Wisconsin
Kel’el Ware’s dominance and a fire alarm evacuation highlight IU’s win over Wisconsin
BLOOMINGTON — Deep in the throes of a woeful season seemingly getting worse with each passing game, Indiana men’s basketball experienced a night unlike most others this year.
It’s not just that the Hoosiers snapped a four-game losing streak with a 74-70 victory over Wisconsin on Tuesday. It’s what transpired both inside and outside of Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall that led to the result.
Kel’el Ware caught fire and rode it to one of IU’s strongest individual performances of the season. And as that played out, Assembly Hall dealt with an actual fire scare.
‘The best player on the floor’
Ware got started early, with a defensive rebound on the game’s first possession. And he soared from there.
The sophomore dominated, particularly in the first half. By halftime, Ware racked up 20 points on a 9-for-10 clip, with seven rebounds and three blocks. He just overpowered Steven Crowl and the Badgers’ frontcourt.
Ware’s points came from all over. He scored in the post, in mid-range, and from beyond the 3-point line. There were stretches in that first half when it seemed like the center could score at will, regardless of what the Badgers did.
By the end of the night, Ware finished with 27 points on an 11-for-12 line, with 11 rebounds and five blocks.
“It was unbelievable. He had a man’s game. He really did,” IU head coach Mike Woodson said after the game. “Maybe we didn’t go to him enough, but he was fantastic tonight. We needed every bit of it in order to win this game.”
Ware missed Indiana’s first matchup against the Badgers in Madison. His absence was noticeable in that game, as IU lost by 12.
Wisconsin limited Ware’s looks some more in the second half, as he had just two points in the first 13 minutes after halftime. But he was able to redevelop the sort of rhythm he had in the first half, scoring some important points for IU when the Badgers made their push.
Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard lamented his team’s defensive performance against Ware but praised the sophomore several times after the game, saying he had “an All-American-type night.”
“Ware and (Malik) Reneau have been really good. I don’t know if this is the best that Kel’el’s played, but it’s got to be right near the top,” Gard said. “The credit goes to Ware, specifically, and to Reneau for the job they did inside. Kel’el was the best player on the floor. He was really good tonight.”
Ware has been Indiana’s most consistent player all season, and has had plenty of other big games this season. This wasn’t even his highest-scoring game of the year — he put up 28 points against Harvard, on a 12-for-13 line.
The sophomore has recorded eight 20-point games, and 12 double-doubles. His 23-point, 10-rebound effort during IU’s win over Iowa was one of the team’s grittiest performances of the season.
Entering Tuesday’s game, Ware ranked third in the Big Ten in rebounding, sixth in blocks, and 15th in scoring. He entered this season at IU with some question marks surrounding him after a tough freshman year at Oregon, but he’s been as good as IU could’ve realistically hoped for.
Ware is firmly on the All-Big Ten radar, because of performances like these.
A chaotic scene
Ware wasn’t the only thing in Assembly Hall that was hot on Tuesday.
A fire alarm went off in one of the balconies and spread to the concourses on both sides of the arena around the under-12 media timeout. Wisconsin’s radio broadcast reported smoke in an elevator set off the alarms.
The game went on for a few minutes as the alarms continued going off, but some fans made their way towards the exits even with play ongoing. And then more fans. And then even more.
Then, out of nowhere, the game stopped. The public address system cut out. The scoreboard displayed a generic IU logo. Teams retreated to their sideline, and soon their locker rooms. Security guards and emergency personnel sprung into action, more sternly alerting fans to evacuate the building.
But fans, media, and others in attendance didn’t know why the evacuation was happening. Nobody delivered a clear message within the venue, whether there was a fire or if it was related to the tornado warnings throughout the region. And that uncertainty caused some apparent hesitation for some people about going outside — closer to windows — if it was tornado-related.
But arena staff continued to assertively direct fans to get up from their seats and find the closest possible exit. And it led to a chaotic scene in Assembly Hall’s south lobby and in the space outside it.
Fans flocked to the doors, with many carrying concessions they’d already bought. One man approached an exit holding a beer can, and a security guard stopped him and told him he had to drink it before leaving; he wasn’t allowed to take the beer outside the building — as outlined by Indiana state liquor laws — even during a fire alarm evacuation.
Outside the arena, fans crowded the space by the doors. They tried to stick together with their groups as much as possible as more and more people flooded the area. It was a hectic scene — and it remained that way when everyone was apparently informed they could re-enter after just a few minutes outside.
