MADISON, Wis. - After three comfortable wins against inferior opponents, the Badgers will face their first real challenge of the season on Friday, when the No. 9 Arizona Wildcats come to town.

It’ll be the second part of a home and home that began last season in Tucson, where the Wildcats utterly dismantled the Badgers, 98-73.

Very little went right for the Badgers that day. No starter scored more than 11 points, they couldn’t get to the line and their defense evaporated.

Like most players that day, forward Steven Crowl absolutely disappeared.

There was more blame to go around last season, because there were more important players on the team than Crowl.

But this season, he’s the Badgers’ leader and their most important player. If he’s neutralized once again, Wisconsin’s chance to take revenge will evaporate before their eyes.

The final score undersells how thoroughly the Badgers were whooped last season.

Both teams were ranked in the AP Poll at the time (Arizona was No. 1, Wisconsin No. 23), but they didn’t look like they were playing the same sport.

Defensively, the speed at which Arizona moved the ball and got shots off was too much to handle for a much slower-paced team like Wisconsin. In the first half, the Wildcats had 15 assists for their 18 made baskets. They finished with 26 assists on 35 field goals.

Guard Pelle Larsson’s hot shooting performance (6-for-6 from the field, 4-for-4 from distance) forced Wisconsin to pay extra attention to the perimeter, which typically left Crowl on his own to fend for himself against the slashing prowess of guard Caleb Love (21 points), or the sheer size of center Oumar Ballo (15 points).

“When Larsson makes threes, it changes what you can do defensively because Ballo is such a load inside,” coach Greg Gard said after the game. “It’s hard to keep help in the paint around him.”

On offense, Crowl had one of his toughest matchups of the season against Ballo (7-feet, 260 pounds). He wasn’t as willing or able to attempt shots in the post. When he was 1-on-1 with Ballo down low, it looked like the Badgers forward was trying to back down a brick wall.

Arizona defenders collapsed into the paint and dared the Badgers to rely on mid-range shooting, which proved to be a stellar strategy. Wisconsin finished 7-for-26 (26.9 percent) on two-point shots outside the paint.

The inability to score in the post left Wisconsin’s offense without a stabilizing force to slow things down and kill some of Arizona’s momentum. As a result, the Badgers relied more on iso ball and often tried to score as fast as the Wildcats, which simply wasn’t their game.

They did a decent job keeping up for the first 11 minutes or so, before the Wildcats went on a 20-2 run over the next five minutes, which honestly felt like where the game ended.

All in all, Crowl scored nine of his 11 points in the second half, when it was too little too late, to go along with just two rebounds and zero free-throw attempts.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. The rest of the starters shot a combined 12-for-37, while the team as a whole shot just eight free throws, making five.

But the Wildcats’ domination began and ended with how they treated the paint like they owned it, on both sides of the ball. Crowl cannot let that happen again.

On the bright side for the Badgers, this Arizona team is pretty different from the one that trounced them last season.

Most importantly for Crowl, they have a brand new frontcourt. Ballo transferred to Indiana in the offseason, while former starting power forward Keshad Johnson is now in the NBA.

They found a solid replacement for Johnson in Tobe Awaka, the 6-foot-8 former Tennessee forward who the Badgers faced early last season. He’s an athletic freak who plays bigger than he is, having grabbed 15 rebounds in their last outing against Old Dominion.

“[Awaka]’s a monster on the glass,” Gard said earlier this week.

“The physicality that Awaka brings is noticeable. But in general, you can tell the intent is to pound the paint.”

Even though there’s no true center in the starting lineup, that doesn’t mean Crowl won’t still have his hands full.

Their team’s offensive strategy is predicated on attacking the paint. That’s generally the first instinct of their three starting guards, as well as newcomer Trey Townsend, a 6-foot-6 forward transfer from Oakland.

Arizona isn’t lacking in sheer size, it’s rather on the bench.

7-foot-2 center Motiejus Krivas was Ballo’s backup last season and remains an important reserve. But the real intriguing piece is 7-foot forward Henri Veesaar, who suffered an elbow injury early last October and subsequently chose to redshirt the 2023-24 season. He’s now returned and is averaging the most minutes of any Wildcat coming off of the bench (18.5) through two games.

Whatever we’ve seen of these seven footers in the first two games, we can expect to see more of them on Friday against a bigger team like Wisconsin.

Gard can combat their size with his own pair of seven-footers — Crowl and starting forward Nolan Winter.

But based on Arizona’s known propensity to attack the paint, they’re likely gonna want to spread their offense out and provide enough spacing for their slashing guards. Meaning, Crowl is gonna have to be ready to handle this pressure by himself.

If the Badgers send too much help for Crowl, that could leave the perimeter vulnerable, just like in last year’s contest (Arizona shot 12-for-26, or 46.2 percent from 3).

Ultimately, win or lose, this game will likely come down to Crowl.

On offense, they’re gonna need him to slow the game down in the paint, either with his own post presence and scoring, or his playmaking. Defensively, he must be more than a door mat in the paint. If this Arizona team smells blood early, they’ll pounce on the Badgers without a second thought and run them out of their own building.

It would be a great night for Crowl to show some of that dominance that we’ve only ever seen from him in flashes. If he wants to take another step and play to his maximum potential, Friday night would be a worthwhile time to do so.

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