David Stluka / UW Athletics
Badgers win their third-round game in the NCAA college basketball tournament against the Arizona Wildcats. Ultimately the team fell to Duke in the final.
When the hometown university’s basketball team makes it to the NCAA championship game in early April, whatever happens after that may seem anticlimactic.
Except when the longtime coach of that basketball team makes a surprise retirement announcement in the middle of his 15th season. The legendary Bo Ryan, who won more basketball games than any other University of Wisconsin coach and took the Badgers to back-to-back Final Fours, called it a career on Dec. 15.
Greg Dixon
Oregon’s Jen Brien scored two goals in the WIAA Division 2 girls soccer championship.
His extremely likable UW men’s basketball team of last season fell just five points short of a national championship, turning people who didn’t care about college basketball into fans — and giving those of us who do care something we’ll never forget.
The Badgers unwittingly also set the “runner-up” standard for other local teams in 2015.
Let’s talk about the Madison Radicals, which flung its way to the American Ultimate Disc League Championship in San Jose, Calif., in August before losing to the San Jose Spiders, 17-15. If you haven’t checked out the Radicals at Breese Stevens Field, I highly recommend you put that on next summer’s to-do list.
Then there was the Madison Blaze, the city’s Independent Women’s Football League team, which battled in Rock Hill, S.C., at the Founder’s Bowl in July, losing to the Carolina Phoenix, 32-9.
On the other hand, the Hurling Club of Madison went the distance, winning the North American “Junior C” title at the North American County Board Championships at Chicago Gaelic Park in Oak Forest, Ill.
Daren Lee
Terek Nesheim of Mount Horeb dominates as the Vikings win the WIAA Division 2 state title.
Meanwhile, the 9-3 UW football team will cap Paul Chryst’s first season as head coach with a trip to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego against the University of Southern California, in what essentially will be a home game for the Trojans. And the UW women’s hockey team won the 2014-15 Western Collegiate Hockey Association tournament for the first time since 2011. (This season’s squad takes a WCHA-leading 18-1-1 record into 2016.)
The Green Bay Packers, which lost to Seattle in last season’s NFC championship game, kept this season’s playoff hopes alive after Sunday’s 28-7 victory over Dallas on a rainy 54-degree day in Titletown. That’s quite an accomplishment, considering that a midseason skid gave the Minnesota Vikings a short-lived spot atop the NFC North before the Packers reignited their season with a beautiful Hail Mary touchdown pass from Aaron Rodgers to tight end Richard Rodgers (no relation!) to beat the Detroit Lions on Dec. 3 with time expired.
The Milwaukee Bucks were pretty much a non-story this season until Dec. 12, when they did what no other NBA team could: beat the reigning champion and previously 24-0 Golden State Warriors. The 108-95 victory at the BMO Harris Bradley Center made the Bucks a national story.
The Milwaukee Brewers were a national story, too, but for all the wrong reasons. Their 68-94 effort in 2015 lumped the Brew Crew in with the worst teams in Major League Baseball.
Finally, we need to pay respect to several area high school teams, especially at the Division 2 level. Mount Horeb won state titles in boys’ basketball, boys’ soccer and gymnastics in 2015, while the Oregon girls’ soccer team, Monona Grove boys’ swimming team, and Edgewood girls’ swimming and tennis teams also took home state championships.
Proving that the Madison area boasts the best high school swimmers in the state, McFarland’s boys’ and girls’ teams each were state runners-up.
In Division 1, Madison Memorial continued to dominate boy’s swimming, splashing its way to a fifth straight state title and its ninth in 11 years. And let’s not forget the Middleton girls’ golf team, which also won a state championship.
