WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Kamari McGee is the spark of energy coming off the bench the University of Wisconsin had leaned on throughout his career. Seeing him be escorted to the locker room by Wisconsin strength and conditioning coach Jim Snider following his ejection could have splintered a close-knit roster. It did the opposite.

“We just said we got him,” senior John Tonje said. “We said, ‘Hey, bro, we’ll get this game for you.’ We saw him in the locker room. He’s obviously having a tough time. He wants to be out here with his family, but we said we’ll get this one for you. We went out there and just did that.”

Tonje was one of the biggest reasons Wisconsin delivered on that promise, but there were multiple contributors and moments as to why the 16th-ranked Badgers’ 94-84 win over No.7 Purdue could easily be labeled as their biggest of the season.

Tonje’s 32 points were a game-high, one of five Badgers in double figures in an offensive performance that could best be labeled as “unconscious shooting.” UW averaged 1.541 points per possession overall, a staggering 1.871 points per possession in the second half, and scored more points at Purdue than it ever has in a series that dates to 1906.

It gives Wisconsin (20-5, 10-4 Big Ten) its seventh 20-win season under head coach Greg Gard, at least 10 conference wins for the 21st time in the last 24 years, and keeps them in the thick of the Big Ten race. They trail Michigan by 1.5 games with six remaining.

“They're just extremely confident,” Gard said. "They know, collectively, they're a really good team. We got major star power, too, with some guys, but they rallied together.”

Here are my takeaways from Mackey Arena

If someone didn’t watch the game and only saw Tonje’s stat line, he said he would describe his performance in one word: composed. No arguments here.

Tonje’s 32 points were equally impressive as it was efficient. He was 10-for-15 from the field, 4-for-9 from three, and 8-for-9 from the line. He attacked the glass with six defensive rebounds, found teammates with three assists, and blocked just his fourth shot of the season.

It brought back memories of Johnny Davis’s 2022 performance in the building when he scored a career-high 37 points in a 74-69 victory, the last time UW won in this building.

“If you’re going to be at an elite level, you’re going to have a guy that can really carry the water,” Gard said. “He doesn’t have to do it every night, but when they get going, they’re really good.”

His afternoon is almost more impressive considering his first shot was an airball. His rushed three-pointer from the corner sailed long and was compounded when he committed a passing turnover on the next possession after getting stuck driving baseline.

Gard didn’t sub him out, just calmed him down. He hit a corner three-pointer on his next attempt after the under-16 timeout and started to heat up. His Euro-step layup out of timeout brought the score to within 25-22 and his five quick points at the end of the half made the deficit one entering halftime.

In the first 11 possessions of the second half, Tonje scored 13 points. He took advantage of open threes, drove into the lane to finish at the rim, and converted a four-point play, all plays that set Purdue point guard Braden Smith up. At the end of his scoring run, Tonje pump-faked on a three to get Smith airborne, attacked the lane by putting the ball on the floor, and finished in the lane off two feet to put the Badgers up 58-50 with 13:34 remaining.

The 13-2 run gave the Badgers a lead that never dipped below five for the remainder of the game.

With Blackwell limited because of foul trouble and McGee in the locker room, Wisconsin redshirt freshman Jack Janicki spent some time working at the point.

His career-high 11 points was a product of him not hesitating on open three-pointers from the corner in the second half, including one that gave UW its biggest lead to that point at 71-60. Kickstarting his offense was a reverse layup underneath the basket that beat the shot clock early in the first half.

“We had been practicing that cut all week and Steve (Crowl) just happened to make a great pass,” Janicki said. “From there, it was good to get your first one to go in and get a little bit of a rhythm, especially when you’re on the road.”

A rested Blackwell scored all his 11 points in the second half, eight of which came by attacking the paint, senior Max Klesmit had 17 points (5-for-10), six assists, and one turnover, and Nolan Winter had eight of his 12 in the first half to keep UW in arm’s reach of Purdue

“It just shows the maturity of this team through adversity,” Blackwell said. “With me picking up two fouls early and sitting the whole first half, and then Kamari getting ejected, it shows diversity with next guy up … Our team is like a well-oiled machine. We just keep going. The togetherness never fades away, even when we’re playing on the road.”

