WISCO PLAYBOOK

Author: abures

  • Bigger Isn’t Better: The Case Against Expanding March Madness

    by Jeremy Schneider

    March Madness captivates everyone — from diehard basketball junkies to people who don’t watch a minute of the sport all year. No tournament is perfect, but March Madness sits on a pedestal as one of the greatest events in sports. For all of its glory, there are folks around college basketball advocating for an expansion of the NCAA Tournament, adding to the current field of 68 teams. Simply put, expanding March Madness would be a mistake and is unnecessary.

    The strength and competitiveness of the field is the backbone of the tournament’s credibility, and expansion wouldn’t improve it. According to online college basketball insider T3 Bracketology, via direct message on X (Twitter), “If we added [eight] teams, based on the bubble since [March Madness] expanded to 68 teams, 72 percent would be high majors, & more than half of those high majors went .500 or worse in [conference] play.” 

    If a 76-team format had been in place for the 2025 NCAA Tournament, it would have pushed teams like Indiana, which went 10-10 in Big Ten play and was bounced in the opening round of the conference tournament, and Ohio State, which barely finished above .500 at 17-15, into the field. Even with a 68-team field, schools with losing conference records like Oklahoma and Texas at 6-12 in the SEC, along with North Carolina at 1-12 in Quad 1 games, still made the tournament. 

    Adding more teams to the tournament wouldn’t strengthen the field; rather, it would just guarantee more spots for mediocre and undeserving power-conference programs. If expansion meant giving bids to strong mid-major teams that fall short in their conference tournaments, like UC Irvine last season or 2024 Indiana State — both of which went 17–3 in league play and finished with 32 wins — it would be far more appealing. But there’s no indication that would actually happen. 

    There is a certain pageantry and prestige associated with March Madness that expansion would erode. In the words of Connecticut head coach and two-time national champion Dan Hurley, “It’s a privilege to play in this tournament, not a right.”

    Supporters of expansion often point to revenue, but that argument is overstated. Looking at it from the perspective of college programs and the NCAA, the monetary principles associated with March Madness are widely misunderstood. 

    Seth Davis, a college basketball media personality, dismisses the notion that expansion would be for money: “For starters, NCAA Tournament revenue makes up less than five percent of athletic budgets at power conference schools. Expanding the field would barely make a dent in their bottom line. And there are substantial costs involved. More teams means more money spent on travel (the NCAA provides each team with a chartered aircraft unless it’s close enough to travel by bus), hotels, game operations and the like… Doing a little better than break even is not reason enough to expand the tournament.” Davis is one of the most outspoken supporters of expansion, but even he rebuffs the financial narrative of growing the tournament.

    So there are economic questions from the NCAA’s point of view for expansion, but what about television deals and ratings? The First Four, the “play-in” games for March Madness, has seen its viewership down in recent years, so is the solution to add more mediocre matchups to drive up exposure and television revenue? It is not. The success of March Madness ratings is not just focused on fans of participating teams, but also predicated on the casual fan. Casual fans love filling out brackets and watching the early rounds to track their success, but they aren’t necessarily dedicated viewers of basketball.

    “It overcomplicates [March Madness] for the common fan,” T3 Bracketology said. “Right now on bracket sites you don’t even fill in the First Four. The easy math cut of 64 to 32 to 16 to etc. is easy on the brain for a casual fan. Adding more games just makes it more complex and you could lose some people. 60-100 million people fill out a bracket, but just over eight million watch the first round. The hope is to grow that conversion rate and grow the audience during the regular season, not complicate matters and decline that.”

    Adding more teams, therefore more games, could take away from the simplicity of making brackets and deter casual fans from tuning in as intently to “The Big Dance,” which ultimately would not result in a great surplus of revenue or interest.

    Fortunately, nothing is imminent, and expansion, at this moment, is just a talking point. But as ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said, “Never underestimate the NCAA’s capacity to do something stupid.” If the NCAA wants to avoid doing something stupid, keeping the bracket at 68 teams is a good place to start.

  • The 4’10” Maestro: How Krystal Medina Quietly Controls The Game

    by Tatum Fisher

    On a gray New England afternoon, the first thing anyone noticed was how small she looked. A girl barely five feet tall stepped onto the “Field of Dreams” at Pomfret School, surrounded by towering pines, a sharp fall wind, and a team of players she barely knew. She didn’t say much that first day. She didn’t have to.

