MADISON, Wis. – An extended January trip to Los Angeles is one of the new wrinkles to Wisconsin’s 20-game conference schedule, which was released by the Big Ten conference on Thursday.
Wisconsin will open conference play on Dec. 3 against Michigan in an early season matchup. UW will resume Big Ten action on the road against Illinois on Dec. 10.
The Big Ten conference games in addition to the seven non-conference home games announces last month give Wisconsin 17 home games in 2024-25.
Of the new conference additions of Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington, the Badgers have the most recent history with the Ducks. UW and Oregon have met four times since 2014, all coming in the postseason, and the Badgers have won three of the meetings.
Wisconsin has faced UCLA once since 1995, USC once since 1982, and hasn’t played Washington since 1965.
Even with the Big Ten expanding, the league announced in January that the basketball regular season schedule would stay at 20 games.
That means the Badgers will only face Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, and Washington at home and Maryland, Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, and USC on the road.
Fortunately for Wisconsin fans, the Badgers will play border rivals Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota twice.
“I think staying at 20 games is the right thing to do,” Gard said. “We’ve had numerous discussions as lead coaches about that and we felt going beyond 20, we were going to cannibalize ourselves even more in trying to get more teams in the tournament. As you run the numbers analytically what they look at, it was the right move going from 16 to 18 and then 18 to 20 like we’ve done over the past six years. We’ve seen to fit an optimal spot.”
The only change was the conference tournament would increase to 15 teams, eliminating the bottom three teams in the conference
“In the tournament, there were a lot of different options,” Gard said. “I think there was four or five different options we got a chance to voice our opinion on. Just because of the days, we were going to try to stay within the five-day window of the tournament. Having all 18 (teams) wasn’t going to be possible. Looking at 15 or 16 I thought was the right move and they were able to work it. They were able to protect the teams that finished in the upper half so you’re not jeopardizing your NCAA Tournament seeding and placement.”
The Badgers finished alone in fifth place in the Big Ten, finishing a distant six games behind national finalist Purdue. It was a disappointing conclusion for Wisconsin, which was ranked sixth in the country in early February before dropping eight of the final 11 regular season games
Wisconsin has seen its roster retooled after losing to James Madison in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Eight players left via graduation or the transfer portal and UW replaced them with three transfer prospects (point guard Camren Hunter, combo guard John Tonje, and forward Xavier Amos) and three freshmen (Minnesotans Daniel Freitag and Jack Robison and Italian forward Riccardo Greppi).
The new additions will pair with senior starters Steven Crowl and Max Klesmit, sophomores John Blackwell and Nolan Winter, and multiple returning reserves for the Badgers' chase of a third Big Ten title since 2020.
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