Michigan basketball was looking like an invincible machine for much of the 2025-26 season so far, but the cracks are starting to show as Big Ten play has gotten underway. On Saturday, the lackluster performance finally caught up to the Wolverines in a shocking 91-88 home loss to Wisconsin.
The Badgers have struggled at times this season, but their star guards showed up in a big way in this game and the Michigan defense had no answers. After the game, Michigan head coach Dusty May highlighted how Wisconsin caused some issues with the Wolverines' roster to come to light and cause the upset, via Alejandro Zuniga of 247 Sports.
“I also want to give Wisconsin credit,” May said. “They came in here, and they took a punch early. They responded and went in at halftime with some positive momentum and came out in the second half and knocked us on our heels a little bit.
“They exposed some things with our plan, with our team that we thought were going to be issues this year. We just didn't think we would see so many of them on the same night. But they made plays.”
Wisconsin fell into a double-digit hole early in the first half, and it looked like it was just going to be the latest victim of a Michigan team that has been blowing teams out left and right all season long. However, the Badgers battled all the way back behind the efforts of Nick Boyd and John Blackwell to get the win.
Boyd finished the day with 22 points and Blackwell scored 26 to lead all scorers, as the Michigan guards had no answer for them on the perimeter. The Badgers also got a big boost from Aleksas Bieliauskas, who knocked down five 3-pointers in the win. This is a massive win for a Wisconsin team that was squarely on the bubble after an uneven showing in non-conference play, but this victory will be a key talking point in its resume on Selection Sunday.
Michigan has been playing with fire a little bit of late, as it narrowly escaped an upset big from Penn State on Tuesday before this loss. Maybe the defeat will be a bit of a wake-up call for the Wolverines before getting into a gauntlet of a Big Ten schedule.