    Within minutes, the ball drifted toward her as if she’d willed it there. She checked her shoulder once, twice, and in one clean touch, she slipped a perfect through-ball between two defenders. A teammate took off after it. Conversations around the field paused. Attention shifted her way.

    “I swear it was immediate,” Pomfret girls’ varsity head coach Erin Fisher said, still sounding a little stunned. “She’s the kind of special player you might get to coach once or twice in your lifetime. When she stepped on that field, she just took it. She didn’t do it loudly. She didn’t demand the ball. But she controlled the entire game.”

    Fisher smiled as she recalled the phone call that brought this quiet playmaker to Connecticut.

    “Coach Amphone told me, ‘Trust me, she’s a maestro on the field. A 4’10” Messi.’ And he was not wrong.”

    The girl they were talking about, suddenly center stage, was Krystal Medina, a multi-year varsity captain from Corona, California, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and now a freshman midfielder at Columbia University. Back then, she was just 17, frightened, far from home, wondering if she’d made a terrible mistake. At five-feet-nothing, she didn’t look like the player who would run a match. But she is exactly that.

    She always has been.

    Small, but never small in presence

    Medina laughs about it now—the nickname that followed her through high school, courtesy of a teammate who blurted it out in a newspaper interview: “four-foot mini-Messi.”

    “When I saw it, I genuinely laughed,” Medina said. “It was kind of shocking to hear out loud like that. But I guess my height gives me a lower center of gravity, so maybe it makes sense.”

    Her style of play backs up the nickname more than she ever would. At Santiago High School in Corona, Coach Mike Fleming watched opponents build entire scouting reports around stopping her.

    “She was the motor of our midfield,” Fleming said. “She took us wherever we went.”

    He still remembers how absurd it felt when every opponent seemed to double-team her, sometimes even triple-team her, yet the ball never left her feet for very long. 

    “The other team’s focus was always on her: put someone on her, limit her ability to impact the game,” Fleming said. “But she still always found a way to stay on the ball. And it was never about her stats. She just wanted everyone else to score.”

    That last part, more than her balance, more than her touch, more than her vision, is what everyone around her sees first. Medina doesn’t want the winning goal. She wants the pass that no one saw coming.

    “I really pride myself on giving the final ball through,” Medina said. “I enjoy it more when my teammates score. That feeling of helping make something happen means more to me than taking the shot.”

    She smiled as she said it, the kind of smile that suggests she means every word. Her whole style is built on connection: on making others look good, on helping the team find something bigger than the box score. 

    It’s the smallest person on the field who reads the game at its widest angle.

    Underestimated, over and over again

    The same qualities that make Medina unique, quiet leadership and small stature, have made her easy to overlook. During the college recruiting process, Medina recalled a coach who fully stopped communicating with her because he “couldn’t invest that amount of scholarship money into a player of her height.”

    “It was definitely an eye opener,” Medina said. “I think a lot of coaches underestimated me because of my height.”

    She paused. No bitterness. Just memory.

    “But I ended up somewhere much better suited for me.”

    That “somewhere” didn’t come easily. No one in her multi-generational household in Corona had ever talked about boarding school, let alone a post-grad year spent 3,000 miles from home. There is no blueprint for a first-generation student navigating college sports recruiting.

    “When Coach Amphone called and suggested it, I didn’t even know what a post-grad year was,” Medina said. “We had to research it as a family. It was scary because nothing was guaranteed. Everyone else seemed to have a plan already. Mine fell through. I just had to hope it would all work out.”

    There were plenty of unknowns, but one thing felt certain: she had worked too hard to turn the opportunity down. Her family was determined to support her, even if the path was unfamiliar.

    “Everything I do is because of them,” Medina said. “I just want to make them proud.”

    That is her biggest why. Not height, not scholarships, not a newspaper nickname. Family.

    Connection as superpower

    Medina plays the game the way she approaches relationships: patiently, attentively, and with a desire to elevate the people around her. Before she ever trusts her voice, she listens. Before she takes control, she learns who someone is.

    “I try to really form connections off the field,” she said. “So on the field, we already understand each other.”

    This explains why her teammates often feel her influence even when she isn’t talking much. Fisher noticed it instantly at Pomfret.

