IU Basketball game day essentials: Hoosiers back at home to face Wisconsin

Game Day Essentials:

Indiana (15-8, 6-6) vs. Wisconsin (16-6, 8-3)

• Tip Time: Noon Eastern, Saturday
• Location: Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall (17,222), Bloomington, Ind.
• Television: FOX (Kevin Kugler, LaPhonso Ellis)
• Radio: IU Radio Network (Don Fischer, Errek Suhr, John Herrick)
• Stream: Fox Sports
• Point Spread:  Indiana is around a 4.5-point favorite
• KenPom Projected Score:  Indiana 80  Wisconsin 76
• History: Indiana leads, 98-82
• Last Meeting: UW 76, IU 64 on Feb. 4, 2025, in Madison
• Tickets (via our StubHub affiliate link)

Wisconsin’s Greg Gard

Gard is in his 11th season as the head coach of the Wisconsin men’s basketball program. Across his career, he’s earned a 229-123 overall record, all with the Badgers.

Gard began as an assistant at the high school level in 1990, and steadily moved up the ranks as a coach. He got his first collegiate job as an assistant with Wisconsin-Platteville at the Division 3 level. He moved up to Division 1 in 1999, where he accepted an assistant job with Milwaukee. Gard was there for two seasons before taking an assistant job with Wisconsin.

Bo Ryan announced his retirement in 2015, and as a result, Gard was named as interim head coach. After leading the Badgers to the Sweet 16 in that same season, Gard was officially named the head coach on March 7, 2016. Since then, he’s taken the Badgers to six NCAA Tournaments and two regular season Big Ten titles.

Wisconsin’s results and roster

Wisconsin game notes (via Wisconsin Athletics)

ALL IS BLACKWELL

• Junior John Blackwell has become one of the best in the Big Ten Conference during the 2025-26 season. This year, he is averaging 18.5 points per game, which ranks 7th in the Big Ten Conference.
• The guard is also averaging 5.0 rebounds per game which ranks 2nd on the team, and his 2.0 assists per game ranks 3rd.
• Blackwell looks to become only 5th Badger to average 18.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg and 2.0 apg, joining the likes of Johnny Davis (2022), Frank Kaminsky (2015), Alando Tucker (2007) and Michael Finley (1993, 1994 and 1995).
• Blackwell has been stellar from the charity stripe this season, shooting 85.0% from the line.
• Blackwell, who ranks 27th in school history with 1,244 career points, only needs 21cpoints to move into the top-25 in school history in scoring.

DOUBLING DOWN

• Junior Nolan Winter ranks 3rd in the Big Ten with 10 double-doubles this season.
• Winter is only the 3rd Badger since 2000 to have 10+ double-doubles in a single season, joining All-Americans Ethan Happ and Frank Kaminsky.
• Winter is shooting 71.8% from inside the arc, which ranks second in the NCAA this year.
• Winter is 4th in the Big Ten in rebounding averaging 8.7 boards per game. He’s led the Badgers in the figure in 19 of UW’s 22 games this year.
• Winter has double-digit rebounds in 11 of UW’s 22 games this year.
• Winter’s 11 double-digit rebound games rank 2nd in the Big Ten Conference.

BOYD MEETS WORLD

• Veteran guard Nick Boyd is making his mark at Wisconsin following stints at San Diego State and FAU.
• Boyd ranks 3rd in the Big Ten, averaging 20.0 points per game while his 6.7 field goals per game rank 3rd in the league.
• Since 2000, UW has only had 5 players avg. 18.0+ ppg: Devin Harris, Alando Tucker, Frank Kaminsky, Johnny Davis & John Tonje. All 5 were All-Americans.
• Boyd is the only Badger this year to score in double-figures in every game.

No. 40 Wisconsin KenPom notable numbers:

(out of 365 teams)

Tempo – No. 72 (Offense No. 100 / Defense No. 207)

Offensive Efficiency – No. 38

• Wisconsin holds an effective field goal percentage of 54.1 percent on the year (No. 70). The Badgers are shooting 34.6 percent from three (No. 134) and 56.5 percent on 2s (No. 49). They’re scoring a higher percentage of their points on threes, which account for 38.8% of their total point distribution (No. 26).
• Their three-point attempt rate is also pretty high at 51 percent (No. 13).
• The Badgers are good at taking care of the ball with a 13.7% turnover percentage (No. 17).
• They’re getting offensive rebounds at a 29.5% rate (No. 224).

Defensive Efficiency – No. 62

• Opponents have shot a 50.3% effective field goal percentage against UW this season (No. 126). Teams are shooting 32.7 percent from three (No. 114) and 51.1 percent on 2s (No. 153).
• Wisconsin does a great job at limiting offensive rebounds to 25.7% (No. 14).
• The numbers don’t suggest a clear spot of the floor that teams have been able to score a large amount of points from. The highest point distrubtion compared to the rest of Division 1 is from twos at 49.3% (No. 152).

OG’s Pick

Overall: 14-7

This is equally one of the toughest games to predict and one of the most important for the Hoosiers to win. Although Wisconsin isn’t ranked high enough for a quad one win, it would be considered a very impressive quad two win for a tournament resume.

Indiana did end up losing their last game to USC, but didn’t look like the team we had seen during their win streak. Again, that can be equally concerning with important games coming up and some of IU’s old bad habits coming back. Still, I think there’s a great chance for the Hoosiers to pull of another impressive Big Ten win at home, but they’re going to need their offense to show up.

Pick: Indiana 77 – Wisconsin 70

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