Wisconsin

Preview: No.5 Wisconsin Looks to Knock Off Top-Seeded Michigan State

Published

9 months ago

March 15, 2025

Press Room

Preview: No.5 Wisconsin Looks to Knock Off Top-Seeded Michigan State

No.5 Wisconsin (25-8, 13-7 Big Ten) vs. No.1 Michigan State (27-5, 17-3 Big Ten)

Date/Time – Saturday, March 15, 1 p.m.

Arena – Gainbridge Fieldhouse (18,345)

Television – CBS (Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill, Tracy Wolfson)

Radio – Badgers Radio Network (Matt Lepay and Brian Butch), Sirius 85 or 382, stream online on iHeartRadio.

Series – Michigan State leads 87-69 (Michigan State leads 8-4 in neutral sites)

Last Meeting – Michigan State won, 71-62, on March 2, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich.

Follow Online: The Badgers’ Den

Twitter: @Badger_Blitz

Point Spread – Michigan State -2.5

Player to Watch: In Wisconsin’s 82-70 quarterfinal win over UCLA, Tonje finished with 26 points, going 9-for-10 from the field (6-6 3FGs). He matched his season-high with 9 rebounds and added 4 assists. With 631 points scored this season, Tonje is in third place on Wisconsin’s single-season scoring list.

Player to watch: Richardson scored 15 of his team-high 17 points in the second half and added three rebounds and two assists to lead the Spartans to a 74-64 quarterfinal victory over Oregon.

The two teams have split the last 10 meetings.

Saturday’s semifinal will mark the 53rd meeting between Wisconsin and Michigan State since 2000, marking the Badgers’ most-played opponent in that span (Illinois is next at 49 meetings).

UW and MSU are meeting for the 12th time in the postseason, including the 2000 Final Four and 11 meetings in the Big Ten Tourney.

The Badgers and Spartans are meeting in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament for the 8th time. UW is 2-5 in such games.

At least one of the two teams has been ranked in the last 44 meetings. The last game in which both were unranked was a 64-53 Wisconsin win on Feb. 11, 2003.

The Badgers have recorded six wins over a top-10 ranked Michigan State team since Bo Ryan and Greg Gard arrived in Madison, going 6-11 in such games. Before the 2001-02 season, Wisconsin was 1-13 against ranked Michigan State teams in the AP top 10.

The Badgers are participating in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals for the 14th time in the 28 tourneys and the fourth time under Gard. UW’s 14 semifinals appearances trails only Michigan State (17) for most trips to the semis. Illinois has also played in 14 semifinals.

The Badgers are 3-6 all-time against the No. 1 seed in the BTT, knocking off Illinois in 2004, Indiana in 2013, and Purdue in 2024.

Wisconsin is 27-for-57 (.474) from 3-point range through two Big Ten Tournament games. The Badgers are averaging 13.5 triples per game in the event. Wisconsin is shooting 49.5 percent (55-for-111) from the field through two games.

The Badgers held UCLA to just 22-of-68 (32.4 percent) from the field on Friday. Through two tournament games, UW has held its opponent to 34.4 percent shooting (42-for-122) from the field.

Wisconsin has 34 assists to 21 turnovers during the BTT, good for a 1.6 assist-to-turnover ratio.

The Spartans are 36-20 (.643) all-time in the Big Ten Tournament and lead the conference with six tournament titles.

Michigan State connected on 46.3 percent of its field goals (25-of-54), including 51.6 percent in the first half (16-of-31).

After Oregon shot 56.5 percent in the first half, the Spartans limited the Ducks to 40.0 percent shooting from the field (12-of-30), including 10.0 percent from 3-point land (1-of-10).

MSU held a 36-29 advantage on the boards, collected seven offensive rebounds in the first half and out-scoring Oregon, 13-0, in second chance points.

The Spartans received 27 points from the bench, the 30th time in 32 games with at least 20 points.

Blackwell and Kamari McGee controlled the offense in Thursday’s 70-63 win over Northwestern, playing under control and limiting their combined turnovers to three. The only thing that wasn’t up to task was their shooting, with Blackwell going 3-for-10 and McGee slightly better at 3-for-7.

