How can the Wisconsin Badgers Men’s Basketball Team make the tournament?

Losing to the Michigan Wolverines did not help the Wisconsin Badgers' chances of making the NCAA Tournament.

It actually makes life for the Badgers pretty hard to make the big dance.

As it sits today the Badgers are 16-12, and 8-10 in Big Ten Conference play. They have two regular season games remaining against the 5th-ranked Purdue Boilermakers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

They will also have the Big Ten Tournament, but first, let's focus on the regular season games remaining.

For the best opportunity, they can win out and make life easier to make the tournament.

While looking at winning out, that would mean upsetting the 5th ranked team in the nation, which is unlikely.

So they must win against the Golden Gophers to make it easier on themselves and give themselves a chance.

The Golden Gophers are 7-20 on the season, so this should be a very winnable game for the Badgers. Play their game and they should win.

Now they could lose both and still make it but that would be almost slim to none, so the Badgers must split the last two games.

Split the last two and go into the Big Ten Tournament looking to make some noise.

When you look at where the bracketologists have the Badgers, some have them as the first four in or first four out.

That is holding on for dear life to make the NCAA Tournament.

So this means the Badgers will realistically make the NCAA Tournament based on how they do in the Big Ten Tournament.

In the Big Ten Tournament, the Badgers may be the 10 through the 12 seed.

They hope to be the 10th seed, they want a bye to the second round! Being the 11th or 12 means they have to play an extra game.

The odds of getting the 10th seed would be in the hands of hoping Nebraska loses out and Wisconsin splits their final. This would make Nebraska 8-12, while Wisconsin would be 9-11 in conference play.

The most realistic way of getting into the tournament would be to split their final two games and win one game in the Big Ten tournament that would give the Badgers another quad 1 win.

If they Lose out they'd have to win two games or more in the Big Ten Tournament to help and even then that is pushing it because the Minnesota loss would be a rough loss on their resume.

As of right now, I predict they’d be playing West Virginia in the First Four in the game making the winner of that game the 11th seed.

As each game is played, I will continue to update the bracket and how the Wisconsin Men's Basketball Team can make the Tournament.

Win. Win. Win. The only thing that should be on the Badgers' minds.