No. 12 seed in the East Region, and a date with a strong and powerful Florida State squad in Taco Bell Arena. A brief glance at recent history shows how rare this situation is for the Badger basketball brotherhood.
 
The first seven seasons of the Bo Ryan era produced only one year in which Wisconsin entered the first round of the NCAA Tournament as a lower seed, and that came as a 9 seed in 2006 (versus No. 8 Arizona). The Badgers usually wear the home whites in the early rounds of tournaments, and thanks to upsets in their part of the bracket, the men of Madison were a higher seed for the first three rounds in the 2005 edition of the Dance. As a No. 6 seed in the (then-called) Syracuse Region, that year's Wisconsin club defeated No. 11 Northern Iowa, No. 14 Bucknell (who stunned Kansas that season), and No. 10 North Carolina State to advance to the regional finals.

This journey through the past decade might seem pointless to some, but the topic possesses a certain amount of intrigue: How will a team used to being a favorite respond to a first-round NCAA game in which it rates as a decided underdog?
 
This subject should have relevance for Wisconsin fans because it was in 2000 that the Badgers--then coached by state basketball legend Dick Bennett--found their way to the Final Four as an 8 seed in the West Region. That same year, an eighth-seeded team from North Carolina put a miserable regular season in the rearview mirror by joining the Badgers in Indianapolis for college basketball's crowning weekend. As Wisconsin now wears the mantle of "little ol' 12 seed," it will be fascinating to see how much energy, confidence and vigor the Badgers bring to Boise against Florida State, which is making its first NCAA appearance since 1998.
 
And oh, what did the Seminoles do in that tournament after backing into the event with a sub-.500 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference? Why, they won, of course... as a No. 12 seed. FSU defeated fifth-seeded TCU in Oklahoma City, the result of supreme confidence created, in part, by the underdog status only a double-digit seed can deliver.
 
There are X-and-O considerations in this contest that will substantially affect the outcome. Accomplished playmakers such as Wisconsin veteran Marcus Landry and the untested Jon Leuer have to step outside the 3-point arc and hit shots, so that FSU's pair of Nigerian big men, Solomon Alabi and Uche Echefu, are drawn away from the basket. Florida State superstar Toney Douglas--the bearer of a 21 point-per-game scoring average--must seize the big March Madness stage. Trevon Hughes has to play the defensive game of his life, while Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton needs to get his players to maintain poise against the Badgers' structured offensive sets. A lot of fascinating basketball-specific tensions are part of this collision, but the lingering appeal of this noisy Boise brouhaha is the weird sight of that "(12)" next to Wisconsin's name on the bracket sheet.

Will the Badgers use their low seed as motivational fuel? Will Wisconsin shoot the ball with considerable confidence, in marked contrast to most of this season? 
 
Will Florida State treat this game as an opportunity, given the Seminoles' 11-year absence from the NCAA Tournament, or will the anxieties surrounding a potential 5-12 upset turn the ACC Tournament runner-up into a mentally terrified team?
 
Wisconsin must hit perimeter shots and frustrate Florida State's low-post players. FSU must increase the tempo and put Toney Douglas in position to thrive. Yes, it's true that strategies and adjustments will hugely affect this game just like any other, but the psychology of seeds--and the weight of a not-so-normal Friday in the state of Idaho--will largely tell the tale when the Badgers and Seminoles take the floor.

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