It was a different story against the Bruins.

Blackwell was a part of Wisconsin’s hot start with two three-point makes, as well as being opportunistic in crashing the glass for an offensive rebound on a short three-point shot for as an easy lay-in. McGee shot at least 80 percent for the first time since February 15 and made multiple three-pointers in a game without a miss for the first time all season.

“We’re the point guards, the head of the snake,” McGee said. “It starts with us. We can’t just go out there and tell our guys one thing and not do it. We’ve got to lead by example. I feel like we picked that up.”

Both players agreed that some of Wisconsin’s losses this season were the result of them not leading by example. The March 2 loss at Michigan State was one of them, as McGee went 1-for-8 from the floor with three fouls and two turnovers, and Blackwell missed a team-high 12 shots. The two were a combined 0-for-11 from three.

“The couple games that we lost, it’s on us,” Blackwell said. “We’ve got to keep going, keep our energy high, even when we’re not playing it that good, not shooting it that good. I think as point guards, that’s our job.”

In tying the Big Ten Tournament record with 19 three-pointers, the Badgers started 12-for-17 from beyond the perimeter. The first three threes were shot in rhythm and came from exceptional ball movement. That was the case for 10 of Wisconsin’s three-pointers in the first half, including a work of art with 6:47 remaining in the first half.

With Crowl possessing the ball outside the paint and drawing the double, he fed the ball to Tonje on the wing. From there, snap passes from Tonje to Carter Gilmore to Blackwell to Klesmit in the corner for a three made it 33-20.

Wisconsin dished out 22 assists on the day, the team’s second-highest total of the season after collecting 26 against Iowa on 1/06/25, with Blackwell and McGee assisting on four each.

“We have a lot of talented guys, and we kind of feed off each other,” Tonje said. “When we’re able to be unselfish and kind of look for each other, the ball just kind of finds its way back to you. I think everyone’s kind of bought in now, and we’re not pushing our own agendas. We’re just trying to compete and doing everything we can to get the win.”

Nobody was better from behind the three-point line than Tonje. He hit all six of his three-point attempts in the first half, including two where he simply pulled up and fired. He attacked more in the second half, knifing through four defenders into the lane to finish off the layup.

It took him until 5:26 remained to miss a shot, with Wisconsin comfortably ahead by 27 points.

“I think I was just trying to be aggressive within the flow of the game, trying to figure out how they’re guarding me, and how I can adjust and just really be effective,” Tonje said. “With all these guys around me that balance the floor and make it easier to open up and make it the right decision, I think it’s just having talented guys around me that help me make plays.”

That aggressiveness was lost in the meeting against the Spartans less than two weeks ago. One of the more physical teams in the league with how they play and how deep into the bench they go, the Spartans challenged the Badgers at the rim and forced them to shoot from the outside, where they rank third in the country in percentage defense (28.0 percent).

UW went 5-for-32 from three against the Spartans, 11-for-22 at the rim, and 6-for-15 on other shots, the latter category showing the Badgers settled for jumpers instead of challenging defenders.

“I feel like we didn’t go in the paint enough at their place,” McGee said. “I feel like we can really eat inside and find guys and spread. That’s where we can get our threes from inside out. If we just attack the paint more than we did in the last game, we’ll have better results.”

Blackwell put the onus on himself, considering the offense scored only two points in the final seven possessions to allow the Spartans to pull away.

“Down the stretch, we’ve just got to execute a little bit better,” Blackwell said. “I know you’re on the road and it’s a tough environment, but you’ve just got to execute better as a point guard to do that. I think we didn’t do that there. We’re careless with the ball and gave them a few more possessions.”

UW has struggled with effort plays at points against bigger teams. The Spartans turned 13 offensive rebounds into 12 second-chance points. It gets lost under UW’s three-point shooting Friday, but UCLA had 20 offensive rebounds that led to 18 second-chance points. UW needs to cut those numbers in half to have a chance.

Wisconsin’s offense played its best game in nearly a month Friday, while the Spartans have picked up eight Quad-1 wins in the past month. I wouldn’t be surprised either way with the result, but I’ll lean toward the more consistent team.

