Wisconsin peaking at right time after upsetting Big Ten No. 1-seed Purdue

In overtime, fellow junior guard Max Klesmit, who joined Wisconsin last season after two years at Wofford, hit the winning floater with 4.8 seconds remaining.

Head coach Greg Gard praised his team's execution down the stretch and noted its improvement during the Big Ten tournament.

"We're playing really well. We've got all our pieces," said Gard.

Hepburn was 9-of-12 from the field and led the team with 22 points, advancing the Badgers to their first Big Ten conference tournament championship game since 2017.

They haven't won a Big Ten tournament since 2015, when they entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed and reached the national championship game before losing to Duke.

Wisconsin missed March Madness last season and began the 2023-24 campaign unranked in the Associated Press top 25 poll.

It entered the rankings for the first time on Dec. 4, peaked at No. 6 on Jan. 29 and fell off the poll on Feb. 19.

Wisconsin entered the Big Ten tournament have gone just 3-8 in its last 11 games, looking like an eventual one-and-done in the big dance. That stretch included two losses to Purdue, which had won six in a row entering Saturday's game.

Instead, the Badgers appear to have returned to their early-to-midseason form from mid-November through January. During that span, they went 15-2, shot 37.1 percent from beyond the arc and outscored opponents by an average of 10.4 points per game.

Wisconsin already proved once that it can get hot for an extended period. We'll see how far this second peak extends.