Rastall Ramblings: Badgers Enter Challenging February Slate

With the calendar turned to February and only the Super Bowl remaining before football goes into hibernation, it’s now socially acceptable to start obsessing over bracketologist projections as the NCAA Tournament creeps ever closer.

At the start of 2026, the Wisconsin men’s basketball team was firmly on the wrong side of the bubble. They had beaten all the teams they really should have yet did not have a single marquee win to their name with the heart of Big Ten play about to start.

A home win over UCLA where the Badgers flew out of the gates to a dominant start was a nice way to settle things a little bit, but Wisconsin completely changed the tenor of its season with a stunning road win over the Michigan Wolverines on Jan. 10.

That win alone vaulted them from the wrong to the right side of the bubble conversation, and they’ve followed up well since then. The Badgers have won seven of eight since that UCLA victory, even if it hasn’t been perfect. Wisconsin blew a late lead at home against USC and needed a John Blackwell buzzer beater and a second-half surge to win their two meetings with rival Minnesota.

But racking up the wins have been huge for the Badgers, as they enter February on relatively solid footing in terms of their place in NCAA Tournament projections.

The website Bracket Matrix is a handy tool this time of year, serving as a composite of nearly 100 different bracketology projections. As of this past Sunday, the Bracket Matrix composite has Wisconsin as the last nine seed, giving them some wiggle room for the time being in their quest for another March Madness appearance.

Now comes the most challenging stretch of the regular season for the Badgers. Their next five games are at Indiana, at Illinois, home against Michigan State, at Ohio State and home against Iowa.

That is a tough gauntlet, to say the least, but it also represents a golden opportunity with all those games being of the quad one variety. Even going 2-3 over the next five would be a job adequately done. Anything better than that and Wisconsin fans can stop worrying about the team’s place on the bubble and start focusing solely on their seeding.

The Badgers have found a great offensive groove over the last month, even if their defense is probably giving Bo Ryan nightmares. If nothing else, Wisconsin once again finds itself firmly in the mix for yet another NCAA Tournament bid and playing meaningful basketball as we continue the path toward March.

That may seem like something easy to assume should be happening, but the decline of Badgers football should be a reminder not to take it for granted.