Wisconsin vs. Virginia Tech, March Madness 2017: Game time, TV channel, and live stream info

All week, we’ve been debating whether the Wisconsin Badgers were criminally undervalued as a No. 8 seed in the East Region of the 2017 NCAA tournament.

Now, it’s time to move onto the bigger question: what will they do about it?

Wisconsin will face No. 9 seed Virginia Tech Thursday night at 8:40 p.m. CT at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, N.Y. With a win, the Badgers would face the winner of No. 1 seed Villanova and No. 16 seed. Mt. St. Mary’s on Saturday.

We’ve previewed the matchup from both sides: Jawhar Ali from Gobbler Country brought us up to speed on the Hokies before B5Q’s own Drew Hamm returned the favor with a Badgers-oriented Q&A. If you’ve somehow ended up here and aren’t familiar with Wisconsin’s season, I enjoyed Drew’s summary:

“Well, how much time do you have? Because I could discuss this Wisconsin basketball season for days and days and days, but I don't want to bore your readers with the ramblings of a madman,” Drew wrote to GC, hinting at the side of himself B5Q readers are quite familiar with. “Instead, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version of the season. The Badgers started off the year well, only losing to Creighton on the road and UNC in Maui while beating a handful of decent teams like Marquette, Syracuse and uhhhh, well they beat Marquette and Syracuse. Conference play started and the Badgers beat Indiana (who was considered good at the time) but lost at Purdue and then won eight games in a row to sit at 21-3! Sounds great, right? Well, there were some questionable performances mixed in with all those wins and some cracks in the foundation of the team. It took overtime for the Badgers to beat Minnesota, Rutgers, and Nebraska and while "a win is a win" you don't go to Sweet 16s while being taken to OT by Rutgers. The Badgers ended the season losing five of seven and couldn't make a free throw if their dog's lives depended on it. A nice performance in the B1G Tournament (beating Indiana and steam-rolling Northwestern before running into the hottest team in the midwest, Michigan, in the finals) gave fans some hope, but in reality no one has any idea which team will show up for the Badgers in the NCAA Tournament.”

Jawhar’s Q&A with us was really illuminating about Virginia Tech’s season, so I’ll link it again here because it’s definitely worth reading. This quote in particular especially concerns Badgers fans (sorry):

“The key themes for the Hokies this season have been “clutchness,” injuries and resilience,” Jawhar wrote. “Virginia Tech has excelled in crunch time, sometimes due to Seth Allen possibly being the best clutch player in the country this season. The Hokies are 8-4 in games decided by five points or less. This has been despite losing one of their best players in Chris Clarke and one of their best bigs in Kerry Blackshear Jr. If those two were healthy, the Hokies could have easily been a higher seed in the tournament. Losing those two, in particular, did not derail the season, as the Hokies were able to win games with a seven-man rotation in one of the deepest leagues in the country.”

So we’ll see! Here’s the viewing information for tonight’s game, as well as the full TV schedule for the first round of March Madness. Buckle up!

No. 8 Wisconsin Badgers (25-9, 12-6 Big Ten) vs. No. 9 Virginia Tech Hokies (22-10, 10-8 ACC)

Date: Thursday, March 16, 2017

Time: 8:40 p.m. CT

Location: KeyBank Center, Buffalo, N.Y.

TV: CBS (Verne Lundquist, Jim Spanarkel, Allie LaForce)

Live streaming: March Madness Live

National radio: Westwood One (Scott Graham, Donny Marshall)

Local radio: Badger Radio Network (Matt Lepay, Mike Lucas)

All-time series: Wisconsin leads 1-0 (UW won 74-72 on Dec. 1, 2008)

Game Notes: Wisconsin, Virginia Tech

Betting line: Wisconsin -5.5 (More NCAA tournament odds here)