In his sophomore season as a Wisconsin Badger, Nolan Winter did something no other Badger basketball player has ever done. He broke a single-game record on March 2, 2025, and it seems as if no one noticed. He broke the single-game record for most rebounds in a game when Wisconsin took on the Michigan State Spartans.
Maybe the reason it was mostly missed is that it came in a loss. The Badgers were desperate to win the game to help with the Big Ten standings, but ultimately, the test of taking down Coach Tom Izzo in the Breslin Center became too much.
Nolan Winter broke the Wisconsin single-game rebounding record with 17 against Michigan State
Yet that shows how impressive it was that Winter was able to break a record against a ranked and top-notch opponent. It wasn't a record broken against some low-level team. It was against one of the best teams in the nation. Winter out-hustled and out-rebounded all the players at Michigan State.
Now, the Spartans' rebound numbers as a team are one of the reasons that they lost. The Spartans had 51 rebounds as a team (Jaxon Kohler had the most with 16), while Wisconsin only had 40. That's just not going to get them through down the stretch.
Yet, Winter had 17 on his own and took over the single game rebounding record from Alando Tucker and Vitto Brown, who both had 16 at different points. If you are curious, the most Frank Kaminsky III and Ethan Happ ever had was 15 in a game. Happ did it four different times in his career.
14 of Winter's 17 rebounds were defensive rebounds, which put him in a tie for first place in that category with Ethan Happ. Nolan Winter changed the Wisconsin record books as a sophomore, and the Badgers have him back for another year. He could truly be a monster in his junior season.