Our team at Badgers Wire will have several different stories for you in the aftermath of the 81-64 win in Lincoln on Saturday against the Nebraska Cornhuskers, so we don’t have to tell you every single thing about this game in one shot. In this piece, we will make the very simple point that if there was a pothole for Wisconsin to step in — or a rake to step on, or a banana peel to slip on — the Badgers avoided it. Their path to the 2020 NCAA Tournament just became a lot easier by avoiding a loss to one of the two bad teams in the Big Ten, Northwestern being the other.
Here is the bottom line after the Badgers — following a full week of rest — took care of business against the Cornhuskers: There are fewer and fewer instances in which Wisconsin can mess this whole thing up.
Wisconsin hosts Northwestern later this season. That should be a very routine win for the Badgers, but it is hugely important because a loss there would really drag down UW’s overall profile. That game and a possible reunion with either Nebraska or Northwestern in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament are the only real pothole-type games left on the schedule. Every other game comes against a reasonably decent team.
Very simply, then: As long as Wisconsin beats Northwestern and — should it play one of the two NU schools one more time — wins any “bad-team rematch” on second-round Thursday at the Big Ten Tournament, it should be good to go for the Big Dance.
Wisconsin didn’t improve its resume at all with this win over Nebraska… but it didn’t worsen its resume by several orders of magnitude. Sometimes a team needs to move up the ladder; on this Saturday in the middle of February, the Badgers simply had to avoid falling several spots down that same ladder. Mission accomplished.
There are now far fewer chances for Wisconsin basketball to miss the Dance floor in the second half of March. On, Wisconsin… and let’s keep missing those potholes, shall we? You love to see it!