Wisconsin basketball is set to tip off the 2024-25 regular season at home on Monday against Holy Cross.
Wisconsin basketball begins the regular season on Monday at 7 p.m. at home against Holy Cross. This is the first matchup between these two programs. In Wisconsin’s singular exhibition game on October 30th, they took down DIII opponent UW-River Falls 78-62 in what was a surprisingly competitive matchup.
General Information
Teams: Wisconsin (0-0) and Holy Cross (0-0)
Tip time: 7 p.m. CST (8 p.m. EST)
Watch: B1G+
Listen: Badger Radio Network
What to know about Holy Cross
Holy Cross has struggled in recent years. The Crusaders posted a record of 10-23. Two of Holy Cross’ three top scorers from last season, Joe Octave and Bo Montgomery, have graduated. ESPN’s BPI Power Index has ranked Holy Cross 331st out of 364 teams.
The Crusaders will likely try to upset the Badgers by shooting from deep. Last year, they were 35.4% from three-point land on over 700 attempts as a team.
Latest on Wisconsin basketball
Wisconsin’s exhibition matchup against UW-River Falls took the Badgers the full 40 minutes to pull out a 78-62 victory.
Transfer guard John Tonje, who was in the starting five, led the scoring with 15 points. Kamari McGee got meaningful playing time off the bench, racking up six assists, and owning the highest plus-minus of the game at +22. One other positive sign was that the Badgers went 11-32 from three-point land. In their 2023-24 campaign, Wisconsin made 10 or more threes in just seven games.
There were some alarming sights from the exhibition, one of which being the fact that they were outscored in the paint despite Steven Crowl and Nolan Winter outsizing every UW-Rvier Falls player by at least three inches. John Blackwell, who is taking over the role of starting point guard, was just 1-9 from the field. Max Klesmit was 0-5 from the field and failed to score in the contest.