For the Wisconsin Badgers, the vibes must have been weird in East Lansing last night. Tom Izzo came under recent fire on Friday after the ESPN Outside Lines report that Izzo and football coach Mark Dantonio failed to follow-up on sexual assault cases with their players. The students in the Izzone wore teal shirts to show support sexual abuse survivors in response to the Larry Nassar scandal, yet, the basketball game didn’t feel that important with all the allegations against Izzo. Wisconsin hung with Michigan State but Sparty pulled away as the game went on.

Wisconsin showed a ton of fight
Badgers fans probably don’t want to hear this, but they could have easily laid down in this game after what happened in Iowa City. That did not occur, rather, Wisconsin played really hard for most of this game. They gave Michigan State a game, and that’s worth noting for this team. It shows they still have some fight and will want to play the role of spoiler with the other Big Ten teams down the stretch. Wisconsin fans will hope this continues on Monday night.

Badgers bench is pathetic
One of the major issues with this team is the fact they have zero bench. The bench had only three players over 10 minutes, but they scored a grand total of three points. Part of the reason Wisconsin is really bad this year is the fact they have zero help besides their starting. Kobe King and D’Mitrik Trice would both be starters if they were healthy, therefore, making the team have a decent bench. It’s definitely their bugaboo.

Brad Davison took one on the chin last night
Rough night for Brad Davison with only scoring six points, and missing nine shots with six missed threes as well. Michigan State had a good game plan against him to cut off his shooting ability. Spartans forced Davison into multiple bad shots in this one.

Next up
Wisconsin heads back home to play Nebraska on Monday night. Cornhuskers did a pretty good job against this Badgers team earlier this season, and they desperately need to keep winning as they’re on the bubble.