The Wisconsin Badgers pulled off the most impressive win of their season on Saturday, beating the Michigan State Spartans 77-74 to advance to the Big Ten Tournament Championship on Sunday.
Wisconsin’s path is eerily similar to their Big Ten Championship run last season, as they blew out a team with elite shooting (Maryland in 2024, UCLA in 2025), won a grind-out game against Northwestern, and upset the No. 1 seed in a nail-biter (Purdue in 2024, Michigan State in 2025).
Last season, the Badgers faced the Illinois Fighting Illini in the championship, which was an extremely tough matchup for them, and fell just short in a competitive 93-87 loss.
This year, as they try to rewrite their fate and get over that last hump, there’s one personal factor fueling the team’s competitiveness: revenge.
“I told my fellas this was a revenge tour,” senior guard Kamari McGee said after the win over Michigan State. “We got to stand true to that. We got to just make sure we continue to handle business. We got one more game and [we got to] go out there and do what we got to do.”
During the regular season, the Badgers fell in close games to both UCLA and Michigan State. Determined to rewrite the narrative, the Badgers sought to avenge both of those defeats, leading to Sunday’s championship game.
“We literally told ourselves, we’re going to see [Michigan State] again,” John Blackwell added. “So, we got to see them again and got the job done this time.”
Now, they’ve got an opportunity to close out the revenge tour against the Michigan Wolverines, who coincidentally was Wisconsin’s first loss of the season back in December.
But, as the players look to have that chip on their shoulders, head coach Greg Gard has made sure to keep his group even-keeled with the right mindset.
“We don’t talk about any of that stuff (past losses) in motivation,” Gard said after the team’s win over the Spartans. “Michigan State earned the Number 1 seed because they were the best team through 20 games in our league, and they won the league hands down.
“It’s just about you get to this time of year, you know you’re going to be playing really good teams, and it’s about competing. We needed to get better and do some things better than we did two weeks ago in East Lansing, and we were fortunate enough to do those things better. Specifically we did a better job of taking care of the ball, better job on the defensive glass, and we made some shots. We shoot the ball a little bit better than what we did two weeks ago.”
Still, it’s a revenge tour, and the Badgers are feeding into that energy heading into a major game on Sunday. Can they complete the trifecta with a win over Michigan on Sunday? Tip-off is set for 2:30 p.m. central on CBS at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
