The Badgers suffered their worst loss of the season on Saturday against Penn State.
The No. 12 Wisconsin Badgers blew a 13-point lead in their worst loss of the season on Saturday, falling 86-75 at home to the Penn State Nittany Lions in a gut-wrenching defeat.
Wisconsin got out to a screaming start, hitting early threes to get an 18-5 lead, but they lost some control near the end of the first half, as Penn State made an 8-0 run to get within five at halftime.
Then, the collapse continued to begin the second half, as Penn State extended their run to 23-7, getting a 51-47 lead through the first minutes of the period.
After some back-and-forth, the Nittany Lions ultimately pulled away, as the Badgers really struggled to hit threes and cut off dribble drives to the basket.
Offensively, the Badgers started hot, but then had a disastrous performance from three, missing 16 of 17 three-point attempts at one point. They finished the day shooting just 36.2 percent from the field.
Defensively, Wisconsin just seemed out of sorts starting with the last five minutes of the second half. They gave up too many drives to the basket and low-post touches where Penn State’s bigs could get easy touches for scores. The Nittany Lions also saw success from three, hitting 11/19 of their triples, leading to a poor performance from the Badgers.
Following the game, Badgers insider Rohan Chakravarthi shared his instant reaction to the Badgers’ 86-75 win over the Indiana Hoosiers, pointing out the major takeaways from the game.
With the loss, Wisconsin likely will end up as a No. 5 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, given that both Maryland and UCLA won on Saturday, prompting them to play on Thursday in the second round, rather than heading straight to the quarterfinals with a double-bye.
Funny enough, the Badgers were also the No. 5 seed in last year’s Big Ten Tournament after their late-season collapse, and they went on to win three straight games before falling short to the Illinois Fighting Illini in the Championship Game.
Wisconsin will look to have a strong performance to incentivize their NCAA Tournament seeding, where they’re hoping to play in Milwaukee for their first and second-round draw.