As Badger students headed home for winter break in late December, No. 18 Wisconsin headed into conference play seeking a 16th-consecutive top four finish in the Big Ten.
The Badgers began with a tune-up game at the Kohl Center against a new-look Rutgers team that hasn’t posted a winning season in 10 years. They coasted, 72-52, as redshirt senior guard Zak Showalter delivered his best performance of the season with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting and three steals.
Following that, UW traveled eastward to Assembly Hall, where the then-No. 25 Indiana Hoosiers awaited. The Badgers were more dominant than the 7-point victory would suggest, with redshirt sophomore forward Ethan Happ imposing himself at will en route to a 19-point, four-assist night.
Still on the road in Indiana, the Badgers faced perhaps their toughest conference test all season: a road matchup with the then-No. 20 Purdue Boilermakers, their top competition for the Big Ten crown. The UW offense struggled to get into a rhythm, and the Badgers mustered up only 55 points in an 11-point loss that never felt close.
The Purdue defeat could haunt UW down the road, as the two programs will likely finish with similar records in conference play. The Badgers won’t get another shot at the Boilermakers in the regular season, so identical records to close the season would spell a silver-medal finish for a UW team with its sights set much higher.
Any doubts caused by the loss about the legitimacy of the Badgers were wiped out, along with the Ohio State Buckeyes, on the floor of the Kohl Center in an 89-66 whitewashing of a perennial rival. Senior guard Bronson Koenig was the star that night, drilling 5-of-7 3-pointers to bring his total to 13-of-21, 61.9 percent, in Big Ten play thus far.
Confidence has been key for UW to this point in the season, and that will remain true throughout the rest of the conference schedule. When Happ starts looking for shots down low and Koenig is hitting from the outside, the Badgers are virtually unbeatable. Should those two maintain their groove and let senior forward Nigel Hayes do his business, another top four finish is all but a certainty.
