10 compelling stories from NCAA weekend
Reserve guard Essegian announces transfer plan
For Wisconsin basketball teams, the first weekend of the NCAA tournament will be remembered as a long-awaited breakthrough (for Marquette fans) or an abject disaster (for Wisconsin fans).
But there were a number of Wisconsin-centric story lines from the first two rounds of the 2024 Big Dance.
Here they were in reverse order of prominence:
10. SEC has a rough go, and ex-Wisconsin coaches among those bounced
This list will start and end with the struggles of the Southeastern Conference, which saw five of its teams lose in the first round and four suffer losses at the hands of double-digit seeds. Auburn, the SEC tournament champion coached by former University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee head coach Bruce Pearl, took a 78-76 loss to Yale, one night after sixthseeded South Carolina (coached by former Wisconsin assistant Lamont Paris) took a lopsided 87-73 loss to No. 11-seeded Oregon.
Former Marquette coach Buzz Williams got Texas A&M into the second round but fell to Houston once he got there, though the Aggies forced overtime with a thrilling rally before coming up short in OT. Watertown native Nate Oats and Alabama are through to the second weekend.
9. Hunter almost wills Texas back
Racine St. Catherine standout Tyrese Hunter finished with 13 points and hit a deep late three-pointer that provided at least some drama, but Texas couldn’t get over the hump against No. 2-seeded Tennessee in the second round, 62-58. Hunter had eight points in a first-round win over Colorado State, a team that features Brookfield East alumnus Patrick Cartier.
8. Trimble’s rejection
North Carolina’s 85-69 win over Michigan State looked plenty comfortable on paper in the second round, but players afterward had positive things to say about feisty reserve guard Seth Trimble, who had two big rejections as the Tar Heels took control of the game. Trimble, from Menomonee Falls, finished with two points.
7. Grambling State rallies for First Four win
Grambling State, a team with multiple connections to Wisconsin, rallied for an 88-81 win in overtime against Montana State in the First Four in Dayton, giving the program an NCAA victory in its first appearance in the Big Dance.
Head coach Donte’ Jackson is from Milwaukee and played at UW-Milwaukee. Jalen Johnson, who transferred from UWM, and Mikale Stevenson, who transferred from Milwaukee Area Technical College, both hit double figures in scoring as the Tigers came back from a 14-point deficit. Three other players hailing from the Milwaukee area didn’t play in the game; Grambling State lost to Purdue two days later.
6. Domask’s triple double
The Waupun native has made the most of his graduate-transfer season playing for Illinois, and he was on fire in the Illini’s first-round win over Morehead State, 85-69. Domask had 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists, just the ninth official triple-double in the NCAA men’s tournament. The last? Ja Morant of Murray State against Marquette in 2019. Marquette’s own Dwyane Wade famously recorded one against Kentucky in the Elite Eight. Domask added 22 points in an 8963 win over Duquesne in the second round.
5. Does Bennett Ball work anymore?
Tony Bennett, the former star at UWGreen Bay and son of ex-Badgers coach Dick Bennett, won the national title in 2019, but Virginia hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since, with three losses all to double-digit seeds. This year, the Cavaliers were among the last invited to the tournament, and the 14-point first half in a First Four loss to Colorado State started a fire on social media, calling out the selection committee for making the wrong call. Colorado State, with Brookfield East’s Patrick Cartier in the lineup, eventually dismissed Virginia, 67-42. The Cavaliers had Wisconsinites Reece Beekman, Andrew Rohde and Leon Bond in the rotation.
4. Iowa State’s Wisconsin contingent marches onward
Second-seeded Iowa State, potentially under-seeded a bit as the fourthranked No. 2 seed, registered a 67-56 win over Washington State in the second round after an 82-65 win over South Dakota State.
The opening-round game marked a unique battle between coach T.J. Otzelberger and his old program, as well as his former assistant Eric Henderson, now head coach of the Jackrabbits. Both Otzelberger and Henderson once coached basketball at Catholic Central in Burlington.
Pewaukee High School alumnus Milan Momcilovic scored 19 points in the first game and another 10 in the follow-up. The freshman has become an immediate difference-maker for the Cyclones.
3. Wisconsin wilts vs. James Madison
Changes are already afoot for the Wisconsin program in the days after an ugly 72-61 loss to 12th-seeded James Madison, with Connor Essegian announcing that he’s about to transfer. How will the program transform in the months ahead as it stares down its third loss to a double-digit seed in the past four tournaments?
2. Kolek, Marquette deliver against Colorado
The big question surrounding Marquette heading into the tournament was whether Tyler Kolek would be healthy, and would the oblique injury that held him out for more than two weeks limit him with the games started? Back-toback double doubles suggest it won’t be a problem.
The 81-77 win helped cement an already dazzling legacy at MU for the consensus All-American, with his 21 points and 11 rebounds leading the way.
No Wisconsin school has reached the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since Wisconsin was stunned by Florida in the Sweet 16 in 2017, and Marquette hasn’t made it to this stage since 2013. Brookfield Central’s David Joplin had an impressive dunk in the win over Colorado and two monster free throws late.
