Wisconsin is playing at the Kohl Center as 17.5-point favorites against Montana State on Thursday night but there’s a respectable Badgers analyst who thinks they will lose.

Evan Flood, who covers the Badgers for 247Sports, is picking the Bobcats to upset the Badgers.

“The Bobcats were a NCAA Tournament team a year ago,” Flood reasoned, noting that Montana State returns three starters from last year’s team while also adding Utah State transfer Max Agbonkpolo.

Flood believes that because Montana State “is an experienced group” featuring nine players with four-plus years of college basketball experience, coupled with the fact that Wisconsin is “still gelling defensively and really doesn’t have its rotation ironed out” is a “less than ideal” situation that sets the stage for the upset.

Montana State does indeed have scoring depth and experience. And they aren’t just a team that went to the NCAA Tournament last season. They also made the tournament in 2022-23 and 2021-22, so they’re riding a three-year NCAA Tournament streak as the three-time reigning Big Sky Conference champs.

The Bobcats have size. They run out three guards who are 6-foot-6, 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-2, respectively, while mixing in a 6-foot-7 forward and a 6-foot-10 center. And pretty much everyone on the team can shoot. In fact, Montana State coach Matt Logie recently called this the best shooting team he’s had in his long coaching career.

If the Badgers lose, it cost them more than a loss because it’s a “buy game.”

That means the University of Wisconsin is paying Montana State to travel to Madison and play the game. How much? According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the Badgers are paying Montana State $100,000.

BILLINGS — The Carroll men and Montana Tech women claimed the Frontier Conference cross country championships Wednesday at Amend Park.

It’s the fourth consecutive conference title for the Carroll men, who edged Rocky Mountain by just one point to win Wednesday’s championship. The Fighting Saints finished with 32 points behind Zack Gacnik’s first-place finish. Gacnik clocked a time of 24:54.40 to out-pace teammate Oliver Morris, who placed second with a time of 25:11.70.

Carroll also got an all-conference finish from Connor O’Hara.

Rocky Mountain’s Corbyn Svec rounded out the top three with a time of 25:17.30, as the Battlin’ Bears totaled 33 team points.

Montana Tech, MSU-Northern and Montana Western took third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the men’s team standings. View complete results from the Frontier Conference men’s cross country championships.

For the Tech women, it was the first Frontier Conference cross country championship in program history. The Orediggers, who snapped Carroll’s streak of four consecutive titles, were paced by individual medalist Alyssa Plant and second-place finisher Kamryn Camba. Plant placed first with a time of 22:33.50, while Camba crossed the finish line in 22:56.

As a team, Tech scored 26 points, as Alyssa Jany and Emily See also earned all-conference recognition.

Kallyn Wilkins of Rocky Mountain placed third with a time of 22:56.60.

Following Tech in the team standings were Carroll (47 points), Rocky Mountain (61) and Montana Western (95). View complete results from the Frontier Conference women’s cross country championships.

The Carroll men and Tech women receive the Frontier’s automatic bids to the NAIA national championships, which are scheduled for Nov. 22 at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo. The NAIA will announce the at-large bids next week.

2024 FRONTIER MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM

Zack Gacnik, Carroll — Frontier Conference runner of the year
Oliver Morris, Carroll
Corbyn Svec, Rocky Mountain
Benjamin Zerr, Montana Tech
Connor O’Hara, Carroll
John Spinti, Rocky Mountain
Ashtyn Rask, Rocky Mountain
Zach Zwiesler, Rocky Mountain
Derek Schultz, Montana Tech

2024 FRONTIER MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONS OF CHARACTER

Luke Decker, Carroll
Bryon Fanning, Montana Tech
Kaden Hennessey, Montana Wesern
Jaden Koon, Montana State-Northern
Ciaran Molloy, Providence
Caleb Tomac, Rocky Mountain

2024 FRONTIER MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY COACH OF THE YEAR

Shannon Flynn, Carroll

2024 FRONTIER WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM

Alyssa Plant, Montana Tech — Frontier Conference runner of the year
Kamryn Comba, Montana Tech
Kallyn Wilkins, Rocky Mountain
Alyssa Jany, Montana Tech
Emily See, Montana Tech
Isabelle Ruff, Carroll
Hannah Geisen, Rocky Mountain
Hannah Sempf, Carroll
Anna Terry, Carroll
Olivia Steadman, Montana Western

2024 FRONTIER WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONS OF CHARACTER

Erika Arthur, Carroll
Alyssa Jany, Montana Tech
Justene Santi, Montana Western
Makaela Kelly, Montana State-Northern
Kallyn Wilkins, Rocky Mountain

2024 FRONTIER WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY COACH OF THE YEAR

Jacob Sundberg, Montana Tech

BOZEMAN, Mont. — Stuck on a snowy sidewalk for hours after polls closed, voters in a Montana college town created an encouraging vibe as they moved slowly through a line leading to the ballot boxes inside the county courthouse.

They huddled under blankets and noshed on chips, nuts and pizza handed out by volunteers. They swayed to an impromptu street DJ, waved glow sticks and remembered a couple of truths: This is a college town and hanging out late at night for a good cause is fun — even in the teeth-chattering cold.

R-r-r-Right?

Hardy residents of Bozeman, Montana, queued along Main Street by the hundreds on election night, with Democrats, Republicans and independents sharing a not-so-brief moment of camaraderie and warmth to close out an otherwise caustic election season.

Among them, clad in a puffy down jacket and a thin pair of gardening gloves, was Davor Danevski, a 38-year-old tech worker. By early Wednesday morning, he’d waited almost five hours.

“The last two elections I missed because I was living abroad in Europe. I didn’t want to miss a third election,” said Danevski. “Too many people don’t take it as seriously as they should.”

Polls closed at 8 p.m. The last ballot was cast at 4 a.m. by an undoubtedly committed voter.

The long wait traces to a clash of Montana’s recent population growth and people who waited until the last minute to register to vote, change their address on file or get a replacement ballot. Many voters in the hometown of Montana State University were students.

The growth of Gallatin County — up almost 40% since 2010 — meant the 10 election workers crammed into an office were woefully insufficient to process all the last-minute voter registrations and changes.

“The building’s just not set up … It’s not designed to hold all the people that Gallatin County has now for every election. So we need to do something about that,” County Clerk Eric Semerad said of the structure built in 1935.

As darkness descended, flurries swirled and temperatures plunged into the 20s (minus 15 degrees Celsius), Kael Richards, a 22-year-old project engineer for a concrete company, took his place with a friend at the back of the line.

He appreciated the food and hand warmers given out before he finally cast his vote at 1 a.m. By then, he estimated, he had been lined up between seven and eight hours.

“The people down there were super nice,” Richards said Wednesday. “We thought about throwing in the towel but we were pretty much at the point that we’ve already been here, so why not?”

The county clerk asked county emergency officials to help manage the crowd since it was snowing. They shut down a road by the courthouse and set up tents with heaters inside. “It was brilliant,” Semerad said.

The line’s precise length was hard to measure as it snaked along the sidewalk, into the road and through the tent. It continued up the courthouse steps, jammed through a doorway, wrapped around an open lobby, up some more stairs, between rows of glass cases filled with historic artifacts and finally into the office of late-toiling election workers.

In past elections, lines have gone past midnight, but never as late as Tuesday’s, Semerad said. Many waiting could have stepped out of line and cast provisional ballots but chose to stick it out.

As midnight came and went Danevski stood patiently waiting his turn to start up the courthouse steps. For him, the long hours were worth it.

“If you can, you should always try to vote,” he said.

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Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming.