The Wisconsin State Journal's Jesse Osborne takes a closer look at UW's disappointing early exit from the tournament after such a dominating regular season:
Badgers out of answers in loss to UNLV
by JESSE OSBORNE for the Wisconsin State Journal
Photo credit: SI.comCHICAGO - The journey began eight months ago in Italy amid great expectations.
It ended Sunday afternoon at the United Center, short of the desired goal.
The University of Wisconsin men's basketball team's 74-68 loss to UNLV in the second round of the NCAA tournament served as a somber ending to a record-setting season that contained Final Four - or more - aspirations.
"We wanted to do something special this year as a unit. We figured with the personnel that we had, we had a chance to do a lot of great things for Wisconsin, for the university," senior forward Alando Tucker said. "And for the most part, we lived up to that. ... Things just a lot of times don't fall in place like you want it."
Added senior guard Kammron Taylor: "Even though we set a couple school records as a team, our ultimate goal was to make a deep run in the tournament. Right now ... it stings."
Just as in their opening-round game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Friday, the second-seeded Badgers were stung by a slow start.
Less than 9 minutes in, UW trailed 19-8, and the deficit was 39-27 at halftime. And, just like in their previous game, the sixth-ranked Badgers rallied to take the lead in the second half...[READ FULL ARTICLE]
My take: The Badgers have played had a horrible offense in the tournament and it finally cost them their bid to the Sweet 16. What was perhaps more demoralizing was the lack of effort defensively from the Badgers, who were lauded as one of the better defensive teams in the tournament. Note to Kamron Taylor: You can't go cold for half of a basketball game and expect to help your team win. UNLV outshot the Badgers in every category, including going an amazing 50% from behind the arc (10 of 20). Alando Tucker wasn't as clutch as he needed to be, only going 4 of 11 from the field thanks to the Running Rebels' pressure.
Despite my love for the red and white, I had them losing in this round in the first bracket I filled out, although I eventually changed it because I'm a homer. Regardless, congrats to a gritty hot shooting UNLV team for the win.
Music
Jason Collett Live in Minneapolis 2006
Last year, I was lucky enough to catch Jason Collett's performance at the High Noon Saloon along with Leslie Feist in Madison, Wisconsin. Today, I'm lucky to be able to pass along a few live songs, not from that concert, but from another close by at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis, Minnesota for your listening pleasure, just in case you haven't yet heard this talented artist.
Bio from Arts & Crafts:
Most singer/songwriters are lonely souls with only a stool, an acoustic guitar and a heart-worn sleeve. Not Jason Collett.
Oh sure, the Broken Social Scene guitarist has his instrument and a stack of intimate tales to tell-but his new solo album, Idols of Exile, sounds more like a house party.
Since 2001, Collett has been considered the indispensable lynchpin of Toronto's booming indie scene, thanks largely to his casual (and still occasional) star-studded songwriting night known as Radio Mondays. Of course, most of these tunesmiths-such as Hayden, Kathleen Edwards, Weakerthans and most of the Arts-Crafts family-weren't stars yet. But Collett's beloved community-building series solidified the Toronto indie movement that would soon take off worldwide and connected Collett with his future social scene.
Collett was asked to join Broken Social Scene after their breakthrough album You Forgot It In People, but he was a solo artist first and never stopped writing his own tunes. When pressed for influences for his more roots-based style, he cites Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson and Nick Lowe. "My stuff is based around songs and the Social Scene thing is based around busting songs wide open," he says. "My thing is more schooled."
But after putting his own music on the backburner-aside from 2003's internationally-acclaimed Motor Motel Love Songs (which was actually a compilation of earlier efforts)-Collett is ready to fulfill his promise with Idols of Exile, his proper Arts-Crafts debut.
"This is the first time anyone has ever given me any money to make a record," he says. "I wanted basically to have all my friends on it. That is the spirit of how things are created in our camp right now and I'm smart enough to know a renaissance when it's happening."
So friend, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Howie Beck took the producer's reigns while other pals stopping by to help out included Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Andrew Whiteman (Apostle of Hustle) and Charles Spearin (Do Make Say Think); Leslie Feist; Andrew Cash; Chris Brown; pedal steel player Bob Egan; violinist Julie Penner; Stars' Evan Cranley and Amy Millan; and Metric's James Shaw and Emily Haines, the latter lending her inimitable vocals to the road-song duet "Hangover Days."
Jotted down on notepads while on tour the past two years, every song perfectly reflects Collett's rollercoaster life in a vital body of work that has drawn critical comparisons to Tom Petty and Paul Westerberg. His heartfelt music mixes the wide open spaces of alt-country and intimacy of acoustic folk with the densely-layered sad-eyed optimism of the best indie pop, most affectingly on the violin-boosted western epic "We All Lose One Another," the group jangle of "I'll Bring the Sun" and the Sparklehorse-frail ballad "Parry Sound." But as songs like like "Brownie Hawkeye" and "Almost Summer" make clear, the album was also an opportunity to exorcise his suburban demons...[READ FULL BIO]
Jason Collett - "Fire"
Jason Collett - "We All Lose One Another"
Jason Collett - "Feral Republic"
Jason Collett - "Brownie Hawkeye"
Jason Collett at Arts & crafts website
Is it Thursday yet?