Wisconsin men’s basketball falls to TCU in Rady Children’s Invitational title game
Wisconsin men's basketball faced TCU in the Rady Children’s Invitational title game. Here's what stood out from the Badgers’ loss to the Horned Frogs.
The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team spent Thanksgiving Day looking like a group that had solved something offensively, but then Black Friday showed just how quickly this sport can flip the script on you.
A day after lighting up Providence for 104 points, the Badgers walked into the championship game of the Rady Children’s Invitational and got hit with something very different. TCU isn’t all that big, but they’re physical and relentless. And for 40 minutes, that was the difference. Jamie Dixon and the Horned Frogs forced Wisconsin to make mistakes and punished every defensive lapse, handing the Badgers a 74–63 loss in San Diego.
Wisconsin made a run. Down 14 late in the first half, John Blackwell flipped the rhythm of the game himself, scoring eight straight to send Wisconsin into the locker room down just 41–37 at half. But the second half turned into a tug-of-war that Wisconsin couldn’t take control of. It was a lackluster stretch defined by turnovers, empty trips, and a TCU defense that made the Badgers look uncomfortable from the opening tip.
It wasn’t just the loss that stung. It was the way Wisconsin lost: poor decision-making, a frontcourt that essentially no-showed, and long stretches where TCU looked like the tougher, more connected team.
So what actually matters coming out of this one? Here’s what stood out from Wisconsin’s loss to TCU in the Rady Children’s Invitational title game.
John Blackwell came ready to play
Sometimes one player shows up fully prepared to shoulder the weight of a game, and on Friday, that was John Blackwell.
The junior guard snapped out of his shooting funk in impressive fashion, finishing with a game-high 30 points, including 21 in the first half. When Wisconsin started wobbling, Blackwell was the one steadying force. He scored eight straight to close the first half, attacking the rim, hitting jumpers, and creating turnovers to spark a 9–0 run going into the break.
If there was a moment Wisconsin had a pulse, Blackwell was the reason.
But the spotlight cuts both ways. On a day when TCU’s ball pressure squeezed Wisconsin’s perimeter creators, Blackwell couldn’t do it alone. He went 8-for-22 from the floor and 3-of-8 on 3-point attempts, but his aggressiveness was essential — he was essentially the only Badger who consistently found ways to generate offense when the game tightened.
It’s becoming clearer with each game: Wisconsin’s ceiling rises when Blackwell plays with this level of conviction. And for the first time in a couple of games, you could feel him fully engaged from the jump. He hit 11-of-12 free-throw attempts, played downhill, and looked far more comfortable operating alongside Nick Boyd than he has recently.
There have been stretches this season where he’s looked like he’s still sorting out the balance in that backcourt and how their roles mesh inside this offense. But this was the aggressive, attacking version of Blackwell that Wisconsin needs — especially on nights when their bigs aren’t generating the rim pressure required to keep defenses honest. They’re going to need this version of him more consistently. Unfortunately for the Badgers, the Michigan native didn’t get much help. Still, the game ball goes to Blackwell: 30 points, six rebounds, and three steals in 34 minutes.
Wisconsin’s front court no-shows
There’s no easy way to say it: Wisconsin’s frontcourt vanished.
The rotational bigs: Nolan Winter, Austin Rapp, Aleksas Bieliauskas, and Will Garlock, combined for just five points on 1-of-11 shooting. While they rebounded better than they did against BYU (Winter, Bieliauskas, and Rapp combined for 21 rebounds), the offensive production wasn’t there.
Winter had three points, 10 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks in 36 minutes — his first real clunker of the season. Rapp, coming off the strong bounce-back against Providence, struggled again with just two points, five rebounds, one assist, and three turnovers. Bieliauskas didn’t score but grabbed six rebounds, including two offensive. Garlock played only three minutes, turned it over once, and looked far too hesitant around the rim to make any real impact. The lack of frontcourt punch was glaring.
TCU is undersized, but they play hard and constantly attack downhill, finishing through contact. Wisconsin couldn’t match that energy. The Badgers generated just 24 points in the paint, missed 11 shots at the rim, and failed to convert a single ball-screen roll into a bucket, and the bigger issue was their inability to force TCU’s defense to respect those actions.
Even on the handful of possessions where Wisconsin did roll hard, hesitation at the catch allowed the Horned Frogs to collapse and force turnovers. It was a concerning reminder that when the bigs can’t finish or threaten the rim, the backcourt doesn’t have enough space to create.
