Op-Ed
Source: Jimmie Kaska | Civic Media
The D3 NCAA Tournaments in men's and women's basketball have a combined 13 teams from the state of Wisconsin.
Mar 11, 2025, 12:23 PM CST
PLATTEVILLE, Wis. (Civic Media) – Walking into the Williams Fieldhouse in Platteville this weekend, staff was working hard to secure NCAA banners and placemats as the host for part of the Division III men’s basketball tournament.
UW-Platteville hosted the first and second rounds a year ago, taking a trip to the Elite 8 for the first time in a quarter-century. So, for the staff, this was almost a reflex to get things in place ahead of hosting three basketball games in two days.
For the Pioneers, it was “run it back” time after falling to eventual national champion Trine last year in the Elite 8. UWP led by double-digits late in the second half but still lost, which provided the fuel for this year’s Pioneers team.
Platteville brought back nearly the same rotation as last year, including reigning D3 player of the year Logan Pearson. Pearson was bookended in the backcourt by do-it-all point guard Brady Olson and sharpshooter Ben Probst. The frontcourt brought back bouncy wing Max Love and a highly efficient post duo in Joey Fuhremann and Miles Hettinger. With skilled, athletic guards Bristol Lewis, Aiden Wiezcorek and Lucas Rameker providing depth, UWP appeared prime for another deep run.
It appeared for a time last season that Pearson might not return; he posted on X that he had entered the transfer portal and had an offer from UW-Green Bay. However, Pearson made his way back to Platteville after UWGB changed coaches, and went on to top 2,000 career points and become UW-Platteville’s all-time leading scorer.
A huge season it was, as the Pioneers lost just twice en route to a second consecutive championship in both the WIAC regular season and WIAC Tournament, the first time that’s happened in men’s basketball in sweeping all four titles across a two-season span.
After a high-scoring opening round win over Grinnell, Platteville was poised for a return trip to the Sweet 16. But, March Madness has a funny way of creating memorable moments – and sometimes, those moments are bittersweet for favored teams that fall in the NCAA Tournament.
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Conference is widely regarded as one of the best in all of Division 3. Comprised in most sports of largely state four-year universities, the WIAC is a behemoth in basketball, where five of the conference’s eight teams were picked for the NCAA Tournament in women’s basketball, while two were tabbed on the men’s side.
In men’s basketball, only UW-La Crosse remains in this year’s tournament field, hosting the Sweet 16 with a game against Illinois Wesleyan of the CCIW. The Titans are one of three teams to beat UW-Platteville this season, a double-digit win in November. UWL lost all three times they played the Pioneers.
On the women’s side, three teams advanced to the Sweet 16, including UW-Whitewater and UW-Stout, who will play one another, and UW-Oshkosh, which will play at Illinois Wesleyan. UW-Stevens Point lost its opening-round game against Wartburg by one point, while UW-La Crosse fell to UW-Whitewater, also by one point, in the second round.
The depth of the conference shows in its grueling 14-game season as well as respect in the d3hoops.com Top 25 poll, where even outside of basketball more than half of the conference will be ranked sometimes. That’s why the conference champions tend to be among the favorites for the NCAA title.
It’s not just the WIAC. Wisconsin-based teams tend to do fairly well in the postseason, and beyond that, plenty of rosters around the Midwest are stocked with Wisconsin talent at the D3 level.
St. Norbert, Carthage, and Wisconsin Lutheran all made the men’s side of the NCAA Tournament, while Ripon, Wisconsin Lutheran, and UW-Superior (a member of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference after years in the WIAC) were selected to the women’s tournament.
That means on the women’s side, eight of the field’s 64 teams are schools based in Wisconsin this year.
Two Wisconsin teams are still playing on the men’s side: UW-La Crosse and Wisconsin Lutheran, which we’ll get to in a second. On the women’s side, it’s the WIAC trio. Wisconsin student-athletes also dot the rosters of schools in Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, and Illinois, showing the depth of the state’s basketball programs at the high school and club level.
“I think we’ll get to host next weekend.”