A sizable number of fans didn’t come back after the evacuation. The ones who stayed kept Assembly Hall loud as Indiana pulled out its 15th win of the season.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen regularly. Asked if he’d ever encountered anything like it, on his way to the exits after the game ended, longtime IU radio voice Don Fischer laughed and said, “Never had one of those.” Both Woodson and Gard said they, too, had never experienced a situation like this.
When play stopped, Wisconsin was on a 9-2 run over the previous four minutes of game time. The Badgers had tied the game at 54 apiece less than 30 seconds before the stoppage. They continued that run when the game resumed, but Gard clearly thought the pause in action impacted his team’s momentum.
“I thought it was a great timeout for whoever from Indiana pulled the fire alarm, for them. Cause we were making a run,” Gard said. “I mean, we had a little time in the locker room, not as much as what they originally had told us. And then you get five minutes to go warm back up and go play. So was kind of like having two halftimes.”
The game went back and forth the rest of the way after play resumed. The Hoosiers pulled it out because they held Wisconsin scoreless for the last two minutes of the game.
This win is a reprieve for Indiana during a rough month of a rough season. The result doesn’t change anything about IU’s season.
But the way it played out, with Ware’s heroics and the mid-game evacuation, may help this game stick out in the minds of those who both left Assembly Hall and came back in.
“I want to thank our fan base, the crowd, for going through what we all went through and still came back into the game and gave us the support we needed to get over the hump and win the game,” Woodson said. “So I truly thank the fans.”
For complete coverage of IU basketball, GO HERE.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
Related
Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield shares his biggest spring takeaway
Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield shared his biggest takeaway from the spring following the Badgers’ four-set win over Northern Illinois.
MADISON – Kelly Sheffield has coached All-Americans, national players of the year, national champions and future Olympians in his 13 years as Wisconsin volleyball coach.
So Sheffield’s unique praise of Decelise Champion – a star pin-hitter from Puerto Rico who committed to the Badgers last fall – carries a lot of weight.
“Her highest-end potential is certainly as high as about anybody we’ve ever brought in,” Sheffield said. “She’s got a lot of work to get to where she’s capable of, and that’s on us as coaches and on her to help reach those dreams and goals. But when you’re watching people around her age, she’s different.”
That work is beginning earlier than initially expected after Wisconsin announced that Champion will reclassify from the 2027 recruiting class and join the Badgers as a freshman for the 2026 season.
Champion – currently 16 years old and turning 17 in September – will arrive with a resume that includes experience on Puerto Rico’s senior national team and the elite Italian club Volleyro Casal de Pazzi. That’s all while being strong enough academically to earn a GED degree and the necessary NCAA waiver for a few missing core classes.
“What made it really a lot better is that all of her grades at the different schools she’s been at have been fantastic,” Sheffield said. “She’s an excellent student. Was crushing it at a really, really good academic school in Italy in her third language.”
The timing of the June 12 announcement accounted for the second-last open roster spot for the 2026 season, but Champion and UW’s efforts to make the reclassification possible go back much earlier than that.
“We’ve known she’s wanted to do this since February,” Sheffield said. “We told our team in February that was the plan. And then we didn’t let anybody know publicly until she was done with her season. She just didn’t want to be a distraction for her team.”
Badgers have even more competition at pins
Wisconsin already had plenty of competition at the pin-hitting positions before Champion’s move to the 2026 class.
Grace Egan had a major role on the 2025 Final Four team, and Eva Travis had an impressive spring after transferring from UC-Santa Barbara. Others include Grace Lopez, Madison Quest and the highly-touted freshman duo of Halle Thompson and Audrey Flanagan.
Even with the upcoming addition of one more pin-hitter – and one with such a high potential – UW did not lose any players in the spring transfer portal cycle. Even the idea of someone leaving seemed outlandish to Sheffield.
“If they’re just going to get up and leave because somebody came, I would say that that person is probably chicken s—,” Sheffield said.
Sheffield’s praise of Champion’s proposal obviously does not come with a guarantee of playing time either at the crowded pin-hitting positions.
“I would say, yeah, she does have a chance of being out on the court for us this year,” Sheffield said. “But we’ve also got some other really talented people that play the pins.”
The outside and right-side hitters already on UW’s spring roster will have at least one key advantage over Champion in her freshman season – time.
Egan, Lopez and Quest are returning players (although Egan and Lopez spent their spring recovering from injuries). Travis, Thompson and Flanagan all enrolled in time to spend the spring with the Badgers and impressed in UW’s spring matches.
