Wisconsin Basketball: Wisconsin’s regular season schedule released

The Wisconsin basketball schedule has been released. The Badgers open play on November 25.

It’s here! It’s finally here! The Wisconsin basketball schedule has officially been released! After weeks of waiting, we finally get to see who the Badgers will play in their 2020-2021 season, and not a moment too soon, considering they tip-off on November 25th.

Overall the Badgers will play 26 games, 20 conference games, and six non-conference games.

The schedule was released by the Twitter account for the Wisconsin basketball team.

At first glance, I think this is a pretty solid schedule for the Badgers considering the surrounding circumstances. Their 20-game conference schedule wasn’t going to be anything surprising, but since the Big Ten is, in my opinion, the best conference in college basketball this season, that alone gives the Badgers a solid schedule to play.

The non-conference games are what a lot of fans really wanted to see. In total, the Badgers got six games, bringing them to 26 total. The most any team could play is 27, so they got close. According to Jim Polzin of the Wisconsin State Journal, Coach Greg Gard said the plan was to play seven non-conference games if possible. My guess is with the fluidity of the current situation, the Badgers were unable to get that seventh spot filled.

Regardless, I think the non-conference schedule turned out about as well as you could hope. Marquette seemed to be a given, seeing as the Golden Eagles and Badgers are huge in-state rivals. Green Bay is a nice, close game for the Badgers to have, especially with Bo Ryan’s son, Will, as the new head coach.

Northern Iowa is one of the better mid-major teams in the country and will likely test the Badgers on their home court. This was probably the second-biggest scheduling win for the Badgers.

The AC/Big Ten Challenge provided the Badgers with the crown jewel of their non-conference schedule. Louisville will come to town to take on the Badgers in December. This is a game I’m very excited about. Wisconsin will have a nice challenge on their hands. Louisville has been a solid program under coach Chris Mack and spent some time as the number one team in the country last season.

Overall, I think this is a very solid non-conference schedule that will benefit Wisconsin leading into conference play. Conference play could be a mess. I could see just about any team beating another on any given night. Wisconsin has a relatively difficult schedule and should be battle-tested by the time the NCAA Tournament comes around.