Badger Challenge

The Badger Challenge is a great match up between two evenly matched up conferences. The match up of two conferences is a great idea and more conferences should do it. The Badger conferences are split up great for this as there is a North and South conference and they are close enough that the two conferences can meet together in one location. Most conferences don't have a conference that have schools that are close to the same size. I only caught the final three games of the challenge and I believe that the North won the match up six games to one.

Baraboo 50 Oregon 39

First half of this game was fairly rough to watch but, then in the second half Baraboo was able to take control of the game behind the inside presence of their big man 6'6 junior Mark Kowalke. Kowalke struggled on the offensive end and missed a lot of bunnies but, he was able to control the inside by controlling the rebounds on both ends of the court. One big boast for Baraboo in this game was the play of 6'2 senior Jake Banks who added a nice scoring punch from the outside that Baraboo was missing sorely when I saw them earlier in the year. Banks was able to hit some outside shots that really spread the Oregon defense. There wasn't a lot of bright spots for Oregon but, the one I noticed was the play of 6'4 junior Adam Gorman who did a nice job of battling on the inside and getting some inside buckets particularily in the first half. In warmups I saw Gorman as a guy that really didn't look like much of an athlete and probably only played because he was tall but, he actually brought a lot to the game and was Oregon's leader.

Top Scorers
Baraboo- Kowalke 12 Banks 11 Sean McGann 10
Oregon- Gorman 12 Brad Maerz 6 two with 5


Monona Grove 53 Reedsburg 35

This game was basically a two on two battle. Both teams have two very good players and not much for supporting players in the scoring department. Monona Grove was able to get the big lead when one of Reedsburgs stars didn't have a great game and the other one just couldn't get things going in the second half. In the first half Reedsburg star 6'3 junior Chad Mazur couldn't miss whether the shot was contested or not but, then in the second half Mazur just couldn't get an open look at the hoop and Reedsburgs offense fell apart. Reedsburg's other star 6'2 senior Jordan VanCleave seemed very hesistant to take the ball to the rim and the outside shoot wasn't falling for him, which really hurt Burg offensively because in the past VanCleave would take the ball to the rim hard and score or get fouled. On the other hand Monona Grove's stars 5'11 senior Jackson Retzlaff and 6'0 junior Zach Zweifel were basically unstoppable. Retzlaff was money from the outside, while Zweifel was scoring from the inside at will. Each player finished with 19 and MG cruised to the victory forcing Reedsburg into numerous turnovers.

Top Scorers
Reedsburg- Mazur 15 VanCleave 8 Jared Park 4
Monona Grove- Zweifel 19 Retzlaff 19 two with 4


Waunakee 66 Monroe 53

In the best game of the day Waunakee took down Monroe by 13 in a game that was very intense throughout. The thing that won the game for Waunakee was the overall team size, every guy on their team is 6'2 to 6'4 on the other side most of Monroes guys are right around an even 6'0. a pair of juniors in 6'2 Jared Staege and 6'3 Beau Murray are a tremendous back court and really carried the team in the scoring department. Staege might be the most improved player I've seen this year and Murray is a star. Monroe tried to keep the game close behind the strong outside shooting of their star 6'0 junior Bryan Tordoff but, Tordoff just couldn't get enough help from the rest of the team and ran outta gas.

Top Scorers
Waunakee- Murray 25 Staege 15 Austin Prusha 6
Monroe- Tordoff 20 Michael Barrett 11 Kevin Flint 11

Overall was a great day of basketball with a few very good teams playing. I could see Monona Grove knocking off a team or two in the playoffs and Waunakee will be like the past two years they have a very good team that can make it too sectionals but, just don't have the ability to knock off both Madison Memorial and Madison East. Just like every other year Monroe has a great chance to make it to Madison and state in division two. They shoot the three very well and if your hitting the three you can beat anyone and coming out of the southwest they should have a chance.