25. Wisconsin (7-2)
Things haven’t gone perfectly for the Badgers to this point in the season but we’re back to giving Greg Gard’s group some attention. Wisconsin suffered a pair of tough losses on consecutive Friday’s, getting blown out by BYU before falling by double figures thanks to a poor performance against TCU. They still have some things to fix but redeemed those shortcomings with two great efforts this week.
On Wednesday they got Big Ten play started on the right foot with an 85-73 home win against Northwestern. John Blackwell starred with 26 points and 11 rebounds while Nick Boyd added 20 points in the bounce back effort. Saturday felt even better, as the Badgers blew out rival Marquette 96-76 in their latest matchup. Blackwell stood out yet again with a 30-point performance while both Aleksas Bieliauskas and Nolan Winter added double-doubles against those Golden Eagles.
The Badgers are getting the best out of Blackwell in these recent efforts and he can be a leader and facilitator much like John Tonje and other recent legends of this program. There’s still plenty of work ahead especially on the defensive end but Wisconsin is trending in a positive direction again and can really punctuate that next week at Nebraska.