Sweet 16: No. 10 Davidson vs. No. 3 Wisconsin

Stephen Curry, meet Wisconsin's Michael Flowers. You'll be seeing a great deal of him Friday night at Ford Field.

Davidson's Curry has scored 70 points in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament (55 in the second halves), while shooting 13-for-25 from three-point range to lead the upstart Wildcats into the Sweet 16.

Flowers, a senior guard, has been the centerpiece of a Badgers' defensive unit that leads the nation in scoring defense (53.9 points per game). The best defensive player in the Big Ten, Flowers usually draws the opponent's top guard. Former UCLA coach and current ESPN analyst Steve Lavin thinks that Flowers is "as effective a defender as there is in the country."

Wisconsin has held Cal-State Fullerton and Kansas State to only 37.8 percent shooting from the field and 55.5 points in its first two tournament victories and it has limited nine of its last 10 opponents to under 60.

Curry ranks fourth in the nation with an average of 25.7 points per game. His second half heroics allowed Davidson to dig its way out of a 17-point hole with about 18 minutes left against Georgetown and rally from an 11-point deficit with 15 minutes to play against Gonzaga.

The Wildcats didn't win 24 games with just one player. Point guard Jason Richards, who is averaging 12.9 PPG, leads the nation in assists with eight per game and has an assist to turnover ratio of 2.7-to-1.

Through the first 28 games, Wisconsin allowed more than 70 points on three occasions. It lost all three games to Duke, Marquette and Purdue, three teams with strong guard play that were successful in forcing the Badgers out of their half-court comfort zone.

The Wildcats like to run and they like to push. They ran with Duke and they ran with North Carolina and won't change against Wisconsin.

Davidson is at its best when it pushes the tempo, but coach Bob McKillop demands that his team take care of the basketball, so it isn't a helter-skelter system.

The Wildcats are far from one-dimensional. Big men Boris Meno and Thomas Sander are capable of doing damage inside.

Wisconsin's front line is imposing with athletic Brian Butch and Greg Stiemsma standing 6-foot-11 and Joe Krabbenhoft playing the wing-forward at 6-foot-7. If guards Flowers and Trevon Hughes can drive and dish like they did against Kansas State, the Wildcats could be in for a long night.

Davidson loaded up with non-conference games against North Carolina, Duke, UCLA and Charlotte. The Wildcats lost all four, but the largest margin was 12 points to the Bruins and they lost only 72-68 to the Tar Heels in the second game of the season.

Davidson has 'covered' eight straight on the road when playing against a winning team after 15 or more games and it has cashed 10 of 11 versus good defensive teams (shooting percentage defense of less than 42 percent).

Wisconsin has been on the low side in 22 of its last 32 trips to the post and in 13 of 17 when the 'total' was between 120 and 129 1/2.

Most offshore books opened the Badgers as 4-point favorites with the 'total' set at 126 1/2.

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