We head into Final Four weekend …

… with the Badgers not merely in the Final Four, but a plurality fan favorite, at least according to ESPN.com’s SportsNation.

Because one good GIF …

… deserves another, SBNation asserts this is how Bo Ryan always looks:

The New York Times reveals the “student” side of the Badger student-athletes:

On the eve of their West Regional final Saturday against Arizona, the Wisconsin players were ensconced in a hotel down the street from Disneyland, in a meeting room with two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows. …

The basketball portion of their day was done, but the Badgers had more business to tend to. They put their heads down and resumed studying, ignoring the foot traffic outside, the chocolate chip cookies left over from the lunch buffet and the officials’ whistles coming from the television, tuned to a regional game featuring their Big Ten rival Michigan, filtering in from the lobby bar on the other side of the double doors.

As Tracey Maloney, the academic support staff member assigned to the team, looked on, the freshman guard Jordan Hill studied Italian vocabulary. Another freshman, Riley Dearring, researched Plessy v. Ferguson for a United States history class.

Frank Kaminsky, a junior forward whose game-high 19 points and career-high 6 blocks had figured prominently in the Badgers’ 17-point victory against Baylor the previous night, worked on a blog post assignment. The senior guard Ben Brust told Maloney about a Nascar podcast for an independent studies project that he had completed a few hours before scoring 14 points against Baylor.

And between emails with his project partners in Madison, the fifth-year senior Zach Bohannon, a reserve forward, helped the junior guard Josh Gasser with his accounting homework.

The term student-athlete is not an oxymoron in the N.C.A.A. tournament. Every senior on the Wisconsin men’s basketball team in the past two seasons graduated, and the team is on track to achieve that again this year. With their 64-63 overtime victory against the top-seeded Wildcats, the Badgers also managed a first for a Bo Ryan-coached team. They earned a trip to the Final Four, which means they will spend another week juggling classwork and tournament games.

“A lot of people think that it’s easy to be a student-athlete, that people just do things for you and this and that,” said Hill, a kinesiology major. “I don’t know about other schools, but at Wisconsin, that doesn’t fly.”

It should please UW graduates that our degrees aren’t reduced in value by athletes attending UW for the sole purpose of an illusory pro sports career.

The Wall Street Journal gets into the act by profiling Frank “The Tank” (though he isn’t) Kaminsky:

 When Wisconsin takes on Kentucky in Saturday’s second national semifinal, the most skilled offensive player on the floor won’t be Kentucky’s prized NBA prospects but Kaminsky, a gangly big man who can score inside and out.

“Frank Kaminsky is the reason Wisconsin’s in the Final Four,” said coach Sean Miller of Arizona, against whom Kaminsky scored 28 points on Saturday.

But it wasn’t long ago when that would have sounded as absurd as the 7-foot Kaminsky playing point guard in high school. (Which he did.)

Kaminsky, a junior, barely played before this season, averaging 9 minutes a game as a freshman and sophomore. But he blew up this year, earning all-Big Ten honors while leading the Badgers in scoring and rebounding. In college basketball, only 22 players were used as little last year but as much this year as Kaminsky, according to Synergy Sports Technology.

Kaminsky’s development also represents a Wisconsin approach to team-building that couldn’t be more different from that of its upcoming opponent.

Kentucky coach John Calipari targets the country’s top high-school players, knowing full well they won’t stick around long. This leaves him with a starting lineup of likely one-and-done freshmen and a bench stocked with even more future pros. By contrast, Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan sees his recruits as projects, stashing them on the bench before they blend into the rotation as seasoned juniors and seniors.

Kaminsky was even more of a late bloomer than most. Unlike many college players, who are identified as top talents as early as middle school, Kaminsky, who is from suburban Chicago, made his high school’s varsity team only in his junior year. He had recently grown to 7 feet, but he still retained the dribbling skills and soft shooting touch of a guard, making him a fit for Wisconsin’s “swing offense,” a strategy that relies on big men capable of playing anywhere on the court. Kaminsky committed there early in his recruiting process before other schools could swoop in and steal him.

“I’d be a liar if I told you I saw him doing what he’s doing now,” said Illinois-Chicago coach Howard Moore, who recruited him as a Wisconsin assistant.

Yet there were signs that Kaminsky would eventually epitomize Wisconsin’s style. In a 2011 game between the No. 1 and No. 2 high-school teams in Illinois, Kaminsky’s Benet Academy played Simeon, a Chicago team that featured a young Jabari Parker, a high-school sophomore already seen as an NBA talent.

Wearing red uniforms not unlike Wisconsin’s, Kaminsky’s team was overwhelmed athletically but tried to slow the game down by dragging out possessions, a staple of Ryan’s system. Kaminsky drew double-teams by backing down defenders, then spotted teammates for open three-point shots, a scheme right out of Wisconsin’s playbook. On other possessions, he lingered on the perimeter, drilling a pair of three-pointers in the second half.

Kaminsky finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and the biggest win of his high-school career. “He did it the Wisconsin way,” said Benet coach Gene Heidkamp.

