Biggest takeaways from Wisconsin Badgers' 85-71 loss to the Oregon Ducks

The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee eliminated the "last 10 games" metric to evaluate prospective teams over 15 years ago, designed to push the narrative that the entire body of work is more important than the last chunk of the regular season.

That should work in favor of the University of Wisconsin, but it will be hard to totally gloss over the debacle they delivered on Wednesday night.

Losing a game that falls into the top two quadrants of the NCAA NET rankings isn't the end of the world on paper, but the Badgers' 85-71 loss to Oregon at the Matthew Knight Arena was as bad a loss as a Big Ten team has experienced this season.

Here are my takeaways from a long night in the Pacific Northwest.

Recap: Instead of padding their resume with a win over the league's 17th-place team, the #Badgers struggled for most of the night to find their "A" game in an ugly, ugly loss at Oregon https://t.co/V9OtbhFFcv
— Benjamin Worgull (@TheBadgerNation) February 26, 2026

Wisconsin’s offense was an impatient mess

In 14 matchups this season against teams with defenses rated 60th or worse nationally, Wisconsin (19-9, 11-6 Big Ten) has hit its magic number of 80 points 12 times. Averaging 83.1 points per game, Wisconsin is 17-0 when scoring at least 80. They remain undefeated because the Badgers didn't get close to threatening that number against a defense ranked in the high 90s in efficiency.

Everything looked like a struggle. Oregon's zone and interior size caused players to make poor decisions when attacking the paint, trying to drive through traffic instead of making the extra pass or using ball fakes to get players off their edges.

It prevented UW's quick guards from getting to the rim, controlling the paint, or getting out in transition. Oregon's eight blocks were a conference high, and five came on shots by John Blackwell and Nick Boyd. It was partly the reasons that led UW to go 3-for-11 on layups, and why the duo was 3-for-12 inside the three-point line.

Instead of UW learning from its early mistakes and trying to find some momentum around the rim, the Badgers settled for shooting more and more from the perimeter. That's mostly a strength this season, but a school-record 45 attempts from three showed an over-reliance on a shot. The fact that UW went 14-for-45 from three (31.1) never forced the Ducks to completely alter their defensive game plan.

Seventy percent of UW's shot attempts in the first half were threes (21 of 30) in a half where the Badgers never trailed by more than two points.

That's how the game started for Wisconsin, which attempted nine consecutive three-pointers before Austin Rapp's layup at the 13:04 mark. Boyd hit a jumper in the paint on the next possession to give Wisconsin a 19-10 lead at 12:36. Things went downhill after that.

UW came out empty on the next eight possessions, an ugly stretch that included seven misses, three blocked shots, and two turnovers. It was a scoreless stretch of 5:34 that wasn't an isolated stretch.

With UW leading by five earlier in the second half, the Badgers went cold for another eight possessions stretching over five minutes (5:16) that included two turnovers and three blocked shots.

One block in each stretch was on a Blackwell three-pointer. The junior led UW with 22 points, but 14 of his 18 shots were from three. He didn't make a two-point shot and attempted only one layup after the 6:19 mark of the first half, as the Ducks looked like they knew he wasn't going to test their size inside.

Wisconsin finished the first half missing 16 of its final 19 shots. All but one of the Badgers' last 10 field goal attempts were from 3-point range.

In the second half, without a presence inside, the Badgers went nearly 10 minutes between three-point makes and saw a five-point lead turn into an eight-point deficit it never recovered from.

Wisconsin shot a season-worst 33.3 percent and finished the game 8-for-21 on twos, their second-lowest attempts of the season (17 vs. Minnesota on Jan.28). I'm guessing head coach Greg Gard would label few of them as quality shots.

Final Scoring
John Blackwell 22, Nick Boyd 11, Braeden Carrington 8, Austin Rapp 8, Andrew Rohde 8, Nolan Winter 7, Aleksas Bieliauskas 5, Hayden Jones 2.#Badgers shoot a season-worst 33.3 percent from the floor.
— Benjamin Worgull (@TheBadgerNation) February 26, 2026

Defense and Ball Security were a mess

Oregon (12-17, 4-13) had recently lost 10 straight games by an average of 14.5 points, scoring more than 75 points once. The Badgers made the Ducks look like an NBA team.

UW struggled to defend center Nate Bittle for a second straight season and allowed the senior to get to his spots, especially in the second half. UW held him to 3-for-10 shooting in the first half with primarily single coverage, so Bittle came out for second-half warmups to work on his low-post turnarounds. He went 4-for-6 from the floor in the second half with a team-high 13 points.

Takai Simpson (12 of 17) and Kwame Evans (10 of 16) also found success in the second half with scoring and ball movement. Oregon had four players with at least three assists, with Bittle and Dezdrick Lindsay having 10 assists to one turnover.

The Ducks' 85 points were the most in regulation they had scored all season against a Big Ten team. They had a total of 44 points in a loss to Minnesota in their last home game. Oregon had 55 in the second half against Wisconsin, shooting 70.8 percent and averaging 1.618 points per possession. That won’t work against any team, but that's exceptionally bad against a 10-win team that ranks 120th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 287th nationally in effective field goal percentage.

After committing only three turnovers in the first half, Wisconsin had nine in the second half that were a mixture of sloppy passes and steals at the top of the key. Oregon had 24 points off turnovers to Wisconsin's 11 and 17 points in transition compared to the Badgers' four.

During Wisconsin's nearly 10-minute stretch of missed three-point shots in the second half, the Ducks went 6-for-8 on shots around the rim. A large chunk of those points directly related to the Ducks gaining possession and pushing while UW scrambled.

With a turnover rate of 17.1 percent, Wisconsin has committed at least 12 turnovers in two of the past three games after averaging 5.5 in the previous four.

Wisconsin closed the second half, making 8 of 13 shots. It didn't matter when the Badgers couldn't defend anybody and looked as out-of-sync as they have in some time.

Another late-season disappointment

This is the second consecutive year that Wisconsin has suffered a late-season loss that falls into the inexcusable category. It can be debated which loss was worst: the regular-season finale against 17th-place Penn State that cost UW a triple bye and likely the Milwaukee NCAA Tournament regional, or this one that probably takes UW out of contention for a bye into the quarterfinals.

Regardless, this is the second straight road loss where Wisconsin had more talent than the opponent but didn't come close to playing as hard as the home team.

Some of the shine Wisconsin created by beating three top-10 opponents gets taken away when the Badgers lose to USC at home or play poorly at Ohio State and Oregon. The latter is the first time all season the Badgers have lost to a team with a losing record, and the game wasn't as close if you didn't stay up to watch it, as the Badgers trailed for the last 11 minutes and watched the deficit keep growing as they kept hurling threes and failing to stop dribble penetration.

Wisconsin has been picked as a sleeper team in next month's NCAA Tournament, but the Badgers won't be playing for long if they keep trying to sleepwalk their way through games they should win.