Taking down the No. 5 team in the country is never going to be easy, but the Wisconsin Badgers were hoping to send a message against Marquette over the weekend. Unfortunately, the opposite turned out to be the case, with the Golden Eagles taking care of business.
In the end, Wisconsin fell 88-74, fully getting dominated in the second half of play. At halftime, the Badgers were actually up 39-37, entering the locker room with a ton of confidence. That didn't last long, with Marquette owning things for the final 20 minutes of action.
Following the final whistle, Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard was not happy with how his players performed, while he also knows he could have made some better decisions throughout. Straight up, Gard knows Wisconsin is better than what they displayed and they need to use this as a wake-up call.
Greg Gard was not happy with Wisconsin after losing to No. 5 Marquette
"Well, the ending message was that we don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves," Gard told the media. "We need to get better, and turn around and play in two days again in Illinois."
Gard went on to add that there were some positives that he can take away from the game, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. However, he also knows that this team wasn't good enough in trying to close things out against a great team like Marquette.
As Gard mentioned in the quote above, there will be no time to waste in getting back to the drawing board, as the Badgers will have another difficult road test coming on Tuesday night, this time against No. 19 Illinois.
There's a lot for Wisconsin to clean up and the morale among the fanbase isn't too high following the defeats to both Marquette and Michigan. After starting the season 8-0, the Badgers are now 8-2 and they're sure to take a tumble in the new AP Top 25 poll.