Champion’s arrival, on the other hand, will follow her participation in an Olympic-qualifying event for Puerto Rico. Sheffield expects that to be Sept. 2, which is the day before fall classes begin and already after UW’s first four matches of the season.
“She’ll be drinking out of a fire hose early on, no doubt about it,” Sheffield said. “Even though she’s been playing with her senior national team this summer, it will be a lot of things coming at her in her secondary language at 16, so there’ll need to be some patience along the way.”
His advice to Champion when she was on campus earlier in June was to “be where your feet are.”
“When she’s with her national team – even though we will have started our preseason, playing matches – don’t worry about us here,” Sheffield said. “Be where your feet are. Be the best you can be for your team there. … Then when you get here, you’re not thinking about your national team.”
Champion’s NCAA eligibility clock starts earlier
Champion’s reclassification comes with the drawback of beginning her NCAA eligibility one year earlier in her volleyball career.
Had she stayed in the 2027 recruiting class, she theoretically would have begun her college career shortly before her 18th birthday and exhausted her eligibility at age 22. Instead, she will begin her college career shortly before her 17th birthday and likely exhaust her eligibility at age 21.
Those scenarios take into account the NCAA Division I Cabinet’s unanimous approval on June 23 of a new eligibility model that will give players five seasons of eligibility in five years. (That replaces the current system with four seasons, redshirts and other waivers.) The NCAA noted that its decision is not final, however, until the meeting concludes on June 24.
“We’re certainly excited to have her this year, but if you kind of think over the course of five years, it’s probably worse for us that she comes a year early,” Sheffield said. “You expect her to be better at 20 and 21 than what she is at 16 or 17. … It really wasn’t something that we were pushing for, but she was ready.”
Of course, volleyball at age 16 or 17 looks different for someone like Champion who has been competing against much older players as a senior national team member and studying halfway across the world from her hometown of Dorado, Puerto Rico.
“When you talk to her, she doesn’t come across as somebody who’s 16,” Sheffield said. “She’s very mature, very easy to talk to, very driven. She’s independent. … She’s had a lot more life experience than most people her age, and that certainly comes across when you’re around her.”
Wisconsin
Cult-classic filmed in central Wisconsin returns to big screen, with enhancements, this weekend
STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAW) – A giant spider isn’t actually invading central Wisconsin this weekend.
But an enhanced, big-screen version of the cult-classic 1975 film The Giant Spider Invasion is crawling back into local theaters — and it’s bringing some central Wisconsin nostalgia with it.
The movie was famously filmed in Merrill and Stevens Point, and the updated 2026 release adds enhancements designed for a modern theatrical experience.
What’s new in the 2026 enhanced version?
Executive Producer J.B. Thompson says the team took the original 1975 film and enhanced it for the big screen in 2026, giving audiences a refreshed way to experience a movie that’s long been a Wisconsin oddity — and a point of pride.
Actor and Producer Dan Davies is featured in newly filmed scenes created specifically for this updated release.
Stevens Point’s role in the original film
While much of the film is associated with Merrill, Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza says Point also played a major role in the production — another reason the film’s return matters to local history buffs and movie fans alike.
Why does this movie still capture attention 50 years later?
Whether it’s the over-the-top creature feature story, the uniquely Wisconsin filming locations, or the nostalgia of seeing familiar places on screen, the group says the film’s staying power is real — even five decades later.
Screenings this weekend
The enhanced version of The Giant Spider Invasion is set for local screenings this weekend in Central and North Central Wisconsin. To purchase tickets for showings in Stevens Point, Marshfield or Waupaca, click here.
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Copyright 2026 WSAW. All rights reserved.
A Wisconsin man has been arrested in Colorado in connection with a fatal north suburban hit-and-run earlier this year that left a 50-year-old woman killed.
According to the Winthrop Harbor Police Department, Travis Kern, 35, of Pleasant Prairie, turned himself into police in Lakewood Colorado on an arrest warrant. Kern was charged with two felonies, police said, and remains in custody in Colorado pending extradition proceedings.
About 11:10 p.m. on February 26, a pedestrian was struck in the 1400 block of Sheridan Road in Winthrop Harbor by a driver of a vehicle heading northbound. The vehicle then fled the scene, police said.
The pedestrian, later identified as Shanna White, 50, of Waukegan, was transported to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead.
According to court documents, Kern’s next scheduled court date is set for July 22.
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