The NBA draft scouting process is already beginning, if you can believe it. I know I couldn't, but that notwithstanding expect UW to have some pretty good representation in the tournament as multiple ex-Badgers will take part in the Portsmouth Invitational, which gets underway today. 

What Badgers are participating? It appears that Brian Butch, Marcus Landry, Trevon Hughes, Jordan Taylor and Jared Berggren will all be in attendance. 

Notable #Badgers alums to attend Portsmouth = @brian_butch, @mlandry11, @nyc2wis & @jmtaylor11

— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) April 11, 2013

Jared Berggren will be tipping things tonight at 8pm Central time and you can watch it all here.

Sticking with the basketball theme - you can take part in the Badgers 2013 NCAA Tournament reception on April 23rd. More information can be found here.

Bo Ryan being attacked by bloggers, opposing fans, and sports writers with an agenda? It must be the offseason, so let the hits start coming I guess. Normally, it's whatever to us here - I mean, it's become a running joke by now and frankly it's nothing we haven't all heard a thousand times before. 

Normally, that's the case, but every once in a while there's a new angle of attack and well, after thinking we've heard them all before here at MTB we've found a new one. Apparently now Bo Ryan is an evil person attracting and recruiting walk-on's to pad the team GPA and well, we'll let one Joseph Nardone (the article's author) say it best: 

Now, somehow, schools (Not just Wisconsin) are recruiting their walk-ons. These players are generally borderline D-I talent, but add either great depth to the practice team or, more diabolically, are decent enough players but whose grades are so swell, it alters a program’s team grade average — keeping them safe from any potential NCAA sanctions.

Yep, that's a new one if we've ever heard it. If you bother to read the full "article" and we use that term loosely, Nardone attempts to make some sort of point that the NCAA is doing a disservice to players and allowing coaches - notice how Bo Ryan is his only example - to artificially inflate their team GPA's. 

Guess what? We're just a few weeks from the NFL Draft!! Yippie.... Yep, that's where were at here in the doldrums of the offseason, but at least as Badgers fans we can look forward to at least a few names of former Badgers being called at the draft, right? 

Well, as ESPN ramps up their coverage heading into the draft they just recently did a profile on Wisconsin's Montee Ball as part of their Sports Science feature:

Safe to say the dude is powerful... as in having a more powerful stiff arm than the almight Adrian Peterson did in his Sports Science game changer test. At least these sets of drills actually measure things that will matter come Sunday's in the NFL - but hey what do we know having seen this guy for four straight years in the Badgers backfield right?

Chalk this one up in the surprise category as sophomore center Brendan Woods is forgoing the rest of his collegiate eligiblity to sign his contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. Just how surprising? Well, let's just say head coach Mike Eaves is less than pleased with the decision. 

Eaves told the Wisconsin State Journal's Andy Baggot the following: 

"I don't agree with the decision for many reasons,'' Eaves told Woods, "but if this is a decision that it feels right in your gut and your heart, then you have to go with that.''

Woods ended the 2012-13 season with 12 points on 5 goals and 7 assists - topping his freshman total of 10 points. He did the best of his work down the final 16 game stretch of the season, recording 9 of the 12 points in that timeframe. 

Overall, the Badgers have lost an underclassman to the NHL for the eight consecutive season and clearly this is becoming something that is bothersome to coach Eaves. 

Woods was a 5th round selection of the Hurricanes in this past year's draft and according to reports had flown to Carolina over the weekend to meet with team officials and his father, Bob, who's an assistant with the Anahiem Ducks. That's where the Hurricanes told them of their wish for him to be in their system. 

So, off is Woods - property of the Carolina Hurricanes - and now a member of the Charlotte Checkers, the Carolina Hurricanes affiliate in the AHL. He'll be with that team for the rest of the year on an ATO contract.

Yes, this is becoming "a thing" as we reported over the weekend that Wisconsin was getting in on what is quickly becoming a national phenomenon - sending out a boat load of hand written letters to recruits. We've had that report and a few others to date, but folks we have a new winner at this point and that's one Christian Byrum, who claimed via twitter of 64, yep SIXTY-FOUR handwritten letters coming from Gary Andersen and Co.

I just got 64 letters from #Wisconsin in the mail

C.D.B (@Christian1__) April 8, 2013

Clearly this trend isn't stopping and we promise we aren't going to sit here and report on every single one of these, but this particular one has an interesting angle to it. See, Byrum also happens to the teammate of consensus 4-star wide receiver Jamil Kamara, whom the Badgers are hoping will be one of the bigger prospects they land in this class. 

