MADISON – Wisconsin withstood a late challenge from Denver on Monday night to win its season opener 75-68 at the Kohl Center. Player of the Game: Braeden Carrington Wisconsin is lucky Carrington got a fifth year of eligibility, because they could have been in trouble without some big baskets d own the stretch to help the Badgers avoid the upset. Denver had cut a 17-point lead down to four with 8:12 left when Carrington hit his first shot from deep. He then hit 3s on back-to-back trips to give Wisconsin a 13-point lead. Carrington finished with 15 points, while adding four rebounds and four assists, also earned some praise for his work on the defensive side, too. “If you really study him, he’s on the floor, he’s cutting dribbles off, recovering, contesting, and then you add in what he can do offensively,” coach Greg Gard said. “But he’s a much better defensive player than I think people really realize just because everybody gets so enamored with his three-point shooting.” Braeden Carrington is on fire!! Subscribe/watch on B1G+ https://t.co/wD5JkagziP pic.twitter.com/XvpyThBwl2 — Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) November 3, 2026 The good: Debuts Several players made their Wisconsin debuts on Monday night, including a pair of starters in guard Owen Foxwell and wing Eian Elmer. Foxwell had 14 points on 50 percent shooting, with 10 of those points coming on drives down the left side of the lane that he finished with layups. He also added seven assists, and the Badgers were 13 points better than Denver when he was on the floor. Elmer was limited to 25 minutes, but he led the way with 18 points and drew a team-high five fouls. The Miami (Ohio) transfer closed the game out with four points and two rebounds in the final two minutes. A solid debut for The Glue Guy pic.twitter.com/RUMVlLWwXJ — Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) November 3, 2026 The not so good: The shooting Carrington’s 3-pointers saved Wisconsin, but the rest of the shooting left plenty to be desired. The Badgers went 6-for-26 (23.1 percent) from beyond the arc, while shooting an even more alarming 7-for-18 from the free-throw line. That 38.9 percent was the worst for the club since going 4-for-11 at Indiana in 2023. In fact, they hadn’t shot below 50 percent in a game since then. “Somebody opened the door up in concourse to let the wind fly through,” Gard said when asked about the free throw shooting. We’ll be better. We just got to go up confidently.Sometimes that’s as much as you know. We make 18 threes against Oklahoma State and how contagious perimeter shooting was. It can go the other way too.” Stat of the Game: 46 That’s how many points Wisconsin had in the paint. It’s a good number for a team that had a significant advantage in size. But 32 of those came in the first half and left Gard lamenting them not being able to keep that going in the final 20 minutes. What They Said: “No, there will be a lot of coaching points…We did not play to our standard. That’s how we want to play the game and the rhythm we need to get into. But as I told the team, a little game pressure sometimes is good, especially early, because we haven’t had any really, and you can’t simulate some of the stuff in practice.” – Gard on whether he liked the performance from his team In Case You Missed It — Nolan Winter didn’t have his best night, shooting just 3-for-10 and scoring six points. Gard said he liked the effort from Winter in grabbing 14 rebounds, but needed him to be more physical and aggressive on the offensive end. — Wisconsin got just 16 points from its bench, with Austin Rapp scoring nine of those. The junior also had five rebounds. — The Badgers forced 16 turnovers, including a pair of steals from Elmer and Rapp. They turned those into nine points. — Denver got a game-high 27 points from Carson Johnson. What’s Next Wisconsin (1-0) will welcome Delaware to the Kohl Center on Friday ...read more read less