When the news is very bad, there is no point in pretending the news is only moderately bad or slightly bad or possibly bad. No, it’s very bad.
The news is very bad for the Wisconsin Badgers not because they lost to the Purdue Boilermakers on Friday night in West Lafayette. Had Wisconsin played a 58-57 game and failed to make the last shot, the Badgers would have played a game largely in line with what we have seen the past few weeks. The limitations of the team would have persisted, but so would the strengths. We know Wisconsin has a relatively low ceiling, but the encouraging part of the past few weeks is that the Badgers had raised their floor.
Wisconsin did get whacked a week ago by Michigan State, but that was Michigan State. Getting drilled by a Tom Izzo team in East Lansing is expected to happen. For the most part, the version of Wisconsin we had seen since Dec. 28 at Tennessee had shored up its defense and had not been kicked around. That Michigan State game was an exception, an outlier. Wisconsin’s regular performance was much steadier and more dependable than it had been in the first 10 games of the season without Micah Potter. The Badgers were never going to dazzle; the key point to make about their improvement from Dec. 28 through Jan. 21 is that they minimized their weaknesses.
Friday against Purdue, the Badgers looked a lot like the weak team which had no clue on the road against ordinary opponents such as New Mexico, Richmond, and North Carolina State. Getting thrashed by Michigan State wasn’t an indication of erosion. Getting drubbed in a 19-point loss to a 10-9 Purdue team — in a game the Badgers once trailed by 28 — offers no guarantees, but it DOES carry the possibility that this team is in trouble heading to Iowa City for a Jan. 27 game against the Iowa Hawkeyes on Monday.
Wisconsin had dramatically improved on the road in the first half of January. Once again, a road loss at Michigan State didn’t show the Badgers had lost their way in road games. This game, however, represents a definite regression from the standard UW set in the first two weeks of January.
What is also very disappointing and alarming: The balanced offense against Nebraska now looks a lot more like the product of playing Nebraska, not any sort of epiphany the Badgers experienced. The hope was that playing a softer opponent could cultivate confidence in role players which would carry into this game against Purdue.
Nope. It was just the opposite. Wisconsin scored just 15 points in the first half and was thoroughly embarrassed.
We’ll have more on this game on Saturday, but the initial reaction: The news is very bad. There is no point in trying to sugarcoat it.