First, our national anthem, including Wisconsin’s Vitto Brown:

Saturday’s NCAA national semifinal …

… was to the Badgers what this was to the nation …

… because while beating undefeated Kentucky was huge, it’s not the last game. Tonight is, against Duke.

As you can see, the Badgers have been letting the attention get to them:

The Sporting News recounts Sunday’s press conference:

During media availability on Sunday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium, Nigel Hayes, Sam Dekker, Josh Gasser, Frank Kaminsky and Bronson Koenig sat on the stage constantly scanning the crowd of reporters below. Every minute or so, two of the players would lean back in their chairs, cover their mouths with a hand or part of their jerseys and giggle like schoolgirls.

The entire 40-minute media session was punctuated with giggles from the players, Bo Ryan and the media, but perhaps no one moment was funnier than when sophomore forward Hayes responded to one of the only questions he was asked with this honesty:

“I don’t really know how to answer questions. I just thought I was brought here to say some words and you might laugh,” he said with a megawatt grin. (His words to stump the stenographer on Sunday were “logorrhea” and “succedaneum,” in case you’re wondering.)

Most coaches wouldn’t tolerate any funny business, but Ryan — who the players endearingly refer to as “Pops” — embraces his team’s looseness and camaraderie. He lets them goof around while he fields questions from the press and even joins in on occasion. For good reason too — Ryan couldn’t manufacture the team’s playful approach if he tried. And many coaches have.

Back to the question at hand: what’s so funny?

Turns out, each time the Badgers address the media, they’re playing a game. The game doesn’t have a name but the premise is simple. Each player scans the crowd searching for people who look like either famous people or someone who the players all know. When a player identifies a doppelgänger, he alerts his teammates and so begins a ripple of chortles across the stage.

PHOTOS: Duke’s Final Four uniforms throughout the years

“Vitto (Brown) started this lookalike game we do where we crowd-search to find someone who looks like someone we know or someone on our team, because Bronson (Koenig) and myself, we get asked over 101 questions per interview so we really just need to pass the time,” Hayes said with a touch of sarcasm.

Dekker said the team found “Steve Aoki” and “Ray Lewis” twins in the horde on Sunday, and added that “every bald guy is automatically Jeff Potrykus.” Potrykus is the Badgers’ beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Dekker said he’s aware of his legend status in the game.

It’s hard to determine who exactly is the ringleader of the bunch. Koenig takes credit for being the self-described “funniest guy on the team” — an assessment Hayes agreed with, saying that he and Brown are “1A and 1B” when it comes to team jokester. Some may think it’s Hayes’ title for his well-documented trolling of the tournament stenographers, but Koenig says “(the team), we all think he’s corny.”

And then there’s Frank Kaminsky.

Kaminsky is the star of the show on the court, and off of it, too, due to his unabashed self-awareness. What you see is what you get with “Frank the Tank.”

“He’s one to not be afraid to show his true emotions, true colors,” Dekker explained. “I think that’s what makes him such a good player. He’s learned to be himself and not care what people think about him. You see him dancing. You see him yelling. You see him giving attitude to the media because he acts like he hates it, like it’s the worst thing ever. But that’s truly how he is behind closed doors.

“If he masks his personality, it’s going to change him as a player and as a person so I’m happy that he’s cool with being himself and not caring what the national perception of him is. I’m really proud of him for that.”

If nothing else, the national perception of Kaminsky is that he’s captivating both in terms of skillset and wit. He cemented that status on Sunday afternoon when responding to a question about whether he considered himself “the man.”

The Sporting News Player of the Year paused for a moment, looked over his right shoulder at Gasser, tilted his head and asked “am I?” There was a dramatic pause before he began his answer. Kaminsky was working the crowd for his shining moment.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t prepared for a question of this magnitude,” he grinned. Another pause. “So do you want like an intellectual answer, or…?”

Honesty. Humility. Humor. That’s what we’ll remember about these Badgers, no matter how this wild journey to the title ends. Let the mic drop.

One media type called the Badgers possibly the most media-friendly college team of all time. Another suggested that Hayes did so well at news conferences that he might be hired as a college football coach.

The Badgers will or will not win tonight (and that’s why you pay the big bucks for the brilliant insight found in this blog), but they won’t fall flat on their faces. Evan Flood explains why:

After (1) Wisconsin (36-3) did the unthinkable and beat (1) Kentucky (38-1), ending the Wildcats’ perfect season, senior guard Josh Gasser quickly reminded the rest of his teammates that the win was just another step towards their ultimate goal — and nothing more.

While the victory over Kentucky might have been the biggest in program history, the Badgers had no time to actually enjoy the moment.

“We have another game, it’s not over,” Gasser said. “We have nothing to celebrate. It’s a huge accomplishment to make it to the National Championship, but that wasn’t our goal. We celebrated for a good five or six seconds, but we’ve got to move on.

“It might have been the biggest win in school history and it will last for two days.”

