Wisconsin Trying to Avoid Another Rare Conference Sweep

MADISON, Wis. – The last time the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team was swept by three Big Ten teams in a single season, Dick Bennett was two years away from leading the Badgers to a Final Four, Greg Gard was an assistant at UW-Platteville and a handful of players on this year’s roster hadn’t been born yet.

Needless to say, it’s been a while since the Badgers failed to get their revenge.

No.25 Wisconsin (16-10, 10-9 Big Ten) heads into Sunday’s regular-season finale at No.5 Iowa (19-7, 13-6) looking to avoid its first non-winning conference season since 2018 and gain some semblance of momentum by earning a signature win heading into postseason play.

“If we want to continue to get better, we have to have that positive mindset,” senior forward Aleem Ford said. “Try to learn from mistakes or losses, try to finish this last stretch strong, get in on a positive note and get ready for the tournaments.”

Less than three weeks ago, the Badgers were on a streak where it had beaten a team it lost to earlier in Big Ten play in eight straight series. Now, this could become the first Badgers team since the 1997-98 squad to be swept by three teams in one season.

Bennett’s squad 23 years ago didn’t have the veteran talent this year's Wisconsin team supposedly does. That year is most remembered for the Kohl Center opening and junior Sam Okey quitting the team in January. The Badgers were swept by a ranked Michigan team, Michigan State and Illinois, the latter two the co-champions of the Big Ten. UW finished 3-13 that season, a starting point for freshmen Mike Kelley, Andy Kowske, Mark Vershaw and Charlie Wills to prepare for the 2000 Final Four run.

Two of those same teams (Michigan and Illinois) swept the Badgers this season, but unlike the 1998 squad, this year’s team has six scholarship seniors who have struggled to shake off a shooting slump that has extended into its third month. It’s largely responsible for UW being 0-7 against teams currently ranked above them in the Big Ten standings.

“It’s a conversation we’ve had after every game, how can we get better shots,” senior Brad Davison said. “How can you make your looks. That comes down to getting better shots and maybe passing up good looks for great looks. We’ve spent a ton of time talking about it, putting in new sets, watching film, going over our motion, showing everyone where the opportunities are to attack and create for yourself and others.”

In the first meeting against Iowa, the Badgers opened the game with a 3-pointer and then went cold, allowing the Hawkeyes to go on a 14-0 run. UW never tied the game after that largely because it started 3-for-22 from the floor, including an abysmal 1-for-15 on two-point shots and 1-for-6 on layups. Iowa has won six of seven, Including that win against Wisconsin, and are playing better defensively. The Hawkeyes limited Ohio State to a season-low 57 points on Sunday and then scored 102 points against Nebraska on Thursday.

If there’s an upside, Wisconsin has started to play better and just not get results. Gard labeled Tuesday’s four-point loss at No.23 Purdue one of the program’s better games in the last 2-3 weeks. The problem is the Badgers are playing in a league with four Final Four caliber teams who rank in the top eight of the AP Poll, the NCAA NET rankings and the KenPom analytics.

Wisconsin fell short against all four of them at home because of its inability to play a complete 40 minutes. While being able to overcome shooting woes, defensive lapses, or a combination of the two in past seasons, the Badgers have found out just how unforgiving the Big Ten is to struggling teams this season.

“A trend the last four, five, six years, the bottom and middle (of the Big Ten) have got stronger but this year we have more elite at the top than we ever had,” Gard said. “I think we’ve had some chances, but there’s much less of a margin for error than maybe in a normal so-called year when we don’t have that many … For the most part, there’s not a game where you can show up and cruise.”

“You’ve got to be really good, consistently good, and that’s where I think the difference has been. For us, we have to play with such a small margin of error against those teams specifically because they are that good. If you have a handful of mistakes, (it) gets monopolized really quickly.”