For once, the University of Wisconsin gets some national pub without any bunny ears attached.





Madison almost ALWAYS wins the annual Playboy poll of the top party schools--once, in fact, the magazine D-Q'd the Badgers, saying it wasn't fair lumping in professionals with amateurs.





Times changed--sure, one can probably get faced on almost any floor of any UW dorm at one point or another during a typical week, but there's something else that all of us can take pride in: Wisconsin's basketball program.





Winters on the UW campus used to mean two things: drinking, and hockey. For most students, the two went hand in hand: booze could always be had, and Bob Johnson's Wisconsin hockey team was the closest thing Madison had to a sure-fire winning sports program. Football was still in a malaise, and hoop was fairly easy to forget since the team never got a whiff of postseason play and was stuck playing in the decrepit Fieldhouse.





What's happened on Bo Ryan's watch is nothing short of incredible as he built on the successes of Dick Bennett and put Wisconsin into the national spotlight. "Sports Illustrated" Rick Reilly gives him props here:





http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/rick_reilly/01/29/reilly0129/index.html





...and HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" piles it on in a piece that aired this week. The show not only gives all due praise to Ryan, but lauds the UW administration for it's insistence that "student" remain a verb when describing the school's "student athletes." Cath it here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sLkfucfvtA





Strange, isn't it, that an honest coach who gets results without bending the rules or beating his players is lauded for being THE EXCEPTION...when a school that keeps high standards while graduating the vast majority (70%) of it's players is seen as BUCKING THE PRESENT TREND?





Let us be that exception. And, may it pay dividends for the athletes wearing the state's name across their chests this upcoming tournament season.