    “Despite consistently being one of the best players on the field, she was also one of the most humble and gracious players,” Fisher said. “Never seeking the spotlight. Always lifting teammates up. She modeled the way.”

    At Columbia, Medina is the same. She listens before directing and observes before stepping in. She cracks jokes when she’s comfortable, keeps practices light, and works to understand how others play so she can elevate them.

    Her passes aren’t just technical reads. They’re acts of recognition.

    A city that once lived on her phone screen

    As a kid, Medina set a photo of the New York skyline as her phone wallpaper. She wasn’t thinking about recruiting or college yet; she just loved the city. 

    So when Columbia began recruiting her, the academics surprised her. The location didn’t.

    “I had no idea Columbia was an Ivy League,” she admitted, laughing. “When I told my family, my mom and brother kind of freaked out because of how good it was academically.”

    She wasn’t chasing prestige. She was chasing a place she’d been looking at since she was ten.

    Now she rides buses past buildings she once saw only on a screen, explores neighborhoods on her free days, and walks through the city not as an outsider dreaming of it, but as a student living in it.

    Some people shrink in New York. Medina treats it like another field to read.

    A freshman finding her voice

    Her first Division I preseason nearly cracked her confidence. 

    “The speed of play was so much quicker,” she said. “The players are stronger, faster, smarter. I remember calling my mom and saying I didn’t know if I was made for it.”

    The doubt didn’t push her away from her goals; it clarified them.

    “My goal is to make an impact on this program,” Medina said. “Not just on the field, but in culture. I want to leave a legacy. Whether it’s through play, or relationships, or how I carry myself, I want the program to be better when I leave.”

    Even her definition of legacy is team-centered.

    Building beauty

    When Fisher called Medina “the kind of special player you might get to coach once or twice in your lifetime,” she wasn’t talking about goals. She was talking about beauty, the kind you don’t notice until you realize the whole match has been rearranged.

    “She exemplified the word beautiful in the beautiful game,” Fisher said. “She brought out the best in her teammates. Everyone around her got better.”

    When Fleming said Medina was “the motor,” he meant she wasn’t noisy or obvious. She was the reason things moved.

    And when Columbia assistant coach Amphone Keovongmanysar said she was “a 4’10” Messi,” he wasn’t describing her skills. He was describing how she sees the game.

    It’s creative. It’s patient. It’s crafty. It’s quiet. But quiet does not mean small.

    “Maybe people underestimate me because of my height,” Medina said. “But I don’t know. Everything has worked out. Your journey is your own. It’s not supposed to look like anyone else’s.”

    In soccer, a playmaker is measured by what they help others do. By that measure, Medina might be the biggest player on every field she steps on.

    She’ll probably laugh when she reads that. She’ll probably shrug it off and pass the credit forward.

    Because that’s what maestros do.

  • Finding the sweet spot: How UW–Madison Club Tennis helped Jonathan Kim fall back in love with the game

    by Abigail Bures

    On a sunny November morning at Nielsen Tennis Stadium, the sound hits first: the sharp pop of a clean forehand, the quick squeak of shoes on a freshly swept court, the breathy chorus of ‘Let’s go!’ echoing off the rafters. It’s the third weekend in November, the start of the Badger Classic; a tournament that is one of only two each semester. For many athletes, it unlocks the competitive spark they’ve tucked away during long stretches of optional practices. 

    Near court seven, Jonathan Kim stands with his racket tucked under one arm, surveying the scene. A third-season player studying computer and data sciences, he has become a quiet anchor on the team, someone who understands both the thrill and the cost of competition. Today, he looks relaxed, the way someone looks when they enjoy playing. 

    “This is the most fun I’ve had playing tennis because it’s a good mix of that team-friendly environment, but also there is still a competitive aspect to it,” Kim said.  

    Kim’s journey with tennis began when he was just four years old. His father played, and Kim followed with the earnestness of a kid who wanted to be part of something familiar. At first, the sport was simple; just movement, sunlight and the satisfying thwack of a ball hitting strings. But, sports have a way of escalating quickly. 

    By middle school, he was traveling around Wisconsin for tournaments, often playing singles matches that increased the weight of expectation. 

    “That’s the most intense I took tennis, I would say,” Kim recalls, “It was also the period of my life where I started to not like tennis cause I was getting super burnt out.”

