No. 20 Wisconsin (17-8, 9-5 Big Ten) at Iowa (14-11, 6-8)

Game: Saturday, Feb. 17 in the Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, IA

Time: 8:00 P.M. CT

Watch: BTN

Listen: 1310 WIBA AM and 101.5 FM (Matt Lepay and Brian Butch on the call); stream online on iHeartRadio

Prediction: Wisconsin 77, Iowa 73

Follow Online: The Badgers' Den

Twitter: @Badger_Blitz

Betting line: Wisconsin -1.5 (according to ESPN BET)

No. 20 Wisconsin, coming off a win against Ohio State that broke its four-game losing streak, will travel to face Fran McCaffrey's Iowa Hawkeyes for the second time this season.

It’ll be another opportunity for the Badgers to return to their mid-season form ahead of March.

They’ll face a Hawkeye team that has struggled to build any sort of continuous success in the time since these teams played last. Iowa hasn’t won consecutive games in over a month, and have thus slid down the Big Ten standings.

Ultimately, though, these are the same old Hawkeyes. They’re near the top of the Big Ten in most scoring stats, and near the bottom in most defense stats.

Their best player is still leading scorer Tony Perkins, who led Iowa with 25 points in the first game between these teams. The Badgers will catch him coming off of his worst offensive night in weeks, in which he scored just nine points on 3-of-13 shooting against Maryland.

Alongside Perkins in the backcourt is Payton Sandfort, who has emerged as a serious scoring threat in the second half of the season. He spent most of the season playing inconsistently, but has recently put up 20 points in three of his last six games. Sandfort will also try to atone for his poor performance in the first matchup of the season, when he shot just 3-for-11.

Unlike Wisconsin, the Hawkeyes are in the toughest portion of their schedule. After this matchup, they’ll have to travel and face Michigan State and No. 11 Illinois within the next week.

The Badgers, who have struggled on offense these past few weeks, may be looking forward to playing a team that struggles on defense as much as Iowa.

In the first matchup between these teams, four of the five Wisconsin starters scored in double figures. The team shot 51.9% from the field and scored 51 points in the second half alone.

They’re coming off of a get-right game against the Buckeyes, which ended an abhorrent four-game losing streak.

Steven Crowl had his best performance in over two weeks, scoring 16 points on 7-for-14 shooting from the field. He had put up just 19 points total throughout the four-game losing streak. Ohio State didn’t know how to stop him in the post, and Iowa may not have any answers for him, either.

The matchup against the Buckeyes also produced an excellent performance from A.J. Storr, who was able to have as much impact on the game as usual despite only shooting the ball nine times. He ended up with 14 points on 4-for-9 shooting, and tied a season-high with 12 rebounds.

Iowa has allowed a player to score 20-plus points in seven of their past nine games. If anybody is going to have a big night for Wisconsin, it’ll most likely be Storr.

After Saturday, the Badgers will have just five games left in the regular season. The performance against Ohio State pulled them out of their slump, and the matchup against Iowa could prove that it wasn’t a fluke.

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