Wisconsin continued their home-court winning streak to 21 games in a row against the Indiana Hoosiers with a 76-64 win. In front of the “White-Out” crowd, Wisconsin hit four of their first five shots for a 13-2 lead. That lead ballooned to 26-4 as Wisconsin took advantage of the Hoosiers’ poor defensive assignments. The Badgers used that strong start to essentially put the game away early.
John Tonje finished the game for the Badgers with 15 points, followed by Max Klesmit’s 13 points. Fan favorite Carter Gilmore continued his MVP stretch with 10 points, including a perfect three-for-three from behind the three-point arc. With their 18th win on the season, the Badgers are now considered a lock to make the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
Greg Gard praised Klesmit for his contributions
“Just the emotional leadership he brings. I thought he was a big part of our start, not only offensively but defensively. Everyone is going to look at what we went six of seven or whatever from three to start. It was the defensive end I felt we were really…got control of the game early. Made it difficult for them to get going and get what they wanted, and Max was a big part of that.”
When asked about the pregame message, Gard stated that getting the team focused on competing.
“I think the biggest thing was just to compete. I think that the one message at the end was that you can never substitute for playing hard, playing smart, and playing together, and this group is a very connected group. They enjoy hanging around each other. They’re a very loose group. They’re very coachable, and they want to win. Their mindsets are all on that, and they understand that when we come out and play hard and aggressive, and it’s not always going to be perfect, but when we do get things all firing on all cylinders, we’re a handful for teams.”
At the end of his press conference, Gard was asked about the transition three-pointers Wisconsin has shot throughout this season.
“Yeah, I mean, analytically, it’s something that we do really well. I think we’re really good at transition, even though we’re maybe not known as a transition team, you know? Just the history that we’ve had here, but if you boil it down, even though we don’t have a lot of opportunities, we’re really efficient. Our points per possession in transition are really high. They were last year, too.”
The Badgers travel to Carver-Hawkeye Arena to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes this Saturday at noon CT. Iowa, who lost Owen Freeman for the season, is coming off a hard-fought 90-81 home loss to the seventh-ranked Purdue Boilermakers last Tuesday.