Worgull’s Prediction: Michigan State by 5

Record: 25-8 (23-10 ATS)

Points off Prediction: 289 (8.8 per game)

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Wisconsin

WI lawmakers should support data center accountability bill | Letters

Published

1 hour ago

December 14, 2025

Press Room

WI lawmakers should support data center accountability bill | Letters

Data centers proposed in our area pose multiple threats to our water, wildlife, and wallets. We all can take action by asking our senators and representatives to back SB729.

Letters to the Editor
| Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The data centers proposed in our area in Mount Pleasant, Port Washington, and Beaver Dam pose multiple threats to our water, wildlife, and wallets. The centers will require vast amounts of water to cool their equipment. Plus, 70% of the water consumed each year in Wisconsin goes to electric power generation, so the water needed for energy production adds to the millions of gallons these centers will need on peak days.

The massive energy infrastructure required to build and operate the data centers is expensive and threatens to burden customers for years with the huge costs. Also, at a time when the impacts of climate change make it clear that we should be transitioning to clean renewable energy sources, utility companies are using data centers as justification for building new fossil gas power plants, thereby keeping us from achieving the zero emissions future that we so desperately need.

Take action by backing Data Center Accountability Act

The Data Center Accountability Act, bill SB729, was introduced recently in the Wisconsin legislature. If passed, the bill would stipulate that:

Data center must meet labor standards and use at least 70% renewable energy.
All data centers must be LEED certified or the equivalent.
Data center owners must pay an annual fee that funds renewable energy, energy efficiency, and a low-income energy assistance program.

We all can take action to prevent the worst impacts from data centers by asking our senators and representatives to vote for SB729. To find your legislators go to https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/My-Elected-Officials.

Jenny Abel, Wauwatosa

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Wisconsin

Can ‘completely different’ Wisconsin volleyball upset Texas in NCAA tournament?

Published

13 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Press Room

Can ‘completely different’ Wisconsin volleyball upset Texas in NCAA tournament?

Wisconsin and Texas volleyball teams will face each other in the NCAA regional finals after first meeting near the start of the season.
Key factors for Wisconsin include overcoming Texas’ physicality and managing their talented pins.
The Badgers’ ability to handle adversity in a hostile environment will be crucial for a potential return to the Final Four.

AUSTIN, Texas – Wisconsin volleyball’s first weekend of the 2025 season featured a high-profile match against Texas.

Wisconsin’s either final or penultimate weekend of the season – depending on whether UW can advance – also features a high-profile match against Texas.

But both sides will caution against reading too much into Wisconsin’s Aug. 31 loss to Texas ahead of a rematch in the NCAA tournament regional finals as each team seeks a return to the Final Four.

“We are completely different teams than what we saw however many months ago that was,” Wisconsin middle blocker Carter Booth said.

Texas coach Jerritt Elliott said almost the exact same thing in the Longhorns’ press conference, and his players echoed similar sentiments as well.

“I feel like both teams are just a lot more developed at this point in the year,” Texas setter Ella Swindle said. “At the beginning of the season, we were kind of just figuring out who we are and who we want to be. So now at this point, I feel like we know our identities, and we’re ready to go out and battle.”

Here are three keys for the much-improved Badgers to have a better outcome against the also-much-improved Longhorns in the NCAA tournament:

How efficient can Wisconsin’s attack be against Texas’ physicality at net?

Wisconsin’s path to advancing in the Texas regional has already required defeating one team with outstanding physicality at the net, and it is unlikely to get any easier in the regional finals.

“I was watching Stanford warm up, and you’re like, ‘Jiminy Crickets,’” Sheffield said. “It’s like watching the NBA dunking contest. It’s like, ‘Holy cow.’ They’re just bouncing balls on the 10-foot line and just really dynamic and impressive. And Texas probably has it even more than that.”

Texas’ physicality was abundantly apparent in its three-set sweep over Indiana in the regional semifinals. The Longhorns had a 12-2 advantage in blocks, and Indiana committed 23 attack errors. Going back to when UW faced Texas in August, the Badgers committed a season-high 26 attack errors despite it lasting only three sets.

