Wisconsin was the fifth seed in the Big Ten tournament in each of the past two seasons, and it reached the title game both times.
The 23rd-ranked Badgers (22-9) will look to make it three in a row out of the No. 5 post as they open tournament play with a third-round matchup against 12th-seeded Washington (16-16) on Thursday afternoon.
The Huskies advanced with an 83-79 overtime victory against 13th-seeded Southern California on Wednesday. Zoom Diallo led the way with 22 points and 11 assists, Wesley Yates III and Quimari Peterson each scored 15 points and Hannes Steinbach added 10 points and 11 rebounds for Washington, which rallied from a 13-point deficit in the second half.
“When we get down, this is a high character team,” Washington coach Danny Sprinkle told Peacock after the game. “Adversity hasn’t defined us all year. We’ve had guys quit. We’ve had guys get injured, and these guys keep battling.”
The Huskies fell behind by three points early in the extra session, but a 7-0 run capped by a 3-pointer from Peterson put Washington on top 80-76 with 59 seconds left. Diallo went 2 of 2 at the line in the final seconds and Steinbach made 1 of 2 to seal the victory.
“Zoom was terrific,” Sprinkle said. “Playing with four fouls the last 12:30 of the second half. I think he had a double-double that second half. It was tremendous. Everybody stepped up. …
“It came down to getting stops and guarding without fouling in that last five minutes of regulation, really eight minutes of regulation, and then overtime. Just kept finding a way to win.”
The Badgers defeated the Huskies 90-73 on Feb. 28 in Seattle as Braeden Carrington came off the bench to score a career-high 32 points, making a school-record nine 3-pointers.
“We don’t need them to make (17) threes like they did in the first meeting,” Sprinkle said. “We didn’t play with any force that game. Give Wisconsin credit. They played great, but hopefully we play with a lot more energy (Thursday).”
Badgers coach Greg Gard and his staff had to prepare for multiple potential quarterfinal opponents.
“They’ve all put their heads together to continue to come to me with how we want to adjust game plans from player to player and game to game,” Gard said of his assistant coaches. “It took a little while for us to kind of get it up and really rolling in the right direction, but I think it’s made us much more efficient, much more effective.”
All-Big Ten second-team selection Nick Boyd leads the Badgers with averages of 20.1 points and 4.0 assists per game. John Blackwell, chosen to the All-Big Ten third team, puts up 18.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.
“They’ve got two of the best guards in the league, and they’re going to be coming with a chip on their shoulder because they both could have easily been first-team all-league,” Sprinkle said of Boyd and Blackwell.”
