Wisconsin and Notre Dame won two of the most exciting games in the NCAA Tournament's second round. As a reward, they'll now get to face each other in the Sweet 16, with a trip to the Elite Eight on deck for the winner.
The real battle here is simple: It's Notre Dame's beautiful, efficient offense against Wisconsin's organized, stout defense. The Irish are seventh in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency, and the Badgers are 12th in defensive efficiency. It's a classic fight between a hard-to-stop force and a hard-to-move object.
The Irish play at a snail's pace under head coach Mike Brey, so they're only 121st in the country in points per game (75.6). But when they have the ball, they get the most out of it. They're a strong shooting team, whether it's on three-pointers, two-pointers or free throws. And they're much more than just a team of three-point chuckers, despite Notre Dame's recent basketball reputation. The Irish actually take a lower percentage of their shots from deep than the national average, and they'll be playing for their second Elite Eight bid in two years.
Wisconsin has had two drastically different tournament games to get to this point. The Badgers' 47-43 first-round win against Pittsburgh was a crime against basketball for how dreadfully boring it was, but their second-round, buzzer-beating triumph against Xavier was all kinds of fun. Coach Greg Gard has engineered a masterful turnaround since taking over for the retired Bo Ryan in December, doing so well that Wisconsin decided to remove the "interim" tag from his title before the postseason even started. The Badgers look like a threat to venture deep into March again, after Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker led them to a Final Four in 2015.
How to watch
Who: No. 7 Wisconsin vs. No. 6 Notre Dame
Where: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia
When: 7:27 p.m. ET
TV information: TBS
Online: NCAA March Madness Live
Radio: Westwood One
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March Madness: Does Wisconsin's run qualify as a Cinderella story?
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