MADISON, WIS. ? Welcome to the NCAA Arctic Regional. Brrr!!!

With a wind chill hovering around zero and a half-inch or so of snow on the tundra, what we need right here in Dairyland is a little March Meltness.

Or as Kansas University coach Roy Williams, an avowed warm-weather lover, quipped Thursday: “We’re happy to be here  except when we’re outside.”

I’m not sure, but I think I saw the Northern Lights hovering above the Wisconsin state capital building last night. If this is spring in Madison, then summer must arrive in July. I sure envy Oklahoma being sent to San Jose, Calif., for the NCAA West Regional. I’ll bet the Sooners didn’t have to go from their hotel to the arena on dogsleds.

During the long Kansas basketball season, I can remember only one other game with similar teeth-chattering conditions. That would, of course, be the pre-Christmas clash with North Dakota U. in Grand Forks, the biggest cube in the nation’s ice tray.

It’s no coincidence, either, that North Dakota’s sumptuous Englestad Arena and Wisconsin’s Kohl Center are utilized for both basketball and hockey, making them the only dual arenas the Jayhawks set foot in this season  unless you consider Maui’s Lahaina Civic Center which is used for both basketball and leg cramping.

By the way, the Cold, er Kohl Center, built just four years ago, reminds me of Kansas City’s Kemper Arena, except the seats are all red instead of blue. Maybe I was spoiled by the $100 million North Dakota ice and dribble palace financed by former Fighting Sioux hockey player Ralph Englestad, but Wisconsin’s barn sure seems spartan by comparison.

The utilitarian Kohl Center lacks a certain charm, although it does boast an impressive piece of art in the main concourse  a structure that contains “more than 1,600 tendrilled, hand-blown pieces of vibrantly hued glass.” Still, I think the arena needs a provincial touch  like a statue of a strutting Bucky Badger, UW’s mascot, standing outside the main entrance, or maybe a scoreboard shaped like a huge wedge of cheese with the digital numbers where holes would be.

If the weather is frigid here, it is no less chilly than the reception Williams will receive tonight from the Wisconsin fans who snapped up nearly 9,000 tickets, or about half the house, that made this the fastest Regional to sell out.

Williams and the Jayhawks had a taste of the reverse cheering when they ran onto the floor for Thursday afternoon’s practice session, attended by perhaps 500 UW boosters.

Madison media have fanned the flames of controversy over comments Williams made a couple of years ago about former Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett’s stodgy style of play. In Thursday’s Wisconsin State Journal, sports columnist Tom Oates called Williams’ references to Bennett’s deliberate style as “gratuitous and self serving” and added that “Badgers fans have memories as long as their bar tabs.”

I probably would have written “as long as their underwear,” but that’s me. If it warms Wisconsinites’ hearts to boo Williams, well, in these climes anything done in the pursuit of warmth is not a vice.

Kansas will be wearing the home uniforms in today’s late-night game against Illinois, but the Jayhawks will have to depend on the 1,500 or so KU fans on hand for vocal sustenance.

Even the Wisconsin fans who don’t dislike Williams are likely to go the conference allegiance route and cheer for Illinois, like Wisconsin a member of the Big 10.

“From a selfish perspective,” Illinois coach Bill Self said, “I hope the people of Wisconsin feel that way.”

First, the people of Wisconsin will make sure they can feel their toes. Then they’ll decide.