Biggest takeaways from Wisconsin Badgers' 98-71 win at Penn State

Wisconsin's final box score is what offensive-minded people love to look at.

The Badgers shot 50.7 percent from the floor, hit 15 three-pointers, owned the paint, pushed the ball in transitions, and played as complete a performance as they have all season.

But what stood out from Wisconsin's 98-71 victory over Penn State in the eyes of senior Braeden Carrington was how a group that has struggled with defensive consistency throughout the season used that end of the floor to spark a rare rout in State College.

"Defense sets the tone for everything," said Carrington, who scored all 17 of his points in the first half. "If you're not getting stops, you're not going to have any energy. At the beginning of the year, we let our offense control and dictate how we play the game. We're finally letting defense dictate everything. The more stops we get, the more it fuels our offense."

Both sides of the ball certainly made their mark. The Badgers shot 50.7 percent (36-71) from the field, improving to 12-0 when shooting at least 45 percent, and put up the most points in a Big Ten road game since a 104-98 loss at Minnesota in 1971. UW's defense held Penn State to 22 first-half points on 23.1 percent shooting, the fewest in both categories by a Big Ten opponent this season.

Combine the two, and Wisconsin's margin of victory was the largest Big Ten road win in the Greg Gard era.

"I thought we played as complete a game as we played in a while at both ends," Gard said.

Here my takeaways from Thursday night.

Wisconsin registered its biggest road win in over a decade Thursday night in a 98-71 win against Penn State. Notes from the #Badgers victoryhttps://t.co/Uko4jBtRzG
— Benjamin Worgull (@TheBadgerNation) January 23, 2026

Transition offense sparks Wisconsin's offense

Penn State has the worst scoring defense in the Big Ten, so the last thing Wisconsin wanted to do was let the Nittany Lions get settled. The Badgers' ability to push the ball and convert in transition was the spark that ignited Wisconsin's offensive surge.

UW missed its first five shots and nine of its first 12, but one of those shots - a John Blackwell three - came off a steal in the low post by Andrew Rohde that he pushed up the floor, drove toward the paint to collapse the defense, and fired off a nifty bounce pass to the open guard.

That started to slowly open the floodgates. Blackwell pushed the ball and hit a cutting Nick Boyd for a bounce pass, Rohde notched a steal off a sloppy pass and took it to the rim for a three-point play, and hit Aleksas Bieliauskas cutting to the rim for a layup, and Boyd didn't stop after a defensive rebound until he sliced through two defenders and finished a layup off the glass.

Twelve of Wisconsin's first 25 points came off the fast break, eight coming on a 13-0 run that gave Wisconsin a 12-point lead with 8:44 remaining, which they continued to build on.

"We preach every day, get it and run," Carrington said. "Once we got going, the energy in the gym shifted. It was a decent crowd tonight, especially in the Rec. Once we started hitting shots, momentum started shifting, and everybody got more confident as the game got going."

The Badgers tallied 19 fast break points, matching their highest total in Big Ten play since at least the 2015-16 season (Oregon last season). That led to UW matching its season high with 25 assists on 36 baskets and outscoring Penn State, 42-18, in the paint.

Rohde/Winter bring the grit

The first 15 minutes of the game had the appearance that Wisconsin was the hungrier, more desperate team. Rohde's dive and bloody chin emphasized that it was the case.

Poking a pass into the backcourt off a 1-3-1 zone, Rohde dove to try to get possession of the ball before it bounced out of bounds. He ended up gashing his chin on the floor and creating a bleeder.

Rohde spent the rest of the first half and halftime getting patched up and returned in the second half to deliver three more assists, finishing the night with nine points, six assists, two steals, two rebounds, and no turnovers.

"We need something like that for real every game," Carrington said. "It gives us life ... If we get energy plays like that, it's contagious."

Rohde Dog pic.twitter.com/207AekdwUS
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) January 23, 2026

Equally important for Wisconsin was having Nolan Winter on the floor. Listed as questionable before the game, Winter started and notched his ninth double-double of the season with 13 points and 10 rebounds (five offensive), while matching his career high with three assists.

Having scored in double figures in 11 of the last 12, Winter is shooting 60.5 percent (98-162) from the field this season, which ranks ninth in the Big Ten.

Gard didn't answer whether the injury designation was tied to the ankle injury Winter suffered in late December, only that his center has emerged as one of the best in the conference at his position.

"He's taken a huge jump this year," Gard said of Winter. "He's turned into an all-conference player ... He was active, he had his hands on balls, protecting the rim, blocking shots, kept possessions alive ... He was really, really good."

Another one for our double-double machine

Nolan is up to 11 points and 10 rebounds pic.twitter.com/UUlf7PMDSV
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) January 23, 2026

Needed rest should set Wisconsin up for success

Winter, Gard, and others who spoke after Saturday's victory over Rutgers were frustrated that the Badgers could play so well for 20 minutes in building a 26-point lead and not carry that intensity over to the second half, resulting in a more stressful game than it needed to be.

UW didn't fall into that trap twice. The 28-point lead never dropped below 26 points and climbed as high as 37, a result of UW averaging 1.333 points on its first 15 second-half possessions, while holding Penn State to 2-for-9.

"When you get into March and late February, you can’t lose the spark for a minute in any Big Ten game, especially once you get to the tournament," Carrington said. "You got to go a full 40 minutes going at somebody. It's huge for us, especially in this game that we kept the foot on the gas."

With Wisconsin playing four games in 10 days and having three of its starters average over 31 minutes per game, Gard started slowly substituting out his starters: Blackwell at 11:42, Boyd and Winter at 9:07, Rohde at 8:02, and Bieliauskas at 5:43.

The results were 18 minutes for Jack Janicki (three points, three rebounds, three assists), 16 minutes for Austin Rapp (10 points, four assists, three rebounds), 13 minutes for Will Garlock (two points, four rebounds), a Big Ten-high nine minutes for Zach Kinziger (six points), and eight minutes for Hayden Jones (two points).

"We talked about that in every timeout about how valuable this time is for them," said Gard of the bench, which finished with 44 points. "Whether it's tomorrow, a year from now, or just in the future, we had a lot of young guys on the floor there together with three of the four freshmen together in Kinziger, Garlock, and Jones. I thought they did a good job.

"Zach came in and really ran the show, knocked down shots, and was confident. It's good to get them experience in this because we need them as we continue to go forward here this year, but it also puts things in place and another step for them for the future."

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