    Singles, in particular, sharpened the isolation. Without a partner to talk to in between points, Kim felt the emotional swings more intensely. He remembers the heaviness of losses long after the matches ended. 

    “The feeling that I got from winning a match did not outweigh the feeling I got from losing a match,” Kim said. 

    Katherine Wahr, a teammate of Kim’s, had a similar experience with singles. 

    “If you’re playing doubles, you get more team energy,” Wahr said, “(For singles) It’s just you.” 

    High school softened things. A chance to play doubles created an entirely different relationship with tennis — lightness, shared responsibility and a sense of bonding Kim hadn’t felt before. Practicing on a team, traveling with friends and joking around on the baseline between drills were pieces that made the sport feel communal instead of lonely. 

    These connections followed him into his college decision. Kim thought briefly about playing varsity tennis, but he quickly realized that the schools recruiting him didn’t align with the academic path he wanted. He chose UW–Madison instead, knowing the University’s Club Tennis Team existed but unsure how he’d fit. 

    Kim explained that the high school coaches understood. They knew how important balance was for him, how burnt out he had been during his most competitive years and how much he valued the idea of a traditional college experience. Club tennis seemed like the right middle ground, competitive enough to stay sharp but flexible enough to be enjoyable. 

    Still, arriving on campus brought a different kind of challenge. During his first semester, Kim attended practices sporadically. The team was large, and everyone already seemed to know one another. 

    “I wasn’t used to club tennis, and I didn’t know where I fit it,” Kim said. 

    Optional practices twice a week meant that attendance varied, and newer players sometimes slipped through the cracks. While Kim liked the idea of the team, he just hadn’t found his place yet. 

    That changed during a tournament trip to Boulder, Colorado; a turning point Kim still talks about years later.

    On that trip, he felt the team’s culture in full force; late nights playing Mafia in cramped hotel rooms, laughing until the early hours and learning everyone’s quirks and senses of humor. The shift was immediate and dramatic. 

    Before the trip, he barely knew the names of most players. Afterward, he felt woven into the group. This mattered more than any win or loss that weekend. 

    “I always look forward to playing competitions, because it’s not as frequent,” Kim said. Boulder showed him that tournaments weren’t just competitive outlets, they were social ones too. They were where the team came together. 

    Three years and six tournaments later, Kim has grown into one of the most steadying presences on the roster. New players today don’t see the hesitant freshman who used to slip out of practices unnoticed. They see someone who understands the challenges of joining a large, competitive club and who actively works to ease the transition. 

    Now, when Kim notices freshmen standing along by the bleachers or hovering near the courts without a partner, he steps in without hesitation. 

    “Forming that group of people that are all going through this change at the same time is crucial,” Kim said. He introduces new players to one another first, letting them build early bonds, and then gradually brings them into the larger group of returning members. 

    Bit by bit, he helps them find the footing that took him a semester to discover. 

    Club tennis, unlike varsity, gives players permission to scale their commitment up or down depending on the week, the workload or the emotional bandwidth they have available. The flexibility is built into its DNA. Some players attend every practice and travel to every tournament, and others show up when they can and still feel welcome. 

    “You can tell that he cares about the team and the tournaments,” Wahr said.

    For Kim, that range is precisely what keeps him grounded. The spacing between tournaments helps keep the sport from overwhelming him the way it once did. Optional practices ensure Kim and other players remain engaged without slipping into burnout. 

    Club tennis gave Kim something he didn’t know he needed: the permission to enjoy the game on his own terms. 

    What matters most to Kim now isn’t just the tennis itself, it’s the community. The late-night conversations in hotel hallways, the inside jokes during warmups and the way players shout encouragement from the balcony during tight matches. 

    From all of this, Kim wants to pass down one key thing: the understanding that club sports are a choose-your-own-adventure. Players can be laid back or fiercely competitive, or a mix of both. They can build the experience they want — one not dictated by rankings, scholarships or performance pressure. 

    “Overall, it’s a super fun environment,” Kim said, “Strongly recommend.”

    On tournament days like the Badger Classic, when teammates circle the courts in red and white, and the air buzzes with equal parts nerves and excitement, Kim moves easily among them, laughing, cheering, encouraging. He looks nothing like a kid who drove home from tournaments weighed down by the sting of a loss. 