That was the word on press row as UW-Platteville got ready for its second-round match-up with Wisconsin Lutheran, a squad that was statistically very similar to the Pioneers.
Both teams in the match-up had similar profiles in three-point shooting, free throws, turnovers, and rebounding margins. Each team had enough crossover in the schedule to show they were roughly even against like opponents. And, each team had challenging opening-round games for different reasons to set them up for the Round-of-32 match-up.
Platteville repeatedly broke the press in a 125-97 win over Grinnell, a team that plays at a breakneck pace and trades threes for halfcourt offensive sets. Wisconsin Lutheran snapped a 20-game winning streak by Calvin in the Warriors’ third-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament, earning the program’s first-ever win in the D3 bracket.
UW-Platteville faithful packed the Williams Fieldhouse, with crowds touching the ceiling tiles on both sides. Everyone from area business owners to UWP athletics staff to elected officials were on hand for this titanic match-up of veteran, battle-tested teams, although few were expecting what transpired.
After a back-and-forth rock fight for the first ten minutes, UWP went on a 10-0 run to take the lead midway through the first half, extending the lead to 13 early in the second half.
That’s when Wisconsin Lutheran, relying almost exclusively on its starting lineup, made its push to take the lead midway through the second half on a 15-0 run of their own.
The teams traded baskets down to the wire, when Jacob Stoltz was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 0.5 seconds on the clock and Wisconsin Lutheran trailing 65-63. Stoltz hit two of the three free throws to send the game to overtime.
In overtime, Wisconsin Lutheran was able to take the advantage, and a last-gasp possession for the Pioneers ended without Platteville ever getting to take a shot. For #2 UWP, the dream of a run to the Final Four was done, and for Wisconsin Lutheran, the glass slipper fit as the Warriors keep dancing this weekend.
Covering a program on the rise for the past three seasons, and with most of its core culminating in this 2025 NCAA Tournament run, it was a bit of shock, and a bit of agony, as the Pioneers walked off the floor in disbelief after the 75-73 overtime loss.
UWP’s head coach Jeff Gard, brother of Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Greg Gard, was measured in response during his post-game press conference, thanking the fans for their support and the seniors for the mark they left on the program.
“It stings now, but I couldn’t be prouder of my group,” Gard said. “It’s a family, and this is so much bigger than basketball. The wins are great, the banners are great, the trophies are great, but eventually that fades.”
While UW-Platteville will graduate its all-time leading scorer (Pearson, who finished 6th all-time in WIAC scoring), three-point shooter (Probst), and a multi-year starter in the backcourt (Olson), plenty will return for the Pioneers next season.
Of course, the NCAA Tournament is far from over. Wisconsin Lutheran, with its outstanding roster of graduate students and upperclassmen largely from the state of Wisconsin, will continue its journey. Four WIAC teams remain combined in the men’s and women’s tournaments, again with heavy Wisconsin representation. For fans of Wisconsin basketball, there’s still so much to root for.
The loss of one of the tournament’s top seeds in the opening two rounds is part of what makes March Madness great: The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. The one-and-done nature of the event is what draws in people who might not otherwise pay attention to college sports. For many, the excitement of the event comes when it’s the plucky double-digit seed that can take down both a team on a 20-game win streak and a team in the top two or three nationally, as Wisconsin Lutheran did.
Regardless of outcomes, in Wisconsin, we have plenty to be proud of from a basketball standpoint, and that is represented at its best in Division 3, the non-scholarship division of NCAA sports. As Coach Gard said in his post-game remarks, D3 students pay their own way to be a part of college athletics, playing for the love of the game. In the era of NIL, there’s little else in college sports you can consider to be as pure as that.
There’s still a lot of hoops to be played this month, and for that, we should be grateful for what is truly the best time on the calendar for basketball enthusiasts at all levels here in Wisconsin.
Disclaimer: Jimmie Kaska is an ad-hoc employee of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, working as an athletics broadcaster. The views contained here do not represent UW-Platteville, the Universities of Wisconsin System, or any program or department.
Civic Media Inc.
Put us in your pocket.
