MADISON, Wis. – Nineteen conference games down, one meaningful one to go for the University of Wisconsin.

After having the dominoes fall in their direction the previous night, the 24th-ranked Badgers didn’t squander their good fortune and delivered a 63-48 victory over Northwestern Wednesday night at the Kohl Center.

Nate Reuvers scored a team-high 11 points, Brad Davison added 9 points and 8 rebounds and Brevin Pritzl – UW’s lone senior – also added 9 points and six rebounds in his sendoff, to push the Badgers (20-10, 13-6 Big Ten) into a three-way tie for first place in the Big Ten standings with Maryland and Michigan State.

It looked to be a rare breeze of a conference win for Wisconsin, racing out to an 11-3 lead and seeing it build as high as 17 points. Although losing 12 of its last 13 games, Northwestern (7-22, 2-17) didn’t roll over. The Wildcats helped limit UW to only three baskets in the final 7:45 of the first half and trimmed the deficit to 34-28 at the break.

UW’s offense stayed relatively stagnate, finishing at 39.0 percent shooting, but it didn’t matter with how well its defense was clicking. Consider that after Pritzl made a 3-pointer to put UW up 44-32, the Badgers missed their next 12 shots, didn’t score a point for the next 6 minutes, 11 seconds and didn’t make a field goal for nearly seven minutes … and still managed to increase their lead to 15 points.

While Wisconsin’s offense was struggling, Northwestern went 0-for-6 from the floor and two turnovers and could never fully solve the Badgers in the low post.

The Wildcats were led by 14 points from Pete Nance, but the visitors finished 31.5 percent from the floor (25.9 percent in the second half) and 3-for-15 from 3-point range.

Having clinched a double bye in next week’s conference tournament, Wisconsin will shoot for the top seed and a share of the regular season conference championship when it travels to Indiana (19-11, 9-10) Saturday. Tipoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. CT and will be televised on ESPN.