The Wisconsin Badgers are on a bye week until Saturday, when they face off against No. 7 Purdue. They are doing what many of us are doing: sitting around watching college basketball on an epic Tuesday night in the race for March Madness. The Badgers, while not playing, still were able to see a couple of significant things happen in their favor. The Big Ten race became even more wide open with a couple of surprising games.

Purdue lost to Michigan and fell out of first place in the Big Ten

The first thing that happened was Michigan beating Purdue. This matters for Wisconsin for two major reasons, the first is listed above. Wisconsin can catch and pass the Boilermakers in the Big Ten Standings if they can pull off the upset in Mackey Arena on Saturday. The second is that Michigan showed an avenue for beating Purdue. Not quite a blueprint but a path to success.

The good news for that path of victory is that Wisconsin is even better at the metric Michigan used to beat Purdue than the Wolverines are… free-throw shooting. Michigan shot 26 free throws in comparison to Purdue’s eight. Michigan made 18 of these free throws, and Purdue made six of theirs. This is a 12-point swing, and that right there is one of the significant reasons Michigan won. Wisconsin is the best free-throw shooting team in the country.

Michigan State lost to Indiana and dropped further down the Big Ten standings

The second thing that happened that was advantageous for the Badgers was seeing Sparty go down in a surprising upset. The flailing Indiana Hoosiers were able to topple Tom Izzo’s squad in East Lansing. The Spartans have now lost three of the last four games they’ve played, making them 10-3 in the conference.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that they didn’t look like they could be caught, but now they have lost to USC, UCLA, and Indiana. They are free-falling, and Wisconsin has almost caught them in the standings at 9-4. This makes the race for the top seeds in the Big Ten tournament and a chance at the title still in grasp for the Badgers.

Wisconsin won twice last night without even playing.