Tight Game Coming Between Wisconsin And Indiana

Wisconsin vs. Indiana, 7:00 ET

How many tickets will the BIG 10 get to the Big Dance? These are the questions I start to ask myself right now as the conference tournament and March Madness looms. There have been a few teams that are solid within the conference, but only Purdue seems to be the one that has a realistic shot at making any noise in the tournament - maybe Illinois as well. So, when we get teams like Wisconsin and Indiana squaring off like they are tonight, you have to wonder if either of them are thinking about winning to enhance their big dance opportunities, or if they even care. 

Wisconsin is one of the squads that I feel like will make the tournament, but I'm not so sure about how they will fare. Their record is solid at 18-9, but are they that great? I don't know. They are only 10-6 in the conference this season, but they've been awful since February. Since the calendar turned to February, they are just 2-5, and they lost four straight at one point. There are pretty obvious bad spots for Wisconsin, and tonight counts as one of them. they lost to Nebraska in overtime, then fell to Purdue on their home floor, before losing two more road games to Michigan and Rutgers. Michigan is a bad team and Rutgers is average at best. The next loss on the road was to Iowa, a game they fell 88-86 in overtime. They are a fairly balanced team with a solid guard, AJ Storr leading the way with scoring. Their front court has two strong rebounders that also put up 11 or more points per game. Wisconsin tends to struggle moving the ball and getting assists which is an issue for the team. If they can't get the offense involved and find the open man, that just makes for tougher shots, and on the road, that's a big issue. I think the Badgers are playing respectably on the road, but clearly they aren't as strong as they play at home. 

Indiana has had a similar stretch of play to Wisconsin. The only difference is that their struggles started at the beginning of January, not February. Since the start of 2024, the Hoosiers are 4-10, with all of the losses coming at the hands of Big 10 opponents. It isn't just the road losses, they've lost four of their home games as well. One was against Purdue, so again, understandable. They also lost to Northwestern, Nebraska, and Penn State at home. Wisconsin is better than all of those teams in my opinion, but I suppose you can make a case for Nebraska and Northwestern being better than the Badgers. The Hoosiers are losers of four straight games, only one of the losses was even close with it coming against Northwestern. Indiana has four players averaging 10 or more points and they are led by their front court. They should still have a slight edge over the Badgers, but they will not be as good in the back court. Their guards are acceptable, but nothing special. I expect them to struggle shooting like they usually do and I think that it will be hard for Wisconsin's guards to score in the paint, but they should shoot fairly well from deep, even on the road. 

In the first game between the two teams, Wisconsin won by 12 points. It was a really interesting game because the first half was dominated by Wisconsin with them winning by 13. The second half was a high scoring affair with the teams combining for 105 points and Indiana besting the Badgers by one point. Both teams shot very well, but the Badgers shot better from deep and the free throw line. Outside of that, the teams were pretty evenly matched. The one edge that I think will remain is the points in the paint for Indiana. It is hard to take most college teams on the road, even if they are the better team. I do think there should be plenty of offense in this game though and I'll back the over 142.5 in this one. 

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