“Virginia’s a well-disciplined team to compare them to Wisconsin, both teams are disciplined,” senior forward Branden Dawson said. Dawson had a game-high 24 points against Virginia in last year’s sweet sixteen winning effort.

MSU played Wisconsin twice during the season, once in the regular season and once in the Big Ten championship. MSU lost both contests but played considerably better against the Badgers in the Big Ten championship before faltering late to lose, 80-69 in overtime.

“We have to pull together and it’s going to be tough, but at the end of the day we’re good enough players,” junior guard Denzel Valentine said.

UVA also plays a similar brand of basketball as Wisconsin. When current Badgers head coach Bo Ryan was hired, Bennett was retained as an assistant and stayed in Madison until 2003.

Bennett has bought Ryan’s slow tempo half court offense and his father’s “pack line” defense down to Virginia with him.

The Cavaliers average a little over 65 points per game, which isn’t rated high amongst other teams (225th overall) but they are stingy on defense, allowing a nation low, 51 points per game.

Virginia’s “pack line” defense, a sagging man-to-man concept, developed by the elder Bennett, prevents points from being scored in the paint and discourages offensive rebounding. Virginia ranked 30th in the nation in defensive rebounds per game with almost 26 per contest.

“They’re a similar pace team and they’ve got kind of similar players,” Valentine said. “Virginia’s a little bit more athletic and a little bit more physical."

Virginia like Wisconsin has a surplus of size in the starting lineup. The Cavaliers start three players, who are over 6’8” and a point guard in London Perrantes, who is 6’2”.

In contrast, sophomore forward Gavin Schilling and junior forward Matt Costello are the only players in MSU’s rotation, who are listed over 6’8”.

Head coach Tom Izzo is interested to see how his team will handle UVA’s length on Sunday.

“My biggest concern is how we match up with the size of their perimeter, not only in height but in girth,” Izzo said. “We’re not as big there, I’ve got to figure out a way to work around that.”

Despite, the contrast in height players said they would not be intimidated when they lace their sneakers tomorrow afternoon.

“We’re not scared to play anybody. We’re ready to play, Virginia’s a great team, we’re just prepared to play,” senior guard and team co-captain Travis Trice said.