Byrum is no slouch either as he is a three-star prospect according to both 247sports and Rivals and has yet to be ranked by Scout. But, it's interesting to see the full court press going to both teammates out of one of the more frutal recruiting grounds in the country, the Tidewater area of Virginia. 

Welcome to the silly season officially as the unofficial end of the college calendar went down last night - just don't tell that to UW's softball team, who will be looking for redemption this weekend after a 1-2 weekend at the hands of the hated Gophers, or to the track & field teams, or rowing for that matter either. 

Sure, they may be minor sports to some, but they provide some great entertainment and as of late they've all been pretty freaking good. So get your rear ends out and support these teams as spring attempts to find it's way to Wisconsin at some point in time. 

Diatribe over it's time to get on to the links and some of what's going on in Badger nation!! 

Congrats to all our readers, you managed to kick the butts of everyone on staff here and at The B1G Time (our partners in crime for this year's bracket challenge). However, after last night's win by the Louisville Cardinals (six people correctly picked the Cards btw) we have a winner!! 

The winner was Eric and his JumpShotFreeThrows entry! Eric is a winner of $50 dollars at the MTB store & a copy of the new Bob Knight book. He won by a pretty impressive 166 to 147 margin in the final standings. 2nd place went to Tony and his tjc05 Choice bracket while 3rd place went to Brian Majcher - both will receive copies of the Bob Knight book as well. 

As for our pitful performances... We shall never speak of them again and hopefully next season sees better results to say the least. 

Thanks to all that participated and here's hoping that next season is even bigger and better for the challenge!! 

Wisconsin opened up it's scrimmage to the public on Saturday morning and more than 800 people were in attendance on what was a decent, but windy day according to those in attendance. What they saw was an offense that was ahead of the defense, who just three days prior had impressed more. 

Needless to say it's your typical spring, where inconsistency and injuries reign supreme. That being said, what were the impressions of those in attendance on Saturday? Well, first lets start with the words of head coach Gary Andersen shall we:

One of the highlights of the scrimmage came in back-to-back TD plays involving wide receivers as junior Kenzel Doe took a reverse for 60 yards and housed it, only to watch as Joel Stave hooked up with Jared Abbrederis for a 60 yard TD pitch and catch. 

How it happened was one of the biggest things that impressed Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. 

Tom Oates of the Wisconsin State Journal sung some of the same tune, but his number one take away was how different the defense was in how aggressive it appeard to be - something Badger fans who won't see this team till next fall won't have a true appreciation for from what we hear. 

Our staff will be in attendance next weekend, so be on the look out for full coverage leading up to the spring game on April 20th. 

This news should come as no surprise really, but Barry Alvarez has received a new contract and a pay raise to stay on as Athletics Director at Wisconsin according to Andy Baggot of the Wisconsin State Journal. 

Alvarez's new deal would keep him in charge of UW's athletic department through 2018, if he stays on that long. Let's be honest, the guy would be well into his 70's at that point and seeing how this new era of college athletics takes it toll on the younger, is it wise to have a man in his 70's at the helm? 

Don't expect him to step down unless it strikes his mood though and he hasn't thought about retirement at all at this point;

“I’ll keep going as long as I keep enjoying it and as long as they want me here,” he is quoted as saying in the WSJ piece.

Either way, Alvarez will be one of the highest paid AD's in the country, keeping his seven figure salary, which according to Baggot's piece will pay him just over $1 million a year. To put that in perspective he is just one of three Big Ten AD's and nine throughout the nation that will make that kind of money. 

His tenure as AD is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of what he's done at UW and the fact that nearly every single sport is competitive within the Big Ten and nationally is a testament to the quality and care Alvarez takes when making hires for the programs he's in charge of. 

Over the recent months there have been crazy stories and pictures out there, mostly emanating from SEC country of insane amounts of hand written letters going out to potential prospects, all in the hopes that it makes some sort of a difference. Judging by the fact that these insane amounts of personal letters end up getting pictures and comments thrown around on Twitter it's safe to say they are having an impression. 

We've covered how the Badgers have stepped up their game in recruiting circles pretty extensively here before, but apparently UW is now in on the mass letter writing campaign game as well: 

Woah... just opened up the mail box and found 52 letters from Wisconsin!

— Derek Kief (@DKief10) April 6, 2013

Here is the link to the pic of all the mail he's gotten from UW.

Kief is a 6'5", 197lbs., 247sports composite 4-star wide receiver out of Cincinnati and clearly the Badgers are putting on the full court press. Seriously, FIFTY-TWO letters out to one recruit?