The Wisconsin Badgers don’t have much time to dwell on their emotional overtime loss to Indiana - and frankly, they can’t afford to. A top-10 showdown with Illinois looms on Tuesday, and if the Badgers want to hang with one of the most efficient offenses in the country, they’ll need to clean up the same issues that have haunted them in recent weeks.
Let’s start with what went wrong in Bloomington. Once again, it was a sluggish start that put Wisconsin in an early hole.
This has become a recurring theme for Greg Gard’s group - slow out of the gate, then scrambling to claw back. Against Indiana, the Hoosiers poured in 22 of their 36 first-half points in the paint, slicing through Wisconsin’s defense with dribble penetration and forcing the Badgers to collapse inside.
That left them vulnerable on the perimeter and out of rhythm on both ends.
“We got beat off the dribble. We got spread out at times,” Gard said after the game. “When we were really good, even though we had similar defensive concepts, we were more physical, and that negated what they were doing offensively.”
That physicality - or lack thereof - was a difference-maker. In the second half, Wisconsin tightened up defensively and showed flashes of the gritty, connected team that’s powered their midseason surge.
Even in overtime, they were locked in. But the damage had already been done early, and the Badgers spent the rest of the night trying to dig themselves out.
Still, there’s something to be said about this team’s resilience. Saturday marked the fifth time in eight games that Wisconsin has mounted a double-digit comeback.
They’ve won four of those. That kind of fight speaks to a growing toughness - the kind that wasn’t always there last season.
“Toughness has grown within them since the first of the year,” Gard said. “That puts us in a position [where] when things don’t go well, it doesn’t always get perfect. They continue to battle.”
But as Gard pointed out, battling back only gets you so far. At some point, you’ve got to make that one extra play. And on Saturday, they didn’t.
The final minutes were filled with drama - including a pair of controversial calls that played a role in the one-point loss. But Gard wasn’t leaning on officiating as a crutch.
“There’s a lot of other things that went on in that game that we could do better to not put ourselves in that position,” he said. “You learn from it… We’ll pull the things that we did well, and we’ll pull the things that we have to get better at. And then you turn the page.”
Turning that page means getting ready for an Illinois team that’s been one of the most dangerous in the country. Before their narrow loss to Michigan State, the Fighting Illini had rattled off 11 straight wins and have been lighting teams up with an offense that ranks No. 1 in KenPom’s offensive efficiency metrics. They move the ball, shoot it well, and punish teams that aren’t locked in defensively from the opening tip.
For Wisconsin, that means no more slow starts. No more waiting until the second half to crank up the intensity. If they let Illinois get comfortable early, the game could get away from them in a hurry.
The good news? This Badgers team has shown it can hang with anyone when it plays its brand of basketball - tough, physical, and connected on defense, with enough offensive balance to make teams pay for overcommitting. But against a high-powered Illinois squad, they’ll need to bring that edge from the jump.
Tuesday night’s matchup is more than just a bounce-back opportunity - it’s a measuring stick. And if Wisconsin wants to prove it belongs in the national conversation, this is the kind of game where that statement needs to be made.