The Badgers once again will be facing one of the Big Ten perennial cellar-dwellers when they roll into Northwestern tonight for what should be a victory for the conference’s third-place team.

However, the Badgers did lose to last-place Penn State on the road and nearly gave up a late lead at the Kohl Center Saturday, so no one will be taking this game as a sure thing.

After losing badly to Illinois last Wednesday, the Badgers were able to beat a last-place Penn State team 66-63 Saturday at home. As has been the pattern this season, the Badgers blew the late lead and only led by one point with less than 20 seconds to play. Fortunately for the Badgers, they were able to walk away with the victory and move back into third place in the conference.

This year the Wildcats are 11-7 and 2-4 in conference, with wins against Iowa at home and on the road against Michigan. Northwestern lost its most recent Big Ten game against a struggling Purdue team 61-63.

Northwestern has a nice inside-outside game and is led in scoring by junior guard Jitim Young, who scores nearly 14 points per contest. On the inside, the Wildcats have a pair of forwards who have each been very productive this season. Junior forward Winston Blake is averaging over 13 points, while last year’s leading scorer, 6-foot-8 senior forward Tavaras Hardy, is averaging 12.1 points and is the fourth leading rebounder in the Big Ten with an average 7.1 boards per game.

The game is being played at Welsh-Ryan Arena, where the Badgers are 33-34 all-time. However, the Badgers have struggled mightily on the road this season, going just 4-7, and have blown several leads — something which coaches have struggled to correct, and have, to a large extent.

Badger coach Bo Ryan knows that his team has walked a fine line so far this season and that things could have gone differently, but insists the team will continue to take things one game at a time.

“It’s that fine line that we talked about before. If it’s 5-3, the teams in this league know the next eight could be a lot different. We are hoping we can go out there and maintain home court and steal one or two on the road — that would be nice,” said Ryan. “Going 12-9 with six losses coming very early, I like the way the guys have responded and answered the call of the things we have asked.”

Amazingly, Northwestern is the only one of the original Big Ten teams that Wisconsin owns a winning record against. The Badgers are 95-57 against NU all-time and have won eight of the last nine meetings, holding Northwestern to an average of 43.9 points in those games.

Northwestern is coached by Bill Carmody, who is in his second year as head coach at NU, after stepping down from the Princeton head coaching position. At Princeton, he compiled a 92-25 record over four years, and now Carmody has Northwestern playing the type of basketball that brought Princeton so much success.

Carmody is coaching an athletic and disciplined team in Northwestern that will attempt to play a slow-down style of basketball with tenacious defense that may remind some observers of a Bennett-coached team. However, Northwestern will use back-door cuts exclusively.

This will be another new experience for the young Badgers, and their maturity may be tested. The Badgers’ man-to-man defense will have to communicate and stay in the passing lanes throughout the entire shot clock in order to force Northwestern out of its offense. This may be one of the few occasions that the Badgers are clearly the team with the more up-tempo style of play.

The Badgers have placed themselves in a position to make a serious run at an NCAA tournament berth, but they must now begin to finish out games on the road. A slip-up in a game in which they are clear favorites would be devastating to their chances, and with games against Ohio State and Indiana on the schedule, this contest becomes all the more important.

Though others are talking about the tournament and games to come down the road, Coach Ryan remains focused on improving and taking things one game at a time.

“There are a lot of people that are acting surprised [about how we are playing], but we just try to file it away and go to play Northwestern,” Ryan said.