1. Pewaukee native Gohlke becomes household name
Oakland University senior Jack Gohlke, a Pewaukee native who spent five years playing at NCAA Division II Hillsdale in Michigan, is everything the NCAA Tournament is about. He was a star who came out of nowhere as an upstart mid-major team shocks a blue blood. The Pewaukee High School graduate hit 10 three-pointers in a stunning 8076 win over Kentucky, sending the 14thseeded Golden Grizzlies to their first appearance in the round of 32. Gohlke hit another six triples against North Carolina State in the second round, but the Grizzlies fell in overtime, 79-73.
Gohlke’s 16 triples are the most ever by a player in his first two NCAA tournament games. He seemed completely unfazed in postgame press conferences by his newfound celebrity and success.
“I know they have draft picks and I’m not going to the NBA,” Gohlke said in the postgame presser. “But I know on any given night I can compete with those guys and our team can. When we play our ‘A’ game, we can be the best team on the floor.”
MADISON – AJ Storr, who led Wisconsin in scoring and started all 36 games this season after transferring from St. John’s, is mulling entering the transfer portal.
Storr declined to comment on his future after UW’s season ended last week in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“Right now,” he said, “I’m still thinking about the loss.”
His three options are to enter the 2024 NBA draft, return to UW for a second season or enter the portal.
Storr averaged 16.8 points per game to help UW secure a No. 5 seeding in the NCAA Tournament.
He struggled in UW’s 72-61 first-round loss to James Madison, however.
Storr finished with 13 points but missed all 3 three-point attempts, hit just 5 of 14 shots overall and had four turnovers.
Storr hasn’t hidden his desire to play in the NBA.
“That has been my dream,” he said before the James Madison game.
Reserve guard Connor Essegian announced Sunday he plans to transfer. Essegian started 19 games and played in 35 as a freshman, averaging 27.4 minutes per game. He shot 35.9% from three-point range and averaged 11.7 points per game on a team that reached the semifinals of the NIT.
Walk-ons Luke Haertle and Ross Candelino announced Monday they are entering the transfer portal.
The Badgers will be active in pursuing transfers before next season.
Players to watch include Omaha junior wing Frankie Fidler and South Dakota State forward William Kyle III, both high school teammates of Chucky Hepburn; and UNC-Greensboro power forward Mikeal Brown-Jones, a graduate transfer.
UW coach Greg Gard acknowledged after the loss to James Madison that the staff is prepared for just about anything.
“We see the world we’re in,” Gard said, referring to the ability of players to transfer whenever they choose without having to sit out at their new school. “We’ll have conversations.
“If guys want to test the waters in the draft or get feedback. We haven’t had those conversations yet. We’re so raw after the end of the game.
“And like I said, you just look at the landscape, that’s the environment we are in. So, you have to deal with it and prepare.”
PHOENIX – Save some for the regular season, Willy Adames.
That’s the message that the Milwaukee Brewers shortstop himself was telling anyone who could hear after his powerful day at the plate Sunday afternoon.
Adames slugged three home runs, including one off all-star Merrill Kelly, as part of a six-homer day and 14-4 win for the Brewers over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Assuming Adames does have some dingers left in the reserve – and given his 59 homers the last two years, that seems like a safe assumption – then it would seem he is rounding into form at the right time with opening day four sleeps away.
“I’m trying to tell Rhys (Hoskins) that’s too many already. Got to save them for the regular season,” Adames said. “It’s a good feeling. It’s a good feeling, obviously, getting to the end of spring training and you’re about to start the regular season. You always want to have a great feeling going into the regular season and I think that’s what today did. The last couple of days have been great and a lot of work. It makes me feel better and better every game.”
Adames, who now has five homers in the past five games and six this spring, took Kelly deep for the first time in his second at-bat by clubbing a low fastball pit to left-center. For his second, he lofted a fly high into the breezy wind out to center and it carried just over the fence. It was the third homer in a four batter span for the Brewers, who had already seen Sal Frelick and Rhys Hoskins go back to back earlier in the inning.
Prospect Luis Lara, 19, clocked the first Cactus League homer of his career in the fifth for the Brewers’ sixth of the game.
Then Adames blasted his third of the day on a no-doubter to center in the sixth.
Brewers break out the bats
One game makes not an indicative sample. One spring game doesn’t even come remotely close. But this, still, is exactly what the Brewers want to see after a down year for the offense.
The homers, of course, are nice, but it was the entire puzzle that Hoskins and company excited Sunday.
There was excellence in depth as well as in hustle from the Brewers.
Brice Turang had three hits. Three other Brewers had multi-hit days. Everyone who started had at least one hit. Frelick and Turang stole a base.
“The wind’s blowing out today, of course, but I always say that you still got to hit it,” Hoskins said. “Maybe some of them aren’t always home runs, but I would give us the bulk of them are probably not outs. We’ve been preaching trying to play offense and not just going out there and swinging and hitting. Obviously the long ball was great for us today but we were able to continue to apply pressure on the basepaths, took a couple extra bases, stole some bases.”
DL Hall makes last start of spring
Likely to pitch Saturday in New York for the Brewers second game of the season, DL Hall got his final tuneup in against the Diamondbacks. A few two-strike hits against his fastball and a defensive miscue by catcher Gary Sanchez on a play at the plate led to a pair of second-inning runs, but Hall settled in and was dominant after. He finished by retiring 11 straight batters to allow just the two runs on five hits with no walks and four strikeouts in five innings.