Maybe this inconsistent Wisconsin Badgers team really is predictable after all. Maybe we should have seen this coming, a complete blowout of the Ohio State Buckeyes on Sunday afternoon in a very happy Kohl Center. Maybe this team — which has 10 losses but a lot of good wins, and is solidifying its place in the 2020 NCAA Tournament despite a mountain of obstacles, annoyances, and hardships — needs to be seen as a team we can reliably analyze.
The 2020 Big Ten season is a season in which Purdue can score 37 points against Illinois and over 100 against Iowa. It is a season in which Ohio State loses 6 of 7 games, then wins three in a row, and then forgets how to play basketball against Wisconsin on Sunday, surrendering a 31-7 run over the final 10 minutes and change of the first half. Big Ten teams aren’t just alternating wins and losses this season; they are alternating very good performances and very bad ones.
Wisconsin is part of this pattern, and Sunday continued it.
Wisconsin could not have played a worse defensive half than the first half against Minnesota this past Wednesday. It could not have played a better defensive half than the first half against Ohio State on Sunday.
From one extreme to the other. This is 2020 Big Ten basketball.
The important point to note is that as noticeable as these results are on a ledger sheet or a box score, they aren’t just data inputs which can be coldly assessed and evaluated. Behind the results are real human beings who struggle with consistency but try to do their best.
This Wisconsin team isn’t consistent — except in its inconsistency.
Part of that reality is bad, as shown against Minnesota. The Badgers delivered their most inspiring performance of the whole season against Michigan State, without two starters… and then followed it up with a total no-show in The Barn. That’s the bad side of this team.
Yet, give these players credit. EVERY TIME they get kicked to the canvas, they get right back up and punch back. More precisely, they punch back accurately and successfully.
Lots of teams would tire of the up-and-down nature of the season, and would get annoyed to the point of distraction after the kinds of losses UW has absorbed in 2020. Yet, this team continues to mentally reset the dial.
Is it exasperating? Of course it is… but it isn’t a complete disaster. It isn’t even a partial disaster. This team is going to be in the NCAA Tournament precisely because it has avoided falling into a five- or six-game death spiral (hello, DePaul!). Wisconsin’s ability to respond brilliantly to adversity, time and time again, is exactly why this team — for all its limitations and all the hard knocks it has endured this season — will have its name called on Selection Sunday.
Consistently inconsistent. Wisconsin is predictable in its lack of predictability. It’s weird, and it is sometimes frustrating, but it’s still a lot better than so many other possible outcomes.