Wisconsin
Kamari McGee’s ejection fuels No. 16 Wisconsin basketball’s win at seventh-ranked Purdue
WEST LAFAYTETTE, IND. – The picture said it all.
Inside the Wisconsin locker room at Mackey Arena on Saturday the members of Badgers men’s basketball team stood around by Kamari McGee. Some had their arms folded. Others flashed the Wisconsin “W” with their fingers.
So often this season McGee has sparked the team though either his play or his attitude.
Saturday his teammates picked him up after he was hit with a Flagrant 2 foul and ejected in the first half of the Badgers’ 94-84 victory over Purdue.
MORE: Box score | UW schedule | Standings
“We were like ‘Hey bro, we’ll get this game for you’, when we saw him in the locker room,” graduate guard John Tonje said. “He was obviously having a tough time. Obviously he wants to be out here with his family.”
McGee’s ejection came at a critical point in the first half. Sophomore guard John Blackwell had picked up his second foul at the 6-minute 46-secon mark and spent the rest of the half on the bench. Graduate center Steven Crowl got his second foul 25 seconds later.
Immediately after that McGee was ejected.
The senior guard drew the foul with 6:20 left in the first half as he was chasing Purdue point guard Braden Smith. Smith came off a screen and took a handoff from 6-9 forward Trey Kaufman-Renn.
During the exchange, McGee collided with the 6-9 forward, his right arm catching Kaufman-Renn in the midsection/groin area. The foul was immediately reviewed and ruled a Flagrant 2, which according to the NCAA rule book means the contact was deemed “not only excessive, but also severe (brutal, harsh, cruel) or extreme (dangerous, punishing), while the ball is live.
There was plenty of disagreement over the call on social media, but that didn’t help McGee, who had to follow the rest of the game from the locker room.
“I haven’t seen the video,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. “I didn’t look at it at halftime. I didn’t look at the board or anything, I was having more conversations about what had happened the previous possession on the other end when I felt like our guys were like bowling pins, falling down and getting knocked around.
“It’s within the rules (to make that call). This is a really hard game for any (officiating) crew. That is why we had a really strong crew on this game. It’s a hard job to do. But when they gave me the explanation that’s the letter of the law. Its not up for debate. We needed to move on.”
Wisconsin did.
In McGee’s absence redshirt freshman Jack Janicki received extra minutes. He played a career-high 17 minutes and scored a career-high 11 points while getting his most extensive in-game experience as a point guard.
After McGee’s ejection the Badgers closed the first half with a 14-6 run, cutting a nine-point deficit to one at halftime by scoring on seven of nine possessions.
The run set the stage for an explosive second half that featured 72% shooting and 58 points.
Perhaps it’s coincidence that the Badgers outscored Purdue by 17 points after McGee’s ejection. Maybe it’s not.
“Actually McGee getting ejected threw more gas on our fire and really united us,” Gard said. “I probably talked less in these huddles today than I have all year because they were so engaged and so instrumental and instructive with what they wanted to do and what they thought was working on both ends of the floor. I’m just happy for them because they bonded together.”
Laurel Burleson, a Dane County chef, thinks ugly apples make the best dishes.
One of her goals as a chef and restaurant owner is to save usable produce from the waste bin.
“I know how hard (Wisconsin farmers) work every day, making these products that are delicious and nutritious and for anything to get thrown away just because it’s not aesthetically perfect is just outrageous,” said Burleson, owner of Ugly Apple Cafe.
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The latest fruit monitoring report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows many parts of the state having great harvests, although northeastern Wisconsin orchards suffered from a cool spring. But most apple orchards are busy with the fall harvest. So what do you do with that abundance of apples?
Burleson shared some recipes and her philosophy on cooking with WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Rob Ferrett: What do you like to do with apples apart from just eating them?
Laurel Burleson: One that I really like to do is making apple marmalade. That is shredding apples and preserving them in sugar so that they keep their structure. It’s kind of the opposite of making applesauce.
But we also make a lot of apple sauce and apple butter. That’s a good way to use a lot of apples all at once.
