Although all of the No. 1 seeds were tested in their showdowns to see who would get to the Sweet 16, only the Wisconsin Badgers could finish the job and actually send a No. 1 crashing out of the tournament. Wisconsin used a staunch defensive effort to stall the game against Villanova and limit the Wildcats’ possessions on its way to a 65-62 win on Saturday. The Badgers can’t celebrate the win for too long though as they have to knock off the Florida Gators for their dance to continue.
Don't miss this Sweet 16 showdown from Madison Square Garden in New York at 9:59 p.m. ET on Friday. Catch every moment of the game live on TBS.
Sweet 16 Odds at BookMaker.eu
Badgers +1.5
Gators -1.5
Over/Under 131.5
Odds Analysis
There has been a little bit of early action on the Gators but nothing significant as of yet. Florida has looked great thus far in the tournament though with an easy victory against East Tennessee State and a crushing win over Virginia, so it’s not that big of a surprise to see them getting wagered on at this stage.
How They Got Here
Florida lost to Vanderbilt to close out the regular season and then was eliminated by the Commodores in its first game of the SEC Tournament, so more than a couple picked the Gators to move that losing streak to three in a row and crash out against ETSU. However, the strength of the SEC has shown through and we can see that although the Gators couldn’t beat Vandy, they never lost a game against a team that failed to make the Big Dance.
Once in the tournament, the Gators used pressure to pull away from ETSU, forcing 17 turnovers on the day, but the real story came against Virginia. UVA hit just 1 of its 15 three-pointers against UF and the Gators held the Cavaliers to under 30 percent from the floor in an easy 26-point victory. That was a huge performance considering the Gators did this without John Egbunu patrolling the paint.
While UF wasn’t great to end the season, Wisconsin was awful. The Badgers covered just two of their final nine regular season games, but oddly enough both were as favorites against teams that also made the tournament. Wisky started showing signs of friskiness in the conference tournament, knocking off Indiana and Northwestern by double digits and has let that continue into March Madness despite a loss in the Big Ten Championship Game to Michigan.
The Badgers beat Villanova despite an awful day at the free throw line, sinking just 7 of their 16 opportunities. That didn’t hurt them against Nova, who had a really poor night shooting for its standards, but could against Florida.
Comparable Games of Note
This is the first time that Florida has been to the NCAA Tournament under Mike White, but as a whole the school is used to appearances. Billy Donovan took the team to the tournament 14 times in his 19 seasons in Gainesville and reached the Final Four 4 times, but before then the team had only been dancing a total of five times.
Wisconsin has made the tournament in 19 straight seasons, but has just three Final Four appearances and no titles in that timeframe. This is the first full season for Greg Gard who took over for Bo Ryan midway through the 2015-16 season and he has certainly silenced some of his critics after the win against Villanova. A win and an Elite Eight appearance would give him some serious leeway with the fans and the administrators, but he is a slight underdog in that regard.
These teams last met in November 2013 with Wisconsin getting the upper hand in a game played in the Cheese State. These teams only had two common opponents this season with Wisconsin and Florida both beating Tennessee and Oklahoma by double digits.
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