NEW YORK — The Wisconsin locker room seemed dejected as players enteredand drooped down in their black fold-up chairs.
Lilly Kuske sits on her bed with her head buried in her hands. She’s not an emotional person, but tonight the tears won’t stop.
"We'd rather beat them next week, anyways." That was the message Brad Davison gave to his teammates after the Wisconsin Badgers’ (7-11 Big Ten, 14-17 overall) 68-63 loss to No. 2 Michigan State (16-2, 28-3) on Senior Day Sunday afternoon. In the team’s final game of the regular season, Davison exploded for a career-high 30 points, the most by a Wisconsin freshman since 1996.
No matter how many times freshman guard Brad Davison clapped his hands on defense, let out fist pumps to the crowd on offense or hit highly contested jumpers, No. 2 Michigan State (16-2 Big Ten, 28-3 overall) failed to go away. Wisconsin’s (7-11, 14-16) 68-63 loss on Senior Day marked yet another time the Badgers have hung with some of its top opponents, but failed to close the deal.
In late January, when Wisconsin (7-10 Big Ten, 14-16 overall) fell to No. 2 Michigan State (15-2, 27-3), a talented trio of Spartan frontcourt players proved too much to handle for the undersized Badgers.
Andy Van Vliet has spent the majority of the 2017-’18 season playing on Wisconsin’s practice scout team.
As the Wisconsin men’s basketball team (6-10 Big Ten, 13-16 overall) prepares for its final road trip of the season, Khalil Iverson finds his role perpetually growing.
Last fall, when Bronson Koenig arrived at the Standing Rock camp in North Dakota and exited the trailer that he and his brother Miles had driven 14 hours in, it was nearly midnight.
On the first day of February, Brevin Pritzl missed all eleven of his shots in an eight-point loss to Northwestern.
If there was any hangover from the Wisconsin Badgers’ (6-10 Big Ten, 13-16 overall) massive upset of Purdue Thursday night, it missed Brad Davison.
The Wisconsin men’s basketball team (5-10 Big Ten, 12-16 overall) has seen more than its fair share of downs in what has turned out to be one of its most disappointing seasons in recent memory. But as the Badgers welcome an equally downtrodden Minnesota (3-12, 14-14) team to the Kohl Center Monday night, they’ll be riding higher than at any other point this season. Just 20 minutes after steadily raising the jersey of Frank Kaminsky to the rafters Thursday evening, the UW players found themselves engulfed by a sea of fans at center court as they collectively celebrated a massive upset of then-No. 6 Purdue.
Following Wisconsin's upset victory over Purdue, Daily Cardinal sports editor Ben Pickman and men's basketball beat writer Thomas Valtin-Erwin break down what UW's victory really means for the team going forward.
In many ways, Frank Kaminsky was a perfect storm of basketball ability. We can only speculate what the basketball gods were thinking as they poured pinpoint passing, lights-out shooting and sensational footwork into the former Badger’s seven-foot frame.
Wearing a cardinal red suit and specially designed Jordan sneakers, Frank Kaminsky walked out onto the court at halftime of Wisconsin’s (5-10 Big Ten, 12-16 overall) eventual 57-53 win over No. 6 Purdue (12-3, 23-5) and promptly hugged his family who was standing on the baseline closest to UW’s bench. More than a dozen of his former teammates including Sam Dekker, Nigel Hayes, Bronson Koenig, Josh Gasser and his best friend, Jordan Smith among others watched feet away on the very same baseline. After the No. 44 banner was raised to the Kohl Center rafters, Kaminsky took the microphone from UW Athletic Director Barry Alvarez and addressed the more than 17,000 members of the Kohl Center faithful in attendance. “I’m a little bit nervous so I’m gonna try to get through this,” he said.
On the night that Frank Kaminsky’s No. 44 jersey was raised in the rafters, it seemed fitting that the first team to score 44 points would emerge victorious.
Throughout both the 2013-’14 and 2014-’15 Wisconsin men’s basketball seasons, a Nintendo 64 video game console almost always accompanied UW on its road trips.
Thursday evening, Frank Kaminsky's No. 44 jersey will get raised to the rafters. Prior to Wisconsin's matchup with Purdue, take a look back at some of Kaminsky's highlights with UW.
After No. 20 Michigan’s (9-5 Big Ten, 20-7 overall) win over Wisconsin (4-10, 11-16), Wolverine head coach John Beilein said that one of, if not the most important point of his team’s defensive gameplan was to prevent Badger redshirt junior forward Ethan Happ from scoring 40 points. Happ finished with 29 points, 11 below Beilein’s target, and Wisconsin, as a team, lost by that very same margin, 83-72.
For a brief stretch in Wisconsin’s (4-10 Big Ten, 11-16 overall) 83-72 loss to No. 20 Michigan (9-5, 2-7), the Kohl Center faithful rose to its feet in excitement.
As the Wisconsin men’s basketball team took to the road Thursday night in the midst of a season-long five-game losing streak, the Badgers (4-9 Big Ten, 11-15 overall) put their faith in the steady hands of Ethan Happ as they dispatched Illinois (3-9, 12-13) 78-69. The redshirt junior forward was the only fully functional aspect of the UW offense against the Fighting Illini, shredding the UI defense from the opening tip to the final whistle.
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