The Wisconsin Badgers are either really fun or hard to watch; there is no in between. Tonight, they chose the latter against the Nebraska Cornhuskers 90-60. They were outplayed up and down the court, at every position. The Badgers lacked toughness, grit, desire, name any other positive word there. It was awful. It was frustrating to watch, so you, my dear reader, get to read frustrated thoughts...four of them (had to cut it off somewhere).
1. There was absolutely no toughness
Greg Gard will almost certainly say that the team lacked "mental toughness." Which is true, but you can even take it up a notch: they lacked toughness in every single category. Nebraska, a smaller team, was way more physical. Which led to some early momentum plays, and then the mental toughness went out the door for Wisconsin, and you could see the team in real time give up.
2. John Blackwell was cold and everyone else joined in
John Blackwell had a night to forget offensively (and defensively). He went 1-11 from the field and 1-6 from three. He ended with seven points as he went 4-4 from the free-throw line. That's brutal for Blackwell, and while he's had rough outings before, typically someone else turns it on and helps carry the team. Not this time, every other player seemed to follow suit.
Nick Boyd had the most Badger points at 20 but it was still at less than 50% from the field.
3. The defense is lost
It was as poorly played defensively as you may ever see from the Badgers. Hopefully, they never run this back again. The paint was open, the threes were open, they weren't sliding over to protect.
You are going to have games where the other team is just hot from 3. Tonight has been a layup drill for Nebraska. It might be the worst defensive effort I can recall.
— Badgermaniac (@THEbadgermaniac) December 11, 2025
4. If the offense gets out of sync, the Badgers resort to jacking up 3s
There was a stretch of offensive play where, in 13 straight possessions, the Badgers fired up a 3-point shot and basically missed them all. It was a huge head-scratcher of an offensive system. It wasn't even in comeback mode; this was when the game was within reach.
The Badgers need someone on the floor to settle things down and run an actual offense, not three passes and a contested 3-point shot.
The biggest question is, did the Badgers even get off the plane? It was woeful.