“But each team has their thing,” Sheffield said. “And if we try to play their game, we’re going to get whacked. And if they try to play ours, that’s going to be problems for them as well.”

Can Badgers keep Texas’ talented pin hitters in check?

The Wisconsin-Texas match will feature two of the best outside hitters in the country.

Wisconsin’s Mimi Colyer has averaged 5.38 kills per set, which is the highest among players who advanced to the NCAA regional finals and is destined to break the UW program record. Texas’ Torrey Stafford is ninth in the country with 4.78 kills per set while hitting .368.

“Both of them are fearless,” Sheffield said. “They’re extremely, extremely talented. I think volleyball fans are going to be following them for a long, long time. Both of them have tremendous careers in front of them.”

Stafford was virtually unstoppable in the Longhorns’ sweep over Indiana, recording 19 kills without any attack errors and hitting a video-game-like .679. But for as talented as the AVCA national player of the year semifinalist is, she is not the only pin that can give opponents fits.

Texas freshman Cari Spears has immediately stepped into a major role in the Longhorns’ attack as the starting right-side hitter in every match this season. In the second match of her career, she led Texas with 11 kills while committing only one attack error in the win over the Badgers.

“She was just trying to figure out how to breathe during that first match, and it just takes time,” Elliott said. “And now she actually understands our offense a lot more, she’s developed a lot of her blocking, her range has gotten better, and that applies to all of our team. Ella’s been doing the same thing. Her offensive system is completely different than it was the first week of the season.”

The Wisconsin match was the first of seven consecutive matches for Spears with at least 10 kills.

“Seeing that I can compete with one of the top teams in the nation and seeing the trust that my teammates had with me and the trust that the coaches had in me – it was a huge confidence boost for me,” Spears said.

As for how to stop Stafford, Spears and Co., Booth said it goes back to the Badgers’ fundamentals.

“I know I’m beating a dead horse, but that’s really what this is all about,” Booth said. “At the highest level, the margins are so thin that you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel again. You’re honing in on the details of what you already know to do. So it’s not necessarily about being perfect on the block. … Our focus is just going to be taking away good space for our defense and then trusting that the people around us have put in the work to be able to defend those shots.”

How do Badgers respond to adversity?

When Wisconsin defeated Stanford after an otherworldly offensive showing in the first set, Booth said it was “really an emphasis for us to always be the one throwing punches, not the ones taking them.”

The ability to punch first is far from a guarantee against a team as talented as Texas is, however. The Longhorns have only lost once this season at Gregory Gym, and that was against Kentucky, which is one of the other top seeds in the NCAA tournament.

Even in a neutral crowd situation, Wisconsin’s ability to not let Stanford’s momentum snowball was crucial in the four-set win. Now with the vast majority of the anticipated 4,500 people in attendance rooting against the Badgers in the regional finals, Wisconsin’s resiliency when Texas does pack a punch will be crucial.

“We are definitely more equipped to withstand those highs and lows of a set and able to step up after a mistake or come back after a battle,” Booth said. “You see yesterday, (we) come out very dominant in the first set, and then we dropped the second in a fashion that was a little bit uncharacteristic to the way we want to play. And being able to just step up and come back third and fourth playing our game – I think that goes to show how much we’ve grown in that sense.”

The Badgers – already confident before the tournament and now with even more reason for confidence after the Stanford win – are not ceding the possibility of still throwing that figurative first punch either.

“We are the writers of our own destiny, and I think that we are always in a position to be able to throw the first punch, no matter who we’re seeing across the net,” Booth said.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin Lutheran boys basketball pursues three-peat with revamped lineup

Published

1 day ago

December 13, 2025

Press Room

Wisconsin Lutheran boys basketball pursues three-peat with revamped lineup

Wisconsin Lutheran returns to Division 1 seeking a third consecutive state championship.
The team returns its two leading scorers, senior Zavier Zens and junior Kager Knueppel.
New starters will need to fill the roles of three key graduates from last season’s title team.
Coach Ryan Walz expects Zens to become a more vocal leader and for Knueppel to develop as a three-level scorer.

