My New Year’s Resolutions For Every Wisconsin Team

With 2026 fast approaching, I looked at several Wisconsin Badgers sports squads and came up with a resolution that makes sense for each of them. (Sorry, “Winning a Natty” is a bit too on the nose for this exercise.)

Here’s to a robust early Happy New Year to Badgers everywhere, and to big things in 2026 for all of us.

Men’s Basketball: Find The Chemistry

While Greg Gard’s team has a really nice level of skill across several positions, the first 40 percent of the season has revealed a weakness: their ability to play together as a cohesive unit. It’s not unusual for Gard’s teams to be a better whole than the sum of its parts, but ’25-26 has been the opposite. There’s too much talent on this team to look as out of sorts and lifeless against good competition as they have. 

So, my Resolution is an improved team chemistry, which will help with everything else, including defense, shot selection, and team leadership (Blackwell/Boyd).

Women’s Hockey: Stay Locked In

This is harder than it seems for teams that are playing at a high level. Coming off a couple of months where everything has gone right, remaining hungry can sometimes be a challenge. So, Mark Johnson and his Badger skaters will need to work to remain focused, knowing that they are, without question, the most talented team in college hockey. 

If they can do this, there’s every reason to think that another national title is waiting for them this spring.

Volleyball: Learn From a Difficult Loss

Nobody can convince me that Wisconsin wasn’t the better squad when they played Kentucky in the Final Four, so I’m still having difficulty processing a tough five-set loss where the Badgers, to be blunt, let the Wildcats off the hook. 

Volleyball is a very tough sport, where the margins between elite teams are tiny, so my hope is that a really tough loss can be instructive for Kelly Sheffield and his team going forward, especially with a higher-than-usual amount of turnover in the transfer portal.

Men’s Hockey: Reach Another Level

Yes, the No. 2 Badgers have overperformed this campaign, finding themselves in first place in the Big Ten as the calendar is about to turn. 

Led by clutch scoring across several lines, responsible defense, and solid goaltending, the team seems nothing like the one that stumbled so badly last season. But the reality is, if aspirations are truly to win a national title, Wisconsin can’t tread water in the second half. They must get even better.

It won’t be easy, but it’s vital. And the Badgers have a talented roster of skilled leaders (Quinn Finley, Christian Fitzgerald, Gavin Morrissey, Ben Dexheimer, amongst others) who have the ability to mine untapped potential. Don’t bet against them.

Wisconsin Football: Finally Forge an Identity

Real talk, it’s deeply frustrating to be talking about Luke Fickell’s Badgers still needing an identity entering Year 4, but here we are.

We saw flashes of what this could be in 2025 in gritty wins over Washington and Illinois, so there’s hope here, but the entire team needs to embrace this. The lack of consistent buy-in has been one of Fick’s biggest issues in his tenure, so it’s a huge deal for him to take that one off the table and focus on other things. The robust number of key guys who have already entered the portal for Wisconsin won’t make this any easier.

Linebackers Mason Posa and Cooper Catalano represent this ideal, so the trick will be getting guys at numerous other positions to adopt a gritty, tough-out attitude. Yes, having health at the quarterback position will help, but it’s a team-wide directive.

Women’s Basketball: Keep The Momentum

While Robin Pingeton was a divisive hire, the early returns have been positive. 

Her experience and demeanor seem to have captured her players’ attention, and the Badgers have looked better than expected so far, including a very nice 78-64 win over No. 20 Michigan State.

Sitting at 9-3 (and 1-0), there are all kinds of directions this season can go, but the final results should be better than the rudderless (and reportedly toxic) culture Pingeton replaced. Momentum will be a big part of that.

Wrestling: Attack The Big Ten Hard 

Sitting at an impressive 8-0, there’s no shame in the early-season results for Chris Bono’s Badgers, who are slotted at No. 19 in the latest NWCA poll.

The problem, as always, will be the conference season. 8 of the 17 teams ahead of Wisconsin in the rankings right now are Big Ten squads, including juggernauts from Penn State (No. 1), Ohio State (No. 2), and Iowa (No. 4).

In the past, the conference slate has proved a house of horrors for Bono. This year, that will need to change, and the hope is that a more talented and confident Badgers will attack conference meets in a way they haven’t recently by being the bully, not the kid shoved in the locker. 

Women’s Soccer: Take Another Step

Paula Wilkins has quietly built a consistent and successful Big Ten Program where being ranked, making the NCAA Tourney, and competing for the top few slots in the conference are now a yearly thing.

But losing in the tournament earlier than they should have has been a thing, most recently this past fall, when 5-seed Baylor knocked out the 4-seed Badgers 1-0 in a game that Wisconsin