The Wisconsin Badgers, for the second week in a row, went 1-1, yet a huge difference happened this week compared to last. Last week, the Badgers split the week losing to UCLA but beating Nebraska. This week, they lost on the road against Maryland but pulled off a fun and inspiring win over Northwestern in Evanston, Illinois. Last week, the AP Top 25 poll rewarded the Badgers for the 1-1 split, moving them up from 18 to 17. This week, the Badgers dropped.
BREAKING: College Basketball AP Poll🚨https://t.co/8QAcZdeMcz pic.twitter.com/UA8wzo9rTH
— On3 (@On3sports) February 3, 2025
The Wisconsin Badgers are now ranked No. 21 in the latest AP Top 25 Poll
Therefore, the question must be asked: is this disrespect, or is the drop justified? In reality, it's probably just the AP voters being all over the place like they tend to be, but it does feel like disrespect, and here's why.
The matchups were better this week:
Last week, Wisconsin played:
UCLA - ranked 28 in the NET.
Nebraska - ranked 50 in the NET.
This week, Wisconsin played:
Maryland - ranked 15 in the NET.
Northwestern - ranked 57 in the NET.
Now, these are pretty close, but this week was actually a harder slate. The loss to Maryland should have affected Wisconsin less than the loss to UCLA. To make it even more frustrating, those are the current NET rankings for the teams. Nebraska was much lower last week. Their big win over No. 16 ranked Oregon on Sunday had them jump up from 55 to 50.
The chaos was the same as last week:
One might argue that there was more chaos in the polls last week, and that's why Wisconsin rose up one spot. However, there was just as much, if not more, chaos this week. On Saturday of last week alone, 8 of the top 14 lost. That's just one day of chaos, but the week featured even more.
Thus, the reality is this. Either last week when Wisconsin jumped up from 18 to 17 was a fluke or this week was, you can't have it both ways.