One of Wisconsin's lowest points was a turning point for the Badgers defense

MADISON, Wis. - Giving up 93 points can hardly be called a staunch defensive effort.

So, when Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard was complimentary of that said of the ball in Saturday's four-point win at No.15 Purdue, it forced a look beyond the box score highlights.

What it showed was the Purdue offense shot over 50 percent from the floor and averaged 1.368 points per possession. Dig deeper, though, and it was evident how much the Boilermakers' starting five had to grind at times to end possessions with something to show for it.

"I know we gave up 93 points," Gard said, "but man, defensively, they had to work for stuff to get."

Defense has been a growing theme for No.23 Wisconsin (24-9) over the second half of the season, going from a team that was discombobulated and out of sync to a unit that finished solo fifth in the conference and appears less than willing to give teams an inch.

It didn't have to be a smothering lockdown unit, and it's still not. Entering tomorrow's Big Ten Tournament third-round game in Chicago, UW is 56th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, outside of the desired sweet spot of ranking inside the top 25 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, a common trait of 22 of the last 23 national champions.

In five Big Ten games against KenPom top 30 defenses, Nick Boyd averaged 24.6 points on 52.4 percent shooting (44-for-84) with 29 assists to five turnovers.

That and 10 other numbers that show why the #Badgers point guard is better than the 2nd team. https://t.co/5n6nxUaaoN
— Benjamin Worgull (@TheBadgerNation) March 10, 2026

However, with Wisconsin's offense averaging 83.3 points per game and ranked ninth in offensive efficiency, the Badgers needed to make adjustments to a unit that was being shredded by ranked teams like BYU and Nebraska.

They were performances that led Gard to call his team "soft" multiple times during the first two months of the season.

Wisconsin appeared to hit a new low with a 16-point loss to No.5 Purdue on January 3. UW trailed by as many as 25 in the second half, its third no-show against a ranked opponent with several more on the schedule.

But as fans started to move toward the exits, Wisconsin went 11 consecutive possessions without allowing an offensive rebound, forcing four turnovers, and only one basket that was caused by a UW turnover.

If there was a line in the sand where things started to move in a positive direction, that was it for Gard.
"Even though the score wasn’t indicative of that, I saw more fight and more resilience," he recalled. "I was encouraged by what I saw in the last eight, nine, 10 minutes of that game. Then we folded that into UCLA, and it went from there."

Wisconsin won its next five games, including the nation's best win at No.2 Michigan, and continued to improve defensively.

It's been slow-moving at times, but three of Wisconsin's best defensive efforts have come in the last seven games. UW held No.10 Michigan State to its third-lowest offensive efficiency of the Big Ten restart, held Washington to just over a point per possession in Seattle, and totaled eight steals and only 45 points against Maryland.

That marked the fewest points allowed by the Badgers since November 2023.

"It starts with the first five," junior John Blackwell said. "We just turn it up defensively, starting with me, Rohde, and Nick, obviously the guards, just getting after it a little bit more, really try to challenge people, and taking pride that people just aren't going to score on us."

The full circle moment came at Mackey Arena. First-team All-Big Ten guard Braden Smith got his points (20) but needed 18 shots to get there. He had nine assists but could have had more had UW not flocked to Trey Kaufman-Renn and Oscar Cluff on the interior, forcing a total of five turnovers from the pair.

C.J. Cox had a career-high 27 points three days earlier, but UW held him to five points on seven shots. UW committed only three fouls in the final 11:37 when Purdue was in the bonus and held them to just two free throws on the final three possessions, when it had six shot attempts and three offensive rebounds.

The box score listed 93 points allowed, but players knew it was another performance where they stacked more defensive positives.

"We're playing good, I think we can still play better," senior Braden Carrington said. "Obviously, there's a lot of things we can still get better at, clean up a lot of things."