Wisconsin basketball is having a weird year on the court, and yet the team is still considered a tournament team, and there are three stars pulling it all together. One of those stars, Nolan Winter, is a double-double machine who now has 10 of them on the season. That's Frank Kaminsky and Ethan Happ territory. One of the others is an NBA draft hopeful in John Blackwell, and finally, there's Nick Boyd, who's in the race for the Big Ten scoring title.
Boyd is second behind last year's scoring title champion, Nick Martinelli of Northwestern. Wisconsin has nine games more to go in the season, and Boyd is averaging 20 points exactly per game. In his last three games he's over that mark scoring 29, 21, and 21 respectfully.
Nick Martinelli wants b2b B1G scoring titles 😈 pic.twitter.com/yt2S8DiblT
— Big Ten Men's Basketball (@B1GMBBall) February 2, 2026
Nick Boyd is chasing down Nick Martinelli for the Big Ten scoring title
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Boyd probably doesn't even know he's only 3.7 points per game behind Martinelli, and he probably doesn't care. He's talked a lot about how his scoring mentality has nothing to do with himself. He wants to win, and he attacks the lane when he needs to, and he helps his teammates score when he's being doubled, or the other team's defensive plan is to take him on.
For example, when Wisconsin beat Penn State 98-71, Boyd only scored 11 points. However, he didn't need to do more than that for the Badgers as the game was in hand, and four other teammates scored in double figures.
So, Wisconsin fans are rooting for Boyd to chase down Martinelli, but it won't be at the expense of the team. Martinelli is a good example of a player who may score a ton of points every game, but his team isn't winning. Northwestern is 10-12 on the season and 2-9 in Big Ten play. Boyd would trade all his points away to not be a team struggling like that.