Still, though, Kaminsky had to bide his time on Wisconsin’s bench, like the Badger big men before him. With a starting spot finally up for grabs before this season, he went home this summer and sought out an old coach for a series of rigorous training sessions. For four days a week, Kaminsky worked out with Titcus Pettigrew, a former college-football player who has known Kaminsky for so long that he calls him “little Frankie.”

As the summer started, Pettigrew asked Kaminsky what he wanted to achieve. He recalls being surprised by the response. But when Kaminsky returned to campus—after months of work on treadmills, with resistance bands and heavy ropes, and finally in the weight room—he had dropped 21 pounds and wasn’t far from reaching the goal he had confided in Pettigrew.

“I feel like I can be the best player in college basketball,” Kaminsky told him.

I don’t think Kaminsky’s the best player in college basketball, but he may now be the most difficult-to-defend player, because of his non-big-man skills of ball-handling and long-range shooting. With Kentucky’s starting center apparently out Saturday, Kaminsky might have another big night if he doesn’t get into early foul trouble. If he does, Sam Dekker and Nigel Hayes will have to pick up the slack.

USA Today’s Scott Gleeson explains why the Badgers can not only win Saturday, but Monday too:

Ryan’s teams have always been defensively-sound and that’s led to 14 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and top-4 Big Ten Conference finishes.

The difference this year? The offense is as potent as it’s ever been, for starters. But the reason Wisconsin is more than a Final Four surprise is multi-faceted.

Wisconsin’s chemistry is championship material. So much of basketball can be broken down into Xs and Os but when it comes down to it team synergy and camaraderie can be the difference-maker. This group has that in its finest form. It’s obvious they love playing together and there’s a trust factor.

Frank Kaminsky. The 7-footer is the ultimate X-Factor, evidenced by his 28-point, 11-rebound performance vs. ‘Zona. He stretches the floor and when his jumpers are falling, there’s plenty of space for guards Traevon Jackson, Ben Brust and Josh Gasser to operate.

Defense wins championships. Wisconsin’s a safe bet to win the national championship because the team’s offense doesn’t have to be firing on all cylinders to win. The Badgers weren’t at their best against the Wildcats on Saturday but still hung tough. The team’s man-to-man defense is based on toughness and grit, which carries over on the offensive end.

The perimeter attack. With the exception of Nigel Hayes, any Wisconsin player on the court will launch a three-pointer comfortably and accurately. That inside-out ability is tough for any defense to matchup with and it keeps opponents’ defenses honest while providing more opportunity to get to the paint in the process. Arizona is one of the best perimeter defensive teams in the country and Wisconsin still excelled in its execution.

This team is clutch. Wisconsin has composure and poise down the stretch. That was on full display Saturday as well as the entire Big Ten Conference season. Let’s keep in mind this Wisconsin team has given Florida one of its two losses.

For what it’s worth, Sports Illustrated picks Kentucky to beat Wisconsin Saturday, on the way to losing to Florida. The Wildcats will be a defensive challenge at a level beyond what the Badgers have faced this year, because, in the words of a college scout, “they attack the paint from any position. … All of them are looking for opportunities, so you can never relax — miss one rotation, they see it and attack. Transition is one way to beat their defense. You negate some of their length when they’re not back and loaded up. When they’re set, you can’t see much, so you have to attack them in space.”

That doesn’t read like a good recipe for UW. Yes, the Badgers are not as leaden on offense as in past seasons, but they’re certainly not a running team. If Kaminsky gets into foul trouble because of the Wildcats’ aggressively attacking the lane, that’ll be bad news on both ends of the floor. The Badgers’ offense is most effective getting the ball inside, but that will be difficult due to their length.

The question is whether Wisconsin can beat Kentucky playing as Wisconsin plays. For one thing, it’s far too late to suddenly change the style of your offense, and Ryan wouldn’t do it anyway. If the Badger defense can’t limit the Wildcats to one shot per possession, it might be a long night in big D, or big AT&T, or wherever the Jerry Jones Dome is.

Regardless, UW fans need to appreciate whatever happens this weekend, because, Run the Floor asserts:

The Badgers own a national title (1941). They’re making their third Final Four appearance. They’ve never finished lower than fourth place in any Big Ten regular season since Bo Ryan became head coach (starting with the 2001-2002 campaign).

The other three programs at this Final Four have more Final Four appearances and national championships.

This is a high-legacy Final Four, even though it’s also a Final Four that’s low on individual superstar sex appeal. …

The Wisconsin Badgers did crash out of last year’s tournament in the round of 64 against Ole Miss. They did lose as a 4 seed to eighth-seeded Butler in the 2011 Sweet 16. Yet, even before Wisconsin won the West Regional final on Saturday against Arizona, this had already become the best March run for the Badgers under Bo Ryan.

Wisconsin made a Sweet 16 appearance in 2003 and then an Elite Eight showing in 2005. The Badgers also reached the Sweet 16 in 2008. What do those various details mean, though? For all of this program’s periodic journeys to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament over time, it is only now that the Badgers have found a greater measure of consistency.

Even before the win over Arizona, Wisconsin had made three Sweet 16s in a span of four seasons. Ryan had not been able to pull off that feat at any prior point in his tenure at UW. This is a program in the prime of its existence; a Final Four appearance will only magnify such a larger truth.

And On Wisconsin.