MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Badgers made easy work of the Washington Huskies on Tuesday night, winning 88-62 in the inaugural conference meeting between the two UWs.

A big scoring run beginning midway through the first half opened the door for Wisconsin and they never let up, allowing themselves to move past the Oregon loss and ramp up for an important trip to East Lansing.

Here are my three takeaways from Wisconsin’s win.

The Badgers entered Tuesday three days removed from their most puzzling loss of the season against Oregon. A 15-point lead with just seven minutes left evaporated, leading to a 77-73 loss in overtime.

Before Saturday, a game against the worst team in the Big Ten seemed trivial. But the recent disaster added an unexpected weight and importance to Tuesday night. How would a presumably great team respond to their worst moment of the season?

A younger, more emotional group might have come out of the tunnel guns-blazing, trying to race away from the disappointment of Saturday. But this team knew better.

The first 10 minutes looked like any other Badger game this season. Their approach was disciplined and opportunistic, with the goal of feeling their opponent out rather than going for the instant haymaker.

Then, as we’ve seen in many of Wisconsin’s best wins, the dam broke. The Badgers went on a 23-13 run in the final 10 minutes of the half to create a 15-point lead, which was only the beginning.

Between the 10:08 mark in the first half and 8:30 in the second (22 minutes of game time), the Badgers went on a 56-31 run.

“We were in attack mode from start to finish,” coach Greg Gard said after the game.

“I don’t think we ever really relented or backed off. Even when we had a large lead, it was a mindset in all the timeouts to continue to attack and play aggressive.”

John Blackwell initiated the run and led the team with 24 points (more on him later), but the scoring effort was communal. John Tonje scored 13, Steven Crowl and Xavier Amos both added 12, while Kamari McGee and Jack Janicki finished with eight apiece.

They won the paint battle (42 points to Washington’s 32), turnover battle (10 to 5), and maintained a combination of aggression and discipline that we’ve seen from this group at their best.

Maybe a win over the worst team in the Big Ten means nothing. However, their ability to bounce back and put Saturday behind them should help appease fans’ worries of another late-season decline.

We’ll get a much better look at where they stand against a team of equal caliber when they travel to East Lansing to play No. 8 Michigan State on Sunday.

The image that’s perhaps most resonant from the loss to Oregon is of Blackwell, when the ball hit off his knee and went out of bounds with just 17 seconds left, which led to a game-tying 3 from Jackson Shelstad.

Thus, of the several players who bounced back on Tuesday, none needed it more than Blackwell.

“I think the biggest thing with John, and even with Kamari, that I talked about after Saturday was, ‘You need to take command. You’re the quarterbacks, you’re the point guards. It doesn’t mean you have to go score 30 but you have to command the four other guys and have a presence out there,’” Gard said.

The sophomore guard ignited the early run that marked the beginning of the end for Washington. He scored 17 points on 7-for-8 shooting in the final nine minutes of the half.

By the time the second half rolled around, his teammates were benefiting from the momentum he created. Of Wisconsin’s 45 second half points, Blackwell scored just five.

What remained consistent throughout the full 40 minutes was his effort in all facets of the game. He stayed handsy on defense (two steals) and aggressive in the paint (team-high 10 rebounds).

“It started off with the defense. Just getting after it, listening to what coach said on the scout and ramping my play up on the defense, letting my offense do the work for itself,” Blackwell said after the game.

Tonje has received plenty of attention over the past month for his abilities as Wisconsin’s top scorer, deservedly. But Blackwell reminded the world that he’s perfectly capable of wearing the cape whenever it’s needed.

Blackwell’s first half scoring run was so electric and eye-grabbing that it took attention away from an unexpected storyline — the absence of starting guard Max Klesmit.

He checked out after less than five minutes and never re-entered.

It wasn’t until after the game that we learned from Gard that he’s been dealing with a lower leg injury.

“Once he came out, it was bothering him, so we just decided that was gonna be it,” Gard said.

“It’s been getting better. But tonight, for some reason, he couldn’t get it loose early in the game and we just decided not to go any farther with it.”

Against a struggling team like Washington, his absence likely wasn’t going to decide the outcome. It turned out to be beneficial for Wisconsin’s bench, who got an opportunity to gain some extra confidence heading into the postseason.

Kamari McGee finished with eight, highlighted by a personal six-point scoring run in the second half.

Yet it was the other bench guard, Jack Janicki, who was once again trusted to step in for a veteran and came up big. We’re just three games removed from the Purdue win, in which he scored 11 points in 17 minutes after McGee was ejected.

The redshirt freshman scored eight points on 3-of-4 shooting, to go along with four rebounds, two assists and two steals. He can’t generate his own offense the way Klesmit can, but still knows exactly how to function within this offense.

Beside Janicki at the bottom of the primary rotation has been forward Xavier Amos, who had the best performance of his Badger career on Tuesday night.

Amidst an up-and-down season where he’s struggled to contribute in his limited minutes (9.9 per game), Amos put up 12 points on 4-5 shooting (3-4 from 3). His eight-point burst in the middle of the second half was perhaps the first time we’ve seen a stretch of real offensive dominance from Amos in a Badger uniform.

“I wanna be able to just come in and have an impact any way I can, defensively or offensively,” Amos said. “Tonight, it happened to be scoring. I was feeling it.”

Gard: “Sometimes the game doesn’t allow you the patience to let him play through some things.

“When he gets in there and gets a good sweat going and can knock down a shot or two, then he gets rolling.”

If Klesmit’s injury persists, the coaches may have to rely on this group more than they expected to in March.

But if they can maintain this level of composure in big moments, against teams that aren’t at the bottom of the Big Ten, maybe the Badgers will be just fine.

100: Steven Crowl’s career wins. (He’s the eighth Badger to reach that mark.)

23: Total # rebounds pulled down by Badger guards. (Washington had 26 as a team.)

16: # of times Wisconsin has reached 80 points this season, breaking a program record.

14.3: Wisconsin’s average margin of victory during the month of February.

5: # of conference games the Badgers have won by 20+ points, something no Big Ten team has done since Iowa in 2021-22.

1: # of John Blackwell career double-doubles.

_________________________________________________

*Chat about this article in The Badgers' Den

*Check out our videos, interviews, and Q&As on our YouTube channel

*Subscribe and listen to the BadgerBlitz.com podcast (as seen on Apple, Google, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts)

*Follow us on Twitter: @McNamaraRivals, @TheBadgerNation, @_Perko_, @seamus_rohrer, @DonnieSlusher_

*Like us on Facebook