MADISON — Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Saturday’s defeat at the hands of Illinois marked Wisconsin’s seventh loss in nine games. The Badgers have won two games since the calendar flipped to February. A once Big Ten-best 8-1 conference record has plummeted to 10-8. A late January No. 6 ranking in the AP Poll feels like a fever dream.
There’s a lot of ways to quantify Wisconsin’s late-season collapse, but however you frame it, it’s quite frankly a disaster.
After the Badgers’ win over Michigan State on Jan. 26, cementing a rare season sweep of the Spartans, Wisconsin was riding high. At 16-4, and with just one conference loss in nine tries, the Badgers looked like a true Final Four contender.
“They understand we’re not even halfway through the league schedule yet. They understand you can’t let success change you,” head coach Greg Gard said after that game. “It doesn’t take much to remind them about last year. And their goals are big.”
In hindsight, those comments are incredibly ominous considering Wisconsin has taken a nosedive since that game. It’s one thing to drop a few games here and there in the Big Ten. It’s a ruthless conference. It’s another thing entirely to completely drop out of contention for a regular season conference title and a potential top-four seed in the NCAA tournament in the span of a month.
Following the Michigan State game, Wisconsin had a brutal stretch: on the road against Nebraska, where the Huskers simply don’t lose, then at home against Zach Edey and Purdue. After that, it was supposed to get lighter: Michigan and Rutgers, the bottom two teams in the conference at the time.
The Badgers dropped all four games. A win over Ohio State snapped the losing streak at four, but Wisconsin proceeded to go 1-3 in its next four games.
“Well we’re playing some decent teams,” Gard said after the most recent loss to Illinois. “You just keep working away at it.”
Illinois is a decent team, yes. In fact, with that offense, they’re one of the best teams in the country. Rutgers, Michigan and Indiana? Let’s just say those aren’t exactly quality losses.
Gard doubled down on the strength-of-schedule take.
“You’re still trying to climb. This league is hard,” he said. “In terms of the fight we played with, specifically guys that got the major minutes, it was good. I haven’t had to really worry about that. It’s a matter of, the margin for error is so slim for any team.”
No one is saying the Big Ten isn’t a bloodbath. No one is saying you can’t lose to anybody on any given night. But when you’ve fallen so catastrophically far from grace, as the Badgers have, it’s more than a matter of the margin of error being slim.
The margin of error wasn’t so slim when Wisconsin shellacked Michigan State twice. The margin of error wasn’t so slim when the Badgers won four straight Big Ten games by at least eight points. With the losses stacking, it’s no longer a matter of “any given night in the Big Ten.”
Wisconsin now finds itself at a critical crossroads in the season, and potentially for the program as a whole. The Badgers have two regular season contests remaining. One of them — Purdue in West Lafayette — looks nearly impossible. Then comes the Big Ten tournament, then comes the postseason.
“We could go either way. We’re in control of our own destiny, so we can go downhill from here or we can go uphill,” point guard Chucky Hepburn said. “If guys wanna come, show up and compete, we’re all there for it.”
What kind of resilience does this program have? With their backs against the wall, can the Badgers dig deep to find the extra gear they’ve been seeking since February? Or will they never regain their footing and succumb to early exits in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments?
Life in the Big Ten is unforgiving. But Wisconsin navigated the conference deftly through the first half of the season, portraying a potency that had plenty of pundits pegging them as legitimate Final Four contenders. In the midst of an utter collapse, the Badgers are out of excuses, and running out time to save their season.
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