It is true that the Wisconsin Badgers — by defeating the Indiana Hoosiers by 20 points on Saturday — relieved a lot of pressure from their locker room. A loss to Indiana would have dramatically increased the doubts swirling around the Badgers and Greg Gard. A loss would have been an existential crisis for this team, given that it knows it can regroup in the safety of the Kohl Center. Losing its home-court comfort zone would have been disastrous for the Badgers. Knowing they can still be at their best in Madison offers considerable reassurance.
I wrote on Saturday that Wisconsin’s ability to play well, to once again see what a good performance looks like, matters more than any of Indiana’s many and severe deficiencies. So what if the Hoosiers stunk up the joint? Wisconsin needed the positive reinforcement. The bigger story from Saturday is NOT that Indiana was awful; it is that Wisconsin could still raise its level of play at home in a moment of consequence.
Done.
Now, though, we DO have to ask the obvious question with Wisconsin basketball: Can this team finally go on the road and play well? Some will ask, “Can Wisconsin win?” Sure, winning is the end goal, but let’s actually have a game removed from Madison in which Wisconsin plays well for 40 minutes. We haven’t seen that yet this season.
Saint Mary’s wasn’t a complete game. Neither was Richmond. Neither was New Mexico. Neither was North Carolina State. None of those four losses were games in which Wisconsin played well and was simply eclipsed by an opponent which played out of its mind. Those games do happen every now and then, but they didn’t happen to Wisconsin this season. No, the Badgers lost those four games because they didn’t play particularly well in any of them, especially on offense.
It is time for Wisconsin to play a quality game on the road. If Rutgers is somehow great enough to defeat the Badgers on a night when Wisconsin plays at an A-minus or even B-plus level, so be it. Before winning away from home, Wisconsin simply has to play well away from home. That would be a good start for a team which knows exactly how — and when, and where — it needs to change its own sense of self.