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Bracket Buster official release

I think we have one player on the roster that will look forward to this game next year.

MILWAUKEE - The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball team will take on Bradley University in an O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters game, ESPN officials announced today.

The game will be played Sat. Feb. 23 at Carver Arena in Peoria, Ill. Game time and the ESPN network that will televise the game will be announced next week. Contests in the event will be spread out over ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic and ESPN360.

The Panthers (12-10) have won nine of their last 12 games to move into a position to be selected for a televised game in the BracketBusters event. That stretch followed a six-game losing and has come with Milwaukee's active roster trimmed to 11 players.

The Braves (13-10), meanwhile, have positioned themselves for a run at the postseason. In fact, after suffering through a six-game losing streak with top performer Daniel Ruffin injured, Bradley has bounced back to win its last five games.

"We are excited about the opportunity to take on a team with a strong tradition from a great conference," UWM head coach Rob Jeter said. "Bradley has had success in the NCAA Tournament in recent years and has really been playing some good basketball of late. It is definitely going to be a challenge, but we are looking forward to that challenge."

UWM's inclusion into the televised portion of BracketBusters marks the sixth time in the last seven years the Panthers will play on national TV in the event. It is also the fourth time Milwaukee has drawn a team from the Missouri Valley Conference.

"It is an honor to be selected for a televised game," Jeter said. "It is the kind of thing this team has been working toward over the last few months, and I think it is nice to see the hard work of our players be recognized in this way. It is an accomplishment to be selected to play in this kind of game, but now we will set out to try and accomplish more things over the last month of the regular season."
 
Dubl R 1 said:
Wisconsin-Milwaukee will do nothing for us with a win. What a boring, meaningless game IMO.
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I pretty much agree there. We just shouldn't lose that one. Maybe/hopefully we could swing some TV exposure from it in combination with the other games being braocasted down the stretch. I am not sure on the odds of a UW-Milwaukee at Bradley getting TV, though. There would be a viewing market there, though (maybe not big, but...) with the Wisc, down to Chitown, down to St. Louis, doe to the alumni base, etc. Oh well--just keep winning :-)
 
I may have misunderstood a post from the BracketBuster Pairings Announced at 5:30PM Today thread, but it looked like Wisconsin Milwaukee was already listed as an oponent for next year--if so, how in the world will the return game work? Will it be deferred until the subsequent year, or will we have an oddball situation like we played Loyola Chicago twice in the same season like we did back in the '80s (1985?)
 
ghunt said:
I may have misunderstood a post from the BracketBuster Pairings Announced at 5:30PM Today thread, but it looked like Wisconsin Milwaukee was already listed as an oponent for next year--if so, how in the world will the return game work? Will it be deferred until the subsequent year, or will we have an oddball situation like we played Loyola Chicago twice in the same season like we did back in the '80s (1985?)
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I belive it was assumed that we would be playing UW-M and it was penciled in as a road game based on that assumption.

I'm really not too excited about this. Hopefully it's on tv, but I just think it hurts having half of the Horizon league on our schedule, and next year will be much of the same it looks like.
 
Does anyone know if we have a return game next year with UIC, Loyola and/or Wright State?

I think this is terrible team for us to play, it does zero for us this season.

But right now I do not care in the least we have enough to worry about within our conference, this game is really a pain to have to play and looking at RPI does one thing, lets us play a team over 100 RPI. Would have been a great game 2/3 years ago.

YUCK.
 
I don't expect UWM to challenge you guys. Drake handled them by 21 in Milwaukee....and 3 starters + at least one reserve have left the UWM program since then.
 
Yeeechhh.

It's only a worthless game if we win. If we lose it's worth a whole heckuva lot. For anybody out there that was holding out hope that we'd draw a team good enough to maybe, just maybe, give us a shot at a "quality win" for the resume (if any of those teams existed in the event?), you've gotta be pretty disappointed.

Let the "we gotta get out of the BracketBuster" posts begin.....
 
