After its previous victory over the Delaware Blue Hens, Wisconsin Badgers men’s basketball players and head coach Greg Gard assessed that their team’s defense was further along than its offense in the early going of the college basketball season. On Tuesday night against the Fairfield Stags, UW posted season-best marks in both scoring offense and defense, but it was again the defensive end leading the way; this time with a historic performance.
A 22-0 scoring-run for Wisconsin (3-0, 0-0 Big Ten) and an 0-22 shooting slump for Fairfield helped deliver the Badgers’ most-lopsided victory in nearly a decade, as they went on to win 89-42 inside the Kohl Center.
“It was good to get out on the jump like that. Kind of never looked back,” Badgers guard Zach Kinziger, who posted a career-high seven points and four rebounds said in a postgame press conference. “It’s a good feeling after having some closer games to start, it feels good to kind of put it together a little bit on both ends. Now we just got to keep taking steps forward from here.”
With the two-way success, Wisconsin posted a 47-point margin-of-victory—its greatest since a 90-37 blowout of the Florida A&M Rattlers on December 23, 2016. It was the first time any team has beaten Fairfield by 40+ since the Stags suffered a 41-point defeat while visiting the Providence Friars on November 25, 2020.