3 stats that show Greg Gard completely outcoached Tom Izzo

The Wisconsin Badgers have proven this season that they can beat any team in the country. They had yet to do it in a convincing way, and then Michigan State came to Madison, and it was all Badgers wire-to-wire. Tom Izzo even called it, “First of all, that was a good old fashioned ass kicking.” For Greg Gard, he put on a clinic on how to dismantle the Michigan State Spartans. These three stats show how dominant it actually was.

1. The 6th most dominant offensive game against Michigan State ever

According to Bart Torvik, this was the sixth-highest offensive efficiency game ever against Michigan State (at least since KenPom came around). The Badgers were lights out offensively and it showed, cruising past the Spartans in their biggest offensive explosion yet. Not only was it 92 points, it was 38 rebounds, 14 assists, with only six turnovers.

2. Wisconsin limited the Spartans to a season-low of points in the paint

The second crazy stat that shows how impressive Greg Gard's squad was tonight was that Michigan only had 14 points in the paint. 14! That's remarkably low for a team that usually makes its money downlow. Jaxon Kohler averages nearly 13 points a game, was limited to only five, and Carson Cooper, who averages 10 points a game, ended with only six.

3. Wisconsin blew the doors off No. 10 Michigan State

Wisconsin won by 21 points. Let's frame the narrative for a minute. The Badgers are unranked, and the Spartans were No. 10. It's so hard to do that when it happens, it's memorable across the national landscape. The last one that pops to mind is when Iowa State did it to No. 1 Purdue back in 2024.

The last time Izzo let a team beat his Spartans by 20+ was back in 2021. It's just rare, and for Wisconsin, it was the largest margin of victory over a top-10 team ever. Greg Gard may have stuffed Tom Izzo into a locker in this one.