RF: What goes into making apple butter?
LB: Very basically you make applesauce, so just cook down your apples and blend them up. Then you take that applesauce and cook it extremely slowly, either in a slow cooker or in the oven. Cook it down until it’s dark and rich and more closely resembling a peanut butter than applesauce.
From there, you can put in whatever spices you want: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, bay leaf. You just have to be careful because whatever you start with in the big batch will get super concentrated and reduced in your end product.
RF: With applesauce or apple butter, do we have to be fussy about the type of apples? Or can we mix and match?
LB: I like to mix and match, especially because the apple season starts really early. Some years you can get the first season apples in July.
They don’t hold very long and they’re very juicy, so they break down really easily, but they are very tart. I like to get some of those early season apples and make them into applesauce and freeze them and then when I have other sweeter varieties later I mix them and then reduce that all down into butter.
RF: You shared a savory recipe with us for pork chops with apple bacon cabbage. Tell us a little bit about this recipe.
LB: It’s really fun for the fall and even into the winter. You can kind of use any kind of variety of apple that’s a little bit tart and it’s OK if it breaks down and blends in because the cabbage is going to maintain its structure.
If the onions and apples melt away into a delicious sauce it’s just fine. But also, if you end up with some apple pieces, then it’s a nice little surprise like a little sweetness.
The Ugly Apple Cafe operates cafes inside the Dane County Courthouse and the City County Building in Madison and sells its products at the Monona Farmers Market.
While the Wisconsin Badgers struggle on the football field, sitting at a disappointing 2-2 through four weeks, some of the program’s former transfers continue to find success.
One of those players is tight end Riley Nowakowski, who transferred to Indiana this offseason after five years with the Badgers. The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native originally walked on to the program as an unranked outside linebacker. After playing sparingly during his first few seasons with the Badgers, he flipped over to fullback in 2022, then out to tight end after Phil Longo arrived in 2023. Nowakowski totaled 18 receptions for 131 yards and a touchdown from 2023-24; his two years as a primary offensive contributor.
The former Badger is already making significant progress toward those totals, now just four games into his Indiana career. He has four catches for 72 yards and a touchdown, plus one carry for a one-yard score. The versatile fullback/tight end delivered the highlight play of his career during Indiana’s blowout win over Illinois on Saturday, taking a 1st-down screen pass 43 yards to the house.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, has received solid contributions from Montana State transfer tight end Lance Mason. The veteran has 14 catches for 177 yards and two touchdowns to date, leading the team in each of those respective categories.
While Mason has been one of the Badgers’ few bright spots through four weeks, it’s hard to ignore Nowakowski’s emergence as one of Indiana’s dependable offensive playmakers.
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Get ready for an overall warmer stretch of weather as we head into this upcoming workweek. After some fog lifts this morning, we’ll have plenty of sunshine today with highs in the mid to upper 70s along the lake and low 80s inland.
Tonight will be dry with lows in the low 60s lakeside and upper 50s inland.
Monday through Wednesday should be very similar, with upper 70s to near 80 near the lake and low to mid 80s inland with plenty of sun.
We’ll start to bring in chances of showers or a T’storm starting Thursday right on into the weekend.
WATCH: Southeast Wisconsin weather: Dry Today, Warm Workweek Ahead
Southeast Wisconsin weather: Dry Today, Warm Workweek Ahead
TODAY: Any fog lifting through the morning, then becoming mostly sunny.
High: 77 lakefront… 83 inland.
Wind: E 5-10 MPH.
TONIGHT: Mostly clear.
Low: 62.
Wind: ESE 3-8 MPH.
MONDAY: Mostly sunny.
Highs: 78 lakefront… 83 inland.
Wind: ESE 5-10 MPH.
TUES: Mostly sunny and warm.
High: 80 lakefront… 84 inland.
WEDS: Mostly sunny and warm.
High: 81 lakefront… 85 inland.
THUR: Partly cloudy with a chance of a shower
or T’storm.
High: 80.
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