Dominating the Rivalry: Wisconsin Basketball vs. Northwestern

The hiring of then-Milwaukee head coach Bo Ryan yielded little fanfare outside the city of Madison.

Other than an improbable run to the Final Four in 2000, there had been few bright spots since the Badgers hung their 1947 Big Ten championship banner. Not only were there no Big Ten titles over that 54-year stretch, but Wisconsin also had four times as many losing seasons (32) as top-four finishes in the league (eight). There were just four NCAA tournament appearances, including 47 straight seasons without one.

So, when Dick Bennett abruptly retired in November 2000, he took with him some of the excitement as the Badgers stumbled to a 13-loss season and a first-round upset. Ryan and associate head coach Greg Gard didn’t wait long to change the culture.

Winning back-to-back Big Ten titles in their first two seasons, the Badgers have been dominant in winning 71.1 percent of its games during Ryan’s 14 seasons as head coach and in the last six-plus seasons under Gard (497-202 through Jan.16). UW has won eight Big Ten titles, appeared in 18 of the last 19 NCAA tournaments, and advanced to two Final Fours.

Since Ryan and Gard arrived, Wisconsin has the most Big Ten wins and the best winning percentage in the conference at 246-114 (.683) and has flipped many conference rivalries that had long been one-sided affairs.

Over the course of this Big Ten season, BadgerBlitz will examine Wisconsin’s series with the 13 other conference teams, what it was before Ryan and Gard arrived, what the series looks like now, and some memorable moments along the way.

Today, we look at Wisconsin’s series with Northwestern.

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Pre 2001-02: Wisconsin led 95-57

Since 2001-02: Wisconsin leads 26-8

Ryan’s Record vs. Northwestern: 19-5 (8-4 in Evanston, Ill., 0-0 neutral)

Gard’s Record vs. Northwestern: 7-3 (3-1 in Evanston, Ill., 1-0 neutral)

Record when both teams were ranked: Ryan 0-0; Gard 0-0

When Wisconsin was ranked, Northwestern was not: Ryan 13-2, Gard 5-1

When Northwestern was ranked, Wisconsin was not: Ryan 0-0, Gard 0-0

When both teams were unranked: Ryan 6-3, Gard 2-2

Beating Northwestern has never been a huge issue for Wisconsin. The Badgers won the first 12 meetings in the series and 25 of the first 30. The Wildcats did have some modest winning streaks, winning seven in a row from 1935-40 and five in a row a couple of times, but rarely pummeled UW. From 1918 to 1998, the Wildcats won only three times by more than 20 points. UW had that many lopsided wins by 1914.

Even during the really lean years of 1980-81 to 1992-93, when the Badgers had only one winning season and won just 42.4 percent of their games, UW went 21-7 against the Wildcats (or 13.2 percent of its overall win total).

Of the 10 Big Ten schools who joined the conference in 1950 or earlier, Northwestern was the only school Wisconsin entered the 2001-02 season with a winning record against.

Under Ryan: Wisconsin’s success against Northwestern didn’t suffer a drop off with a new coaching staff. While the Badgers never had a long winning streak against the Wildcats as they did in other series (Illinois, Indiana, Penn State, etc.), Ryan won the first 10 games of the series at the Kohl Center, never lost consecutive games against the Wildcats and won his 19 games by an average of 18.2.

Under Gard: Gard’s first two meetings against Northwestern were major disappointments for a veteran squad, seeing a losing streak extended to three games in 2016 and losing at home as the seventh-ranked team in 2017. That modest two-game win streak was Northwestern’s first in the series since 1996. But after splitting the next two games in the series, it’s been all UW with six straight victories. The Badgers have been held to 70 points or less in each game but have held the Wildcats to 54.2 points on that run.

Overall, Ryan/Gard went 16-4 against coach Bill Carmody and is 10-4 against Chris Collins.

Former Wisconsin assistant coach Gary Close on preparing for the unique Princeton offense run by Northwestern’s Bill Carmody

“Greg deserves a lot of credit. He did the Northwestern scout, and he had that down really well. The scout team did a great job of duplicating it. We had set objectives and rules that we didn’t want to break, and for the most part, didn’t. A lot of it had to do with discipline because they just eat you up if you aren’t disciplined. I think each year there’s a lot of similarity.

“Zach Bohannon helped us out. He played in that offense at Air Force and had an idea of how it worked, the subtleness of it, but Greg did a terrific job and had us well prepared for them.”

Over 186 meetings, Wisconsin has never faced a ranked Northwestern team. The Badgers and Wildcats have met just once in Big Ten tournament play, so there’s rarely been an instance where major implications have been on the line, and UW hasn’t beaten Northwestern by anything less than two possessions since 1992. It’s been that dominant.

However, after clinching a share of the Big Ten title two days earlier, Wisconsin had a chance to close the season with an outright title at Northwestern on March 8, 2008. With the intimate Welsh-Ryan Arena on the northside of Chicago jammed full of Wisconsin fans, Brian Butch scored 20 points and matched his career-high with 14 rebounds as No.8 Wisconsin beat the Wildcats, 65-52, to win Ryan’s third Big Ten title and the second outright.

“To win it outright is nice. It eliminates some of the conversation this part of the season,” Ryan said. “There's one that stands alone and that's the team in that locker room. And that feels pretty good.”

UW (26-4, 16-2) got 15 points from Jason Bohannon and relied on its scoring defense, the toughest in the nation at 54.4 points per game, to beat up a Wildcats team that went 1-17 in Big Ten play.

“I never compare teams, but as far as satisfying and a group coming a ways, this group has come as far as any team I've ever had,” Ryan said.

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