Wisconsin's NUCO-bound hype ride for a jaw-dropping upset of High Point in March Madness is the stuff of college hoops dreams!

The fifth seed in the NCAA men's basketball tournament hasn't been kind to the Wisconsin Badgers over the years, with first-round losses to 12th seeds Southwest Missouri State (1999), Mississippi (2013), Oregon (2019) and James Madison (2024). Heck, the Badgers even lost to a 12 seed in the second round in 2010 when they fell to Cornell. The only time the Badgers have won games as a fifth seed came in 2003, with wins over Weber State and Tulsa before falling to Kentucky in the Sweet 16.

Throw in the fact that the Badgers are the last of the No. 5 seeds in the 2026 field, playing High Point – a team with 30 wins and a 14-game winning streak as well as a penchant for racking up points – and you can understand why the ingredients for a first-round defeat are there. We already heard CBS analyst Clark Kellogg pick High Point shortly after the brackets were revealed.

Here's what national writers are saying about the game and the Badgers in general as we move closer to the NCAA Tournament, with the Badgers playing Thursday, March 19 in Portland: High Point getting lots of love as a Cinderella Nick Bromberg of Yahoo! Sports considers High Point the Cinderella of the West Region, noting that the Panthers score more than 90 points per game. "Just three teams score more per game than the Panthers," he wrote.

"High Point shoots 49% from the field and also averages almost 11 steals per game. That’s the highest total in the country. "Can the Panthers upset Wisconsin?