Badger of Honor
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Wisconsin Basketball: Breaking down every game on the schedule

By Tanner Nestle

NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Ethan Happ #22 of the Wisconsin Badgers celebrates their 61-54 overtime win over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in an NCAA college basketball game at Madison Square Garden on January 28, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Ethan Happ #22 of the Wisconsin Badgers celebrates their 61-54 overtime win over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in an NCAA college basketball game at Madison Square Garden on January 28, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images) /
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Wisconsin Basketball Western Kentucky Basketball
NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 27: Justin Johnson #23 of the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers works against Donnie Tillman #3 of the Utah Utes in the fourth quarter during their 2018 National Invitation Tournament Championship semifinals game at Madison Square Garden on March 27, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images) /

Grambling State

The Grambling Tigers program has fallen on some hard times in recent years. Since 2012-13 when the team won zero games over the course of the season, they’ve won five, two, seven, and 16 games until last year when the Tigers finished above .500 in Donte Jackson’s first year as head coach. They return last year’s leading scorer Ivy Smith Jr. who averaged 16.7 points per game. The 6-0 guard will be filling up the bucket all year for Grambling and he’ll be the one to watch in this game. He has the ability to take over the game and will be one of the better players the Badgers will face all year, but it won’t be enough.

At Western Kentucky

This game isn’t anything to gloss over. Western Kentucky is good. The Hilltoppers are built in a strange way, but they’re talented. Lamonte Bearden is a Germantown, Wisconsin product who went to Western Kentucky through Buffalo where he played in the NCAA tournament and DeSean Murray is a grad transfer from Auburn on his third division one team. The leading returning scorer is sophomore Taveion Hollingsworth who averaged 13.3 points per game last season.

The biggest reason everybody will be paying attention to WKU this year is Charles Bassey. The five-star prospect chose the path less traveled by and could help WKU be a seriously tough team to beat. This could be a quality win for the Badgers if they’re able to pull it off like I think they will.

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