INDIANAPOLIS – For a second straight year, the Wisconsin basketball team came up empty in its quest for a Big Ten Tournament title, falling in the championship game to Michigan 59-53. But the loss, especially when it comes on Sunday, is quickly followed by new life — finding out your seed and op ponent in the NCAA Tournament. And for the Badgers, it will mean a trip to Denver as the No. 3 seed in the East Region to face No. 14 Montana on Thursday. “We’ll gather all the film we have. We already got some that will be on my computer when I jump on the bus here and watch some of that on the way home, I’ll get to understand who they are,” said coach Greg Gard, who said he had not seen the Grizzlies play this year. “Quite frankly, it’s also more about us, making sure we’re in a good position and ready to go and take all the positives from this weekend and apply them as we go into Thursday.” The Grizzlies come in having won 14 of their last 15 games, including beating top-seeded Northern Colorado to win the Big Sky Championship. The lone loss in that stretch was in overtime. They are led by guard Money Williams, who averages 13.3 points per game. In fact, their top five scorers are guards and they don’t have anyone bigger than 6-foot-8 that plays. In their two games against power conference teams they lost 79-48 to Oregon and 92-57 to Tennessee. Both of those games came near the start of the season. That was Wisconsin is heading West was at least a small surprise. While many had the Badgers as a No. 3 seed, most had them playing in Milwaukee. When CBS went to a reaction shot of the players seeing their seed, there was virtually no reaction to speak of. Just a bunch of sullen expressions. But guard Max Klesmit claimed that was more about the loss to the Wolverines than anything else. “We’re all happy with the draw. For me, it was this one stung a little bit more, making a run, literally the exact same kind of way we did last year, getting all the way to this his championship game. And guys playing their tails off, playing through little knicks and knacks and stuff like that. It was just frustrating,” Klesmit said. “But this team’s in a good spot. This team, from a mental standpoint, we’re in a really good spot. We’ll build the preparation this week going into Thursday.” A year ago, the Badgers fell to Illinois in the championship game. Five days later they were in Brooklyn getting beat up and knocked out of the tournament as a 5-seed by James Madison. But Gard has the confidence in his team bouncing back from this disappointment. “This group has had a heck of a year. “We were picked to finish 12th in the Big Ten. And now, if you look at the (NCAA) seed lines, we’re in the top 12 in the country. So we win 26 games with the schedule we played. They’ve left it all on the floor for us all year long. They know they’ve got a lot of basketball left in front of them. And we can do some damage here in the next few weeks.” If Wisconsin were to get past Montana on Thursday, the Badgers would face fourth-seeded BYU or 11th-seeded VCU on Saturday for a spot in the Sweet 16. The post Badgers get No. 3 seed, will face Montana in Denver on Thursday first appeared on 96.7FM 1670AM The Zone | WOZN - Madison, WI. ...read more read less