Wisconsin (11-3, 0-2 Big Ten) vs. Rutgers (8-6, 1-2 Big Ten)

Date/Time – Monday, January 6th, 6 p.m

Arena – Jersey Mike’s Arena (8,000)

Regard – FS1 (Alex Faust and Bill Raftery)

Radio – Badgers Radio Network (Matt Lepay and Brian Butch), Sirius 106 or 195, stream online on iHeartRadio.

Series – Wisconsin leads 11-6 (Rutgers leads 4-3 in Piscataway, NJ)

Last meeting – Wisconsin won 78-66 in overtime in Madison on March 7, 2024

Follow online: The badger’s den

Twitter: @Badger_Blitz

Betting line: Wisconsin -1

Player to Watch: Blackwell has a career-high 32 points (6-10 3FGs) against Iowa (1/3) and eight rebounds and five assists. In the last three wins, Blackwell had 15 assists with just two turnovers.

Player to Watch: Harper was named to the preseason All-Big Ten team without ever playing a collegiate game and ranks fourth nationally in scoring and first among freshmen. He is the first freshman to score more than 35 points and record a triple-double since Kentucky’s De’Aaron Fox in the 2016-17 season.

Wisconsin is 8-6 against Rutgers since the Scarlet Knights joined the Big Ten in 2014-15

The Badgers have won two of their last three road games. Rutgers has won three of the last five meetings.

UW is 8-0 when it scores more than 65 points against Rutgers and 9-2 when the Scarlet Knights are held to 65 or fewer points

Rutgers has earned three ranked wins against the Badgers since joining the Big Ten (vs. No. 4 UW in 2015, v. No. 14 Wisconsin in 2022, v. No. 9/11 Wisconsin in 2024). That’s the most wins against a Big Ten team since joining the league.

The Badgers are 5-3 against the first two quadrants of the NET Rankings, including two Quad 1 wins and zero losses outside the first quadrant. Tonight is a Quad 2 opportunity for Wisconsin.

With 116 points in Friday’s 31-point win over Iowa, Wisconsin scored more than 100 points in a Big Ten for the first time since a 101-87 win over Northwestern on Feb. 3, 1993.

Wisconsin shot 40 of 62 from the field (64.5 percent). This is UW’s best finish in a Big Ten game since shooting 64.9 percent against Minnesota on Jan. 3, 1987.

The Badgers made 21 of 31 three-point attempts against the Hawkeyes. Her shooting rate of 67.7 percent is her best with more than 10 three-pointers since an 8-for-11 result (72.7 percent) in the win over Indiana on February 25, 2010. Wisconsin’s 21 three-pointers were a Big Ten record.

Rutgers returns only three players (Jeremiah Williams, Jamichael Davis and Emmanuel Ogbole) who were on the roster last season.

The Scarlet Knights are 75-19 at home since 2019-20, including 7-0 this season.

Harper and Bailey are the top two freshmen scorers in the country. In 2011 NCAA statistics, no team has ever finished the season with its top two freshmen scorers playing on the same squad.

Rutgers has scored at least 66 points in every game this season, reached 75 points eight times and averaged 79.3 points per game this season. Under head coach Steve Pikiell, Rutgers never averaged more than 69 points per game.

The University of Wisconsin has seen some talented scoring duos in its first three Big Ten games. The Badgers will see the best scoring duo in the country tonight.

Freshmen Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper will test the Badgers purely in terms of play. The duo, ranked as the No. 2 (Bailey) and No. 3 (Harper) players in Rivals.com’s 2024 recruiting rankings, were the pulse of Rutgers’ offense.

In 13 games, Harper is shooting 52.5 percent from the field over 34.3 minutes per game. He’s involved in it all, as evidenced by the fact that a week ago he posted the school’s first triple-double since 1982 with 16 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds in a win over Columbia.

Harper missed Thursday’s loss at Indiana due to illness but is expected to be in the lineup.

Without Harper, Bailey shined. He scored a career-high 39 points on 16 of 29 shooting to lead Rutgers. He also grabbed eight rebounds, made four of the Scarlet Knights’ six 3-pointers and blocked four shots.

Harper and Bailey have combined for 535 points on 398 shots this season. The rest of the team has a combined 575 points on 449 shots, which has been one of the problems for the Scarlet Knights this season. Against Indiana, none of the other five players who scored had more than nine points. Rutgers also doesn’t move the ball consistently. The Scarlet Knights rank 193rd nationally in assists per game (13.9), with Harper being the only real contributor.

Other issues include rebounding (Rutgers gave up 34 second-chance points without Harper in Thursday’s 10-point loss to Indiana) and defense, ranking second-to-last in the league in defensive rating. UW scored just 116 points on the last-place team on Friday. The Scarlet Knights also rank 276th nationally in three-point percentage defense, meaning the Badgers are sure to draw a lot of outside eyes.

It was hard for UW to win at Rutgers, hence the point spread in the pick’em. It should survive as long as UW doesn’t waste its entire offense against Iowa and can play defensively like it did in the final 30 minutes instead of the first 10.

Worgull’s prediction: Wisconsin at 10

Record: 11-3 (10-4 ATS)

Point deficit forecast: 128 (9.1 per game)

_________________________________________________

*Chat about this article on The Badgers’ Den

*Watch our videos, interviews and Q&As on our YouTube channel

*Subscribe to and listen to the BadgerBlitz.com podcast (view on Apple, Google, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts)

*Follow us on Twitter: @McNamaraRivals, @TheBadgerNation@_Perko_, @seamus_rohrer, @DonnieSlusher_

*Like us on Facebook