BU RICK said:
THAT'S GREAT! and we'll also be at Michigan State next year!
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And Iowa State. Hopefully we get into a really good exempt tourney and are able to notch some big non-con wins. I know playing Butler and Wright State is good, and for the most part at least who we play in the BracketBuster is out of our control, but playing half the Horizon league two years in a row will hurt.
 
BUBraves06 said:
........I'm really not too excited about this. Hopefully it's on tv...
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It is definitely on one of the ESPN networks.......note the comments...

"Game time and the ESPN network that will televise the game will be announced next week"
"UWM's inclusion into the televised portion of BracketBusters marks the sixth time in the last seven years the Panthers will play on national TV in the event.....
"It is an honor to be selected for a televised game,"
and "The times and networks for each game will be unveiled on Monday, Feb. 11."


and you can be unhappy about this matchup, but note a couple things...

BU was not playing well at all when the committees were meeting and deciding on these games. We really don't have anyone else to blame.
UW-M has won 9 of their last 12, AND they play in a HUGE market area that BU would like to be able to recruit better in....so we sure could have done worse.

How'd you have liked to get Valparaiso, Marist, or Boise State??
 
ghunt said:
Just a 124 rpi, too. Uggh/ekkhh....
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Just dreamin' but imagine what they'll be thinking ...

when they come to Peoria to play the hottest team in the MVC, that just won 10 straight, including an upset at top 15 Drake...


I'm sure they will be in love with ESPN, too.
 
tornado said:
It is definitely on one of the ESPN networks.......note the comments...

"Game time and the ESPN network that will televise the game will be announced next week"
"UWM's inclusion into the televised portion of BracketBusters marks the sixth time in the last seven years the Panthers will play on national TV in the event.....
"It is an honor to be selected for a televised game,"
and "The times and networks for each game will be unveiled on Monday, Feb. 11."


and you can be unhappy about this matchup, but note a couple things...

BU was not playing well at all when the committees were meeting and deciding on these games. We really don't have anyone else to blame.
UW-M has won 9 of their last 12, AND they play in a HUGE market area that BU would like to be able to recruit better in....so we sure could have done worse.

How'd you have liked to get Valparaiso, Marist, or Boise State??
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I understand it could have been a lot worse T, and I agree with your points, I don't blame anyone else, I just don't like the fact that we're playing all of these Horizon league teams during this and next season.
 
Wow, this is not going to do anything for us in terms of boosting our resume. Why couldn't we draw somebody who's non sight impaired.
 
Who cares - our resume doesn't need boosting. We need to run out all the way through the regular season - it doesn't matter who we play. IMO, the winning streak and wins are more important.

What I'm not crazy about is having half our non-con games come from a single league. I mean, it's not like the Horizon is killing our RPI. But that's an awful lot of games tied up to a single league. And now to have 4 Horizon games ALREADY for next year is just killer.

I would have loved to switch UW-M with Nevada - better profile this year, solid road game next year.


Everyone complaining: Ok, who should we be playing? And who should we be ahead of in the pecking order to get these teams?
 
TheAsianSensation said:
Who cares - our resume doesn't need boosting. We need to run out all the way through the regular season - it doesn't matter who we play. IMO, the winning streak and wins are more important.

What I'm not crazy about is having half our non-con games come from a single league. I mean, it's not like the Horizon is killing our RPI. But that's an awful lot of games tied up to a single league. And now to have 4 Horizon games ALREADY for next year is just killer.

I would have loved to switch UW-M with Nevada - better profile this year, solid road game next year.


Everyone complaining: Ok, who should we be playing? And who should we be ahead of in the pecking order to get these teams?
Click to expand...

Perhaps there is a conspiracy to create one mega-league to be renamed the Missouri Horizon Valley Conference League. ;)
 
Not sure if this has been posted or not, but here are the rest of the MVC match-ups:

Wichita State @ N. Arizona
Central Michigan @ Missouri State
Illinois-Chicago @ Northern Iowa
Indiana State @ Murray State
Evansville @ Eastern Illinois
 
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