This is the concern that’s lingered since the offseason. Wisconsin has guards who can score. They have shooters. They have a system built to create spacing advantages. But if the Badgers can’t consistently get production from their forwards, they become far too easy to prepare for.
Wisconsin has time to figure this out, but the loss to TCU was a harsh reminder that the frontcourt consistency they need still isn’t there.
Defense has a ton of work to do
The offense struggled, but the defense is what buried Wisconsin.
TCU entered the game as what most would consider to be a poor shooting team from deep (31.6% on the season). They finished 8-for-14 from three and produced 1.057 points per possession, shooting 46.7% from the field and 57.1% from beyond the arc. Wisconsin’s defense forced more turnovers after the break, giving itself a fighting chance. Still, the defensive communication issues, switching breakdowns, and slow reactions to TCU’s downhill pressure continued to lead to clean looks.
The mistakes were plenty, and the Horned Frogs made them pay.
This wasn’t just a shot-making anomaly. It was Wisconsin repeatedly losing containment, getting beaten off the dribble, and failing to finish possessions. TCU racked up 36 points in the paint and had 13 layups or dunks, many of them uncontested despite a marked size advantage.
Add in Wisconsin finishing with a season-high 17 turnovers, leading directly to 21 TCU points off those mistakes, and the math got bleak fast.
Wisconsin did string together a defensive stand late, forcing 11 misses on 12 attempts to cut the deficit to 70–63 with two minutes left, but a technical foul on Andrew Rohde killed whatever momentum they built.
Two losses to Big 12 teams (BYU & TCU), both sparked by poor defensive fundamentals, paint a clear picture: Wisconsin’s identity on that end isn’t where it needs to be yet, and teams with physicality can expose them.
There’s time to fix it. This is a team with nine new faces, six of whom are in Greg Gard’s rotation, but the urgency to do so is real, and nobody knows that better than this coaching staff. Losses like this, while frustrating, can actually help a team in the long run because they paint a clearer picture of where the shortcomings truly are. There’s still plenty of reason to be optimistic about the long-term trajectory of this group, but without real growth in these areas, the ceiling becomes far more capped.
Emptying the Clip
A few more things worth noting coming out of the loss to TCU:
• Wisconsin never found any traction offensively, averaging just .863 points per possession and coughing the ball up on 23% of their trips. When your turnover rate nearly mirrors your made shots, it’s almost impossible to generate the kind of rhythm needed to beat a team as aggressive as TCU.
Simply put, they didn’t play winning basketball.
• Braden Carrington was the only bench player to score, finishing with six points on 2-of-5 shooting, all from beyond the arc, while adding a rebound and a block in 18 minutes. You never want to overreact to one game, but this has been a lingering concern of mine all season.
When the starters have an off shooting night, someone from the second unit has to be able to steady the ship offensively. If this bench can’t consistently chip in, winning these types of matchups becomes a much steeper climb.
• Coming off a career-best performance, Nick Boyd wasn’t bad; he just wasn’t able to tilt the game the way Wisconsin needed. He finished with 15 points on 6-of-13 shooting, added a rebound, three assists, and two steals, but the five turnovers loomed large. There were stretches where he got downhill and dictated pace the way he wanted to, but too often, he was trying to manufacture something out of nothing.
TCU extended pressure, crowded his space, and clearly didn’t respect Wisconsin’s ability to punish them around the rim, and it showed. Boyd was the only other Badger to reach double digits, and while it’s possible we’ll see nights where he and Blackwell alternate who carries the scoring load, this wasn’t a game where he could fully carry over the momentum from Providence.
What’s next
Wisconsin returns home to open Big Ten conference play against Northwestern (5-2) on Wednesday, Dec. 3. Chris Collins and the Wildcats have been inconsistent but dangerous, with Nick Martinelli (20.6 ppg) and Arrinten Page (15.0 ppg), and Jayden Reid (12.9 ppg) driving the offense.
Wisconsin has won six of its last seven Big Ten openers, but the Badgers will enter this one with plenty to clean up.
The Badgers now sit at 5–2, with two very different losses showing the same underlying issues. The message is simple: if Wisconsin wants to contend in the Big Ten, it has to get tougher, turn up the intensity, become more connected defensively, and have the frontcourt show up.
For now, they leave San Diego with a split: one game that showed what they can be, and another that showed how far they still have to go.
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