Wisconsin Backcourt Duo Nick Boyd and John Blackwell Are Done Being Ignored

CHICAGO — Nick Boyd and John Blackwell have long been overlooked.

Both were underrated high school recruits ranked outside the top 150 nationally in their respective classes. One (Boyd) went mid-major, the other (Blackwell) didn’t get an offer from the local powers in his home state of Michigan and had to pick a Big Ten rival instead. Boyd helping take FAU to the Final Four wasn’t enough for him to become a high-major no-brainer. He transferred to San Diego State instead when Dusty May left for Michigan. And even after taking the Aztecs dancing as the full-time point guard, some still didn’t give him enough credit. Check the 247Sports portal rankings: 37 guards were ranked higher than him.

So when Big Ten all-conference teams came out this week and Boyd wasn’t a first-team selection despite his 20.2 points per game scoring average, it was hard to be surprised. Stack it on top of the list of snubs for a guard whose career has been built on them.

“ ‘They’re gonna feel me,’ ” Boyd’s road roommate Braeden Carrington said of the Badger star’s message. “ ‘They put me second team, they’re going to feel me.’ ”

Feel him Illinois did.

Boyd put on an absolute master class Friday, scoring 38 points and dishing out six assists to spark a 91–88 comeback, overtime win over Illinois in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinal. His backcourt mate Blackwell scored 31 more after pouring in 34 the day before against Washington. The high-scoring duo, long an afterthought regardless of their production, are making themselves impossible to ignore.

“If you see our careers, we’ve been underlooked, undervalued our whole life,” Blackwell said. “We’re just playing with the same chip on our shoulder that we always [have].”

If you buy the adage that guard play wins in March, it’s hard to not be all-in on Wisconsin’s chances of a deep run in the NCAA tournament when the brackets come out Sunday. Some teams have one elite on-ball defender to try to neutralize a top bucket-getter. The number of teams with two is slim, maybe none.

“Best backcourt in the country,” Carrington said. “I don’t think there’s any argument about that.”

And one for JB

📺: @BigTenNetwork pic.twitter.com/it7fhFIgfd
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) March 13, 2026

The script of Friday’s game was eerily similar to the first meeting between these teams in February, another Badger comeback and overtime victory. In that one, Blackwell and Boyd combined for a mere 49 points but were unstoppable in the closing moments, generating paint touches and buckets at will. There was a thought that much of that could be attributed to Illinois being without its two top perimeter defenders in Kylan Boswell and Andrej Stojaković.

That excuse couldn’t apply Friday with Boswell and Stojaković back, but the results looked almost identical. Whatever Boyd and Blackwell wanted, they got. You could write a similar story from the Badgers’ regular-season finale against Purdue, when Boyd and Blackwell stacked up 48 points in a road win against the Boilermakers. Or, further back, when they scored 48 to become one of only two teams this season to beat Michigan. When you have two guards the caliber of that tandem, you’re capable of winning any game you play. The “don’t want to see that team in your region” cliché is often overused, but certainly applies to the Badgers.

All gas, no brakes pic.twitter.com/Xj8KjGVFo9
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) March 13, 2026

If guarding Boyd for 40 minutes seems like a nightmare for the likes of Boswell and other of the Big Ten’s top defenders, imagine what it’s like for little-used freshman guard Zach Kinziger, who’s usually matched up with Boyd in practice on the scout team. He said Friday the biggest difference in Boyd from when he arrived in Madison, Wis., to now is the pace he plays with.

“Everyone knows he’s fast. But I think he has really learned how to use it, when to use it,” Kinziger said.

That change of pace is perhaps most potent in late-game situations, allowing him to touch the paint and draw fouls in critical moments. If you were making a list of college basketball’s best late-game closers, Boyd would certainly be up there.

Boyd and Blackwell also aren’t shy about some trash talk on the floor, something Kinziger says rarely stops even in practice. Both certainly seemed to embrace being the bad guy Friday in front of a mostly pro-Illini crowd, chirping at Illini players regularly and gesturing to the crowd plenty.

“I think we all like to be the villain,” the third backcourt starter Andrew Rohde said.

On Selection Sunday, the Badgers will likely land on or around the No. 5 seed line. The path is there for a trip to the second weekend for the first time since 2017 … and it wouldn’t be shocking with a backcourt like this if they went even further than that.

“You can see, like, when we’re out there, we just play with so much joy,” Blackwell said. “Seeing each other make plays, the way we did tonight, that’s what’s going to push us [in March].”

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