BYU Cougars Dominate Wisconsin Badgers At The Bad Boy Mowers Series
The Wisconsin Badgers waltzed into Salt Lake City with a perfect 4-0 record, probably feeling pretty good about themselves. And why not? They’d handled their business against teams like Campbell, Ball State, and a couple of others you might have to Google. But then they ran into a buzzsaw named BYU.
The BYU Cougars, fresh off joining the Big 12, looked like they had something to prove, and they proved it all over the Badgers in a 98-70 shellacking. This wasn’t just a loss; it was a wake-up call delivered with a sledgehammer.
Not a Neutral-Court Vibe
Even though the game was technically on a neutral court at the Delta Center, the energy was anything but. The BYU faithful showed up and made it feel like a hostile environment for Wisconsin from the get-go. Andrew Rohde got things started for the Badgers with a slick steal and score, and for a fleeting moment, it felt like we were in for a classic March-style dogfight.
But then BYU decided they were done playing nice. An 11-0 run blew the doors open, and suddenly, Greg Gard’s squad looked like they were treading water in a riptide. The Badgers were flustered, struggling to find any rhythm on offense. It was the kind of run that makes a coach want to call three timeouts at once.
The Richie Saunders Show
Let’s talk about Richie Saunders. The guy was simply on another planet. Every time Wisconsin clawed back, even a little bit, Saunders was there to hit a soul-crushing three. He was unconscious, dropping 20 points before you could even blink in the second half and finishing with a game-high 26.
He wasn’t just scoring; he was demoralizing the entire state of Wisconsin with every shot. It was a performance that had Badgers fans everywhere collectively groaning, “Not this guy again.”
For Wisconsin, the stats tell a pretty grim story. They struggled mightily from beyond the arc, and early foul trouble for guards Nick Boyd and Braeden Carrington threw a wrench in the rotation. Boyd led the team with a respectable 16 points, but it was nowhere near enough to counter BYU’s offensive onslaught. It felt like for every shot Wisconsin made, BYU answered with two of their own, usually from somewhere in the next zip code.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So, the Badgers are 4-1. The perfect season is over before it really began. It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially in a beatdown of this magnitude. This loss exposed some serious cracks. The defense looked porous, and the offense went ice-cold when it mattered most.
Now, Wisconsin heads to San Diego for the Rady Children’s Invitational. It is a chance to regroup, figure out what went wrong, and come back stronger. One loss, even a brutal one like this, doesn’t define a season. But you can bet this one will sting for a while. For BYU, it’s a statement win that announces their arrival. For the Badgers, it’s back to the drawing board. Let’s see if they learned anything from this humbling experience.
