B5Q Blogopean Union: JJ Watt isn’t here for your nonsense headlines

Good morning! This is going to be a daily(ish) post that discusses the goings on of the rest of the Big Ten Conference, and the country as needed. Much like the European Union, the Big Ten is a loosely confederated group of entities that sometimes have the same goals (like free movement of people between countries or not winning national titles in football or basketball) and sometimes accept new members that they later regret (Estonia or Rutgers).

We hope that you will use this post to comment on things happening around the conference and also as a sort of daily open thread to discuss breaking news or argue about Spotted Cow.

• I’m excited to see what this will look like in the next five years. The Badgers are recruiting better than they ever have so one would hope that their development program would make these four-star kids into five-star players that will win more games.

Also, Ohio State is really good.

• It’s NEVER too early for Bracketology.

Badgers a 9-seed out West playing Stanford in round one and potentially Gonzaga in round two. Tough draw!

Wisconsin is a 9-seed in the Midwest playing Stephen F. Austin and then potentially Butler in Jerry Palm’s bracket. The Badgers are an 8-seed in Joe Lunardi’s bracket playing Florida (grrrrr) in the East. Duke is the No. 1 seed in that region (double grrrr). Eamon Brennan has the Badgers in his “work to do” category in his excellent Bubble Watch column on The Athletic ($). 12 of the 14 B1G teams are currently involved in making the NCAA Tournament according to Brennan...crazy conference this year.

• Bucci Mane is going to be in Madison for the men’s hockey series this weekend against No. 6 Ohio State.

• Alicia Monson is being nominated for an award? Color me not surprised.

• Tyler Wahl is taking on the role of “guy every opposing fan base will absolutely HATE and yell about on Twitter” which is an honored and exalted position at Wisconsin. Doing so a freshman too? So precocious!

• Team USA disappointed at the World Juniors this year, failing to medal, and I will definitely NOT be reading into the fact that there were four Badgers on the team. Nope...not going to do that.

• So I saw this tweet and briefly thought that it meant the new Bachelor used to be a wrestler for Wisconsin and got really upset that no one had told me. But then I realized that it’s just two guys named Peter and calmed down.

• That...is a really impressive week of stuffing the box score for Imani Lewis.

• J.J. Watt is absolutely right about this. I hate when a female athlete is introduced as the partner of her more famous male athlete boyfriend/husband/whatever. Kealia Ohai has a name, for future reference usually half of it is on the back of her jersey, and it should be used when discussing a piece of news...involving her.

Like, when Tom Brady retires is it going to be announced as “Gisele’s husband retires from job?” No, even though Gisele is more famous than Brady the headline will have his name in it. It is exciting that women’s sports are getting more press and more fans but there is still a lot of work to be done before things are even close to equal with men’s sports.

Step one would be using the names of the women you are covering.

• Iowa S Geno Stone is going pro.
• Northwestern may just want to cancel the rest of their men’s basketball season.
• Michigan State football’s potentially bleak future.
• 5 bold predictions for Michigan’s 2020 football season. Obviously they assume they’ll beat Wisconsin next year and I, like an idiot, inserted myself into the comments.
• Rutgers vs. Penn State is one of the biggest early season basketball games in the conference. WHAT?!?
• The Terps are playing fast and winning games.
• I help The Champaign Room preview the Badgers for the game on Wednesday night.