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Badgers, Marquette find out their NCAA tournament paths, plus the teams coming to Milwaukee

Posted at 4:29 PM, Mar 12, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-12 18:08:40-04

Teams from the cheese state have two of the 68 berths in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Eight teams will receive cheesehead hospitality in Milwaukee later this week.

The Wisconsin Badgers found their place in the tourney after being runners-up in the Big Ten Tournament. They play Thursday in Buffalo against Virginia Tech, coached by Buzz Williams - a former Marquette coach. Wisconsin is an 8 seed.

If Wisconsin wins, they could face defending national champion Villanova in the next round.

Marquette's men's makes its first appearance in the Steve Wojciechowski era. They play South Carolina at Greenville, SC on Friday. MU is a 10 seed.

Marquette's theoretical second round matchup could be against No. 2 seed Duke - the alma mater of Coach Wojciechowski.

Both Marquette and Wisconsin are in the East Region. They could theoretically play in the East Regional Final, but would have to win three straight games each to get there.

Eight teams will play in the rounds of 64 on Thursday, with four in the round of 32 on Saturday at Milwaukee's BMO Harris Bradley Center.

(5) Iowa State will play (12) Nevada in one of the four games, with (4) Purdue facing (13) Vermont. Both of those are Midwest regional games.

Other games in Milwaukee include South Regional games with (5) Minnesota against (12) Middle Tennessee and (4) Butler vs. (13) Winthrop.

Times were not initially released for all games.