Over the first couple weeks of the WIAA high school boys basketball season, the Journal Sentinel will be checking in with the Milwaukee area’s three reigning state championship teams.

Our visits began with reigning Division 3 champion Milwaukee Academy of Science, which will compete in D2 in the WIAA postseason this year. The next check-in comes with a team that knows all about repeating in a higher division, the two-time defending state champions from Wisconsin Lutheran. The Vikings won their fourth WIAA state title and second consecutive after receiving a competitive balance elevation from D2 to D1 last season. The quest for a third straight title will also be in D1, and the Vikings look up to the challenge.

Here is what to know about Wisconsin Lutheran, which improved to 4-0 with a 69-20 victory over New Berlin West on Dec. 12.

Roles to fill around returning stars Zens, Knueppel

Wisco’s two leading scorers from the 2024-25 team return, but the surrounding cast looks a bit different this season. Northern Iowa commit and 6-foot-7 senior forward Zavier Zens (22.2 points per game last season) and 6-10 junior guard Kager Knueppel (13.5 ppg) are the two returning starters, while the three graduated starters include guard Isaiah Mellock (11.1 ppg, Wisconsin Lutheran College), forward/guard Alex Greene (10.9 ppg, Concordia) and forward Ben Langebartels (2.3 ppg).

Coach Ryan Walz said he wants to see Zens become a more vocal leader this year, while adding Knueppel can round out his ability as a three-level scorer.

“I think that’s a big step for any senior to make, to get outside of yourself, to be able to be engaged with other people on the team and not just always be worried about what you’re doing, but also being concerned for your teammates and showing that kind of leadership,” Walz said of Zens.

“From our standpoint, we want to see [Kager] be an effective basketball player at the basket, in the midrange and from three-point range. That’s the next step for guys who are on the cusp of being really, really good players, and that’s what Zavier did last year,” Walz added on Knueppel.

In place of the graduates this season have been former reserve 6-foot junior guard Riley Walz (4.2 ppg last season), former reserve forward and 6-6 senior Kinston Knueppel (5.0 ppg) as well as junior 6-7 forward Jamail Sewell.

“Riley’s going to have to handle the ball and distribute it, get us into offense and really control what we do, and Kinston is that versatile piece – kind of like Alex Greene last year – where he has to find ways where he can influence the game offensively with his intelligence, his skill level, his flexibility of being able to go inside and outside,” coach Walz said. “Jamail is 6-7, almost 6-8, and obviously anybody who saw him in football pads saw this enormous man, and he moves really, really well and has great hands. He needs to catch up on some of his basketball things and his skill and his understanding of the game, but he is an enormous presence on the floor.”

The Vikings again do not lack for size and will send one of the tallest starting fives in the state to the floor night-in and night-out between Zens, Kinston Knueppel, Kager Knueppel and Sewell. Kager Knueppel said teams will also have to watch out for Riley Walz on the perimeter as they crowd the paint.

“He’s been working really hard. I like him coming into the point guard role because he does not turn the ball over and he can shoot threes really well,” Kager Knueppel said.

As they learned with a late substitution in the D1 title game in March, every player needs to be ready for their moment.

“You don’t know when your time is going to come but you have to be ready, and so as coaches it’s our job to absolutely keep pushing them and moving them forward as best that we can,” coach Walz said.

Wisconsin Lutheran not shying from expectations

Returning top players to a team coming off consecutive state titles creates expectations around the program to compete for a three-peat. Zens said the team is embracing those expectations, while relying on the experience that has led them this far.

“We all know there’s high expectations for us, but those are our expectations for ourselves as well,” Zens said.

The pressure to defend a title is nothing new for Kager Knueppel, and something he thinks the team will be prepared for on a nightly basis.

“All of our guys understand that we have a target on our back, and people will want to come after us and beat us,” Knueppel said.

Coach Walz said the tone of keeping expectations in their proper framework is set by Zens.

“He is intrinsically motivated,” Walz said. “If your best player has no letdown and is leading by example, then that just brings everybody else along.”

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