    Kim looks like a player who rediscovered the joy in a sport he once feared he’d lost, and he’s doing his best to share that joy with others. 

  • Top 5 Contenders to win a slam not named Alcaraz or Sinner

    by Noah Eisenberg and Sahil Shah

  • Wisconsin Volleyball dominates the Field House

    by Sarah Donohue

  • The Most Underrated Player in College Basketball Right Now

    by Kian Price

  • Anticipated Bears vs Packers Matchup

    by Izzy Huehnerfuss

  • Why the Chicago Bears Aren’t Just “Lucky”

    by Miles West

    Last Black Friday, the Chicago Bears had just lost their sixth game in a row, collapsing late in a poorly coached Thanksgiving matchup against the Detroit Lions. Hours later, Chicago made franchise history. Just not the kind anyone celebrates. Matt Eberflus became the first Bears head coach ever fired mid-season, the final indicator that the organization was nearing rock bottom. The team spiraled to four more losses before salvaging a sliver of dignity by beating their biggest rival, the Green Bay Packers, in the season finale.

    Fast forward a year, and the Chicago Bears are in a completely different scenario. The Bears are fresh off an upset over the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, sitting at 9-3 and controlling their own playoff destiny. If someone had walked up to you last Black Friday and said, “By next December, the Bears will lead the NFC North with a shot at the No. 1 seed,” you would think they’re delusional.

    But here’s the thing: this isn’t miraculous. This isn’t random. And it definitely isn’t luck.

    Chicago earned this.

    The transformation began two weeks after the 2024 season ended for the Bears. Chicago was deemed “offseason champs” for the third year in a row, by landing the most coveted head-coaching candidate on the market: former Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. The Bears gave him a five-year deal worth nearly $13 million annually, a decisive investment in one of the sharpest offensive minds in football. His arrival alone signaled a philosophical reset: Chicago was no longer interested in patchwork solutions. They wanted vision. They wanted identity. They wanted someone who could elevate the entire franchise, not merely manage it.

    Free agency became the next building block. Chicago didn’t just block holes, they poured concrete. By adding center Drew Dalman, defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo, and veteran defensive tackle Grady Jarrett, the Bears reshaped two units that had dragged them down in 2024. Trades for All-Pro guard Joe Thuney and Pro Bowl guard Jonah Jackson rounded out the overhaul of the offensive line, flipping it from a liability to one of the league’s most physical fronts.

    Even the draft, often hit-or-miss, turned into another win. First-round tight end Colston Loveland has become a matchup nightmare, immediately fitting in with Ben Johnson’s offensive scheme. Luther Burdern, selected in the second round, climbed his way into the WR3 role, complementing DJ Moore and Rome Odunze. Then there’s seventh-round steal Kyle Monongai, who has paired with D’Andre Swift to form one of the NFL’s most efficient rushing duos.

    By the time Week 14 arrives, the evidence is overwhelming: Chicago belongs where they are. The Bears have a commanding defense that leads the league with 26 takeaways and 16 interceptions. Another new hire in defensive coordinator Dennis Allen has built a unit that doesn’t just create pressure. It creates fear. The secondary, thought to be a liability with injuries, now forces quarterbacks into mistakes. The pass rush, powered by Montez Sweat and a revitalized interior, closes games rather than losing them.

     Offensively the Bears rank fifth in yards per game and lead the NFC in rushing. They’re no longer the team that needs everything to go perfectly to score. They win ugly. They win on long drives. They win with explosive plays. They win with patience. That versatility is why they’re sitting atop the division rather than peeking into the Wild Card window.

    And now comes the matchup that will either validate everything or set Chicago up for heartbreak: Week 14 against Green Bay at Lambeau Field. The Packers are desperate. The Bears are ascending. And history hasn’t been kind to Chicago in this rivalry. A win would put the Bears firmly in the driver’s seat for the NFC’s top seed. A loss would open the door for doubt, for narrative, for the tired “same old Bears” storyline national media love to recycle.

    But this team isn’t the “same old Bears.” They’re younger. They’re smarter. They’re tougher. And most importantly, they’re built to last beyond one hot streak or one lucky break.

    Call it a comeback if you want. Call it a rebuild done right. Just don’t call it luck.

    Chicago has built something real, and the rest of the NFC is starting to realize it.