MIDWEST NOTES

MINNEAPOLIS – Kentucky’s players are used to a most user-friendly world around NCAA Tournament time. Where they travel, they are cheered on by the most mobile band of fans in America. Most NCAA Tournament games sound like Kentucky home games, no matter how far away they are from Rupp Arena.

“It’s amazing, it really is,” Kentucky guard Keith Bogans said. “No matter where you go, you look up, and they’re there. It’s a great feeling.”

That’s what makes this weekend’s regional finals at the Metrodome so unusual. Oh, there are plenty of tickets to go around for the Wildcat faithful that have spent most of the past two days camping out at the team’s downtown Marriott headquarters, hoping for a glimpse of th eir heroes.

But the proximity of the Metrodome to neighboring Wisconsin has allowed a massive influx of Wisconsin and Marquette fans to make the relatively short drive, too. Plus, Minneapolis being a Big Ten city, a fair number of the locals who will take up at least half of the Dome’s 50,000 seats this weekend will likely be rooting for the teams of closer proximity.

“I would hope so,” Bo Ryan joked. “It’s the Big Ten against the world.”

None of this mattered much to stoic Wildcats coach Tubby Smith.

“We play pretty well on the road, too,” he said.

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Wisconsin’s best player, Kirk Penney, took something of a roundabout rout to this year’s Sweet 16. Not only geographically, though that would be the case since his hometown is Auckland, New Zealand.

Mostly, it’s because he grew up playing rugby and cricket, not normally exercises you would think would augment a Division I basketball prospect.

But Penney has become Wisconsin’s leader in this, his senior year, leading the team in scoring, assists and 3-point shooting.

“There are certain gifts you have naturally,” Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. “And other ones you can only acquire by playing against good competition and learning. I think Kirk’s a great example of that. Here’s a guy who has had to kind of learn on the fly how to be a good player in the Big Ten, which isn’t easy. But he’s done that.”