Here’s a list of the last 12 National Champions in College Basketball; UConn (3), Louisville, Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina (2), Kansas, Florida (2), Syracuse.

Needless to say, Wisconsin doesn’t exactly fit in with the elite group of programs they’re trying to join in Monday’s National Championship Game versus (1) Duke (34-4). In fact, 18 of the last 19 national titles have gone to true blue blood programs, with only Maryland in 2002 able to force their way into the discussion of college basketball’s elite.

(1) Wisconsin (36-3) will always be remembered as the team that beat Goliath and previously unbeaten (1) Kentucky (38-1). That will never be taken away from them.

But that’s not what they’re here for.

Seeking the program’s first national title since 1941, the Badgers find themselves one game away from forever etched in history as one of the great teams in college basketball.

“All season we’ve had the idea of winning a national championship in our minds,” senior Duje Dukan said.

Kentucky is Wisconsin’s Russia and Duke their Finland.

Having knocked off the best team in college basketball, 71-64 in Saturday’s national semifinal, the team with nine McDonald’s All-Americans that many pegged unbeatable, the Badgers now have the task of coming down from certainly one of the more memorable victories in NCAA Tournament history.

“After [the 1980 US hockey team] beat Russia, we had to beat Finland,” Wisconsin Women’s Hockey Coach and former Olympic Gold Medalist Mark Johnson told Bo Ryan.

“Most people think that Russia was the gold medal game,” Ryan continued. “I think it was Finland, wasn’t it? I’ve been reminded on a few text messages that Finland is Duke, both really good teams.”

If Wisconsin goes on to win the national championship, it will have been by way of the most difficult road possible and the toughest run since the tournament expanded to 68 teams.

In the Sweet 16, the Badgers beat North Carolina 79-72 in the Sweet 16, their first-ever win over the Tar Heels in program history. Wisconsin then topped Arizona in the Elite Eight 85-78 for the second-consecutive season. Saturday’s win over Kentucky was the program’s second win against a No. 1 seed in the past two seasons and first over the Wildcats in over 30 years.

In the third Associated Press Poll, each of Wisconsin’s last four opponents, which includes Duke, were ranked in the top six along with the Badgers.

“To be able to beat North Carolina, Arizona, Kentucky and now have a chance at Duke, that is pretty remarkable for a school that is not considered a powerhouse,” Gasser said.

Since Ryan’s arrival in 2001, Wisconsin has been the exception to the rule in college basketball.

Winning without a high influx of elite high school recruits, the Badgers get things done and their own way. Beating a team with nine McDonald’s All-Americans in Kentucky, Wisconsin will have to do the same again with Duke, who also has nine McDonald’s All-Americans.

Wisconsin has just one former five-star recruit and have had just two total in Ryan’s 14-year tenure.

The Badgers do have something no team in the country has, however.

“We have seven Wisconsin all-stars, and they (Duke) have none,” Gasser joked.

But Wisconsin, especially Ryan, has never been concerned with the national perception of his program.

“I don’t know about perception,” said Ryan. “I do know these guys have established themselves as being a pretty good group of young men that have come together.

“Whatever this team accomplishes Monday night, one way or the other, it’s still who they are. They proudly have represented the University of Wisconsin, the Big Ten.

“I’m never really concerned if there are people that perceive us a certain way because we are who we are. We play the way we play. We’re sure happy with it. So we can live with that.”

While his players will play in their first-ever National Championship Game, this is not Ryan’s first rodeo. The 67-year-old won four national titles at Division 3 Wisconsin Platteville.

While Ryan will underplay the national perception of his program, he won’t understate what a championship would mean to the state of Wisconsin, who has waited 74 years for another opportunity like the one they earned Monday night.

“They (Badgers) know that they have a chance to make a mark in history,” he said. “They understand that. They’ve already done some of that. But when you’re an athlete and you’re competing, there’s unfinished business here.

“It’s just like in ’91 when that Platteville won the national championship. The first thing I did is I looked at the crowd because I wanted to see how happy everybody else was, to see how happy the players were. This team affects a lot of people and their emotions.

“For the state of Wisconsin, for them to get a national championship, yeah, I think that would have a lasting impression.”

You might say.

The Badgers are playing Duke, which beat Wisconsin early in the season. Wisconsin has changed a few things, and Duke probably has as well.

There are a lot of Duke haters, for reasons I don’t get other than Duke’s perpetual success under coach Mike Krzyzewski, who got his 1,000th win earlier this season. Duke’s players play well (although they seemed nonchalant on defense the last time I watched them, but tell that to Michigan State), graduate, and are generally good representatives of their university.

The difficult thing for both teams is that they had only Sunday to prepare, as opposed to having an entire week to get ready for the semifinal. So Wisconsin has had little time to prepare for Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, but Duke has had little time to prepare for Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky, winner of numerous national player-of-the-year awards, or Sam Dekker, both of whom present major matchup problems, as the teams that have lost to UW can attest.

It should be a great game. On Wisconsin.