The ghost of Purdue center Zach Edey appeared to be playing havoc with Wisconsin’s offense. Despite the 7-foot-4 All-American no longer patrolling the rim for Purdue, the Badgers mostly shot from the perimeter during the start of the first half. Ten of UW’s first 13 shots were threes, as were 12 of its 16 attempts entering the under-eight timeout.

Purdue was beating UW in points in the paint (10-2), the Badgers were just 2-for-4 from the line and were in a stretch of six consecutive three-point misses when McGee’s night abruptly ended. Fighting through a screen set by forward Trey Kaufman-Renn, McGee contacted Kaufman-Renn’s groin and drew the foul. After a video review, it was upgraded to a flagrant-2 foul and an automatic ejection.

Two made free throws later, UW was down 29-22 with 6:20 remaining, didn’t have one of its best reserves, and had no momentum on its side. Instead of folding, Gard said the situation was like throwing gasoline on the fire.

The Badgers went on a 10-2 run over the final 3:23. Reliant on the three-pointer earlier in the half, eight of UW’s 12 points in the paint came in the final 5:10 of the half. Klesmit and Winter delivered driving layups soon after the ejection, Tonje’s step-back jumper in the paint was part of a mini 5-0 run to start building momentum, and Xavier Amos’ only bucket came uncontested off an inbounds from Janicki to cut the deficit to four.

“Kamari has been our emotional leader the whole year and obviously a guy like him out, you’re going to need all 15 guys to pick him up from an energy standpoint,” Janicki said. “As they were looking at the replay, we got together and said sort of a similar thing on how we can’t faze us, and we need to stay focused and finish the second half strong. I think that’s exactly what we did, and it set us up for a good second half.”

Attacking the paint relentlessly and repeatedly, especially when the Badgers started getting whistles to be called in their favor, UW scored 36 points in the paint and turned 15 Purdue fouls (numerous on drives toward the rim) into 16-for-20 from the line.

“I think we got a lot of older guys, who are experienced that kind of know the flow of the game and see the reads early, get a better feel, and adjust for that,” Tonje said. “I think some of the older guys were able to step up and started seeing some of the tendencies they were making and making the right reads from there.”

Purdue point guard Braden Smith is on pace to become the first player since California's Jason Kidd (1993-94) to average 16.0 points, 8.0 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game. Shutting him down completely has been a chore for most Big Ten teams, as UW saw firsthand early.

Smith had three assists by the first media timeout, driving baseline and flipping a pass to Caleb Furst for an easy bucket at the rim and collapsing UW’s defense with his drives to the paint, allowing him to find open shooters on the perimeter.

Smith finished with 12 assists and one early turnover, but UW limited his offense to only that category.

Using a combination of guards (Blackwell, Janicki, and McGee), mobile fours (Carter Gilmore), and bigs (Steven Crowl), Wisconsin's varying defensive rotations caused Smith to look uncomfortable with the changing shot windows. The result was six points on 2-for-10 shooting, the fewest field goals he’s made in conference play, and tied for the fewest points.

“The pick-and-roll, he’s a maestro with it,” Blackwell said. “He does everything well with that pick and roll. We knew it was going to be a load to stop him and Renn. We knew what our coach told us to do, and we stuck with that game plan and executed.”

6 – Only six Wisconsin squads can boast winning in Mackey Arena (1972, 2005, 2012, 2014, 2022, and 2025).

6-to-1 – Wisconsin finished with 18 assists (on 32 buckets) and had three turnovers in 61 possessions (6-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio). Badgers had zero turnovers in 31 second-half possessions.

7 - The Badgers tallied their second top-10 win of the season and now have 14 top-10 wins in 10 seasons under Gard. Seven of those wins have come away from home.

10 - Wisconsin's 10-point win was its largest over Purdue since a 71-51 win in the 2015 Big Ten Tournament. The Badgers’ 94 points are the most scored in a road win over an AP Top-25 team in school history.

90.9 - UW went 20-for-22 (90.9 percent) from 2-point range, the highest two-point field goal percentage by any Div. 1 team in a road game since at least 2010-11.

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