Prior to the start of the 2021-22 college basketball season, there were very low expectations for the Wisconsin Badgers — they lost their two leading scorers in D’Mitrik Trice and Micah Potter returned only 3 players from the previous season who played significant minutes.
Needless to say, nobody knew how this new-look team would play as a whole. Very few pre-season projections had the Badgers finishing better than ninth in the Big Ten. With other programs in the Big Ten having sky-high expectations such as Purdue, Illinois, Ohio State and Michigan, it seemed as if the Badgers would be left in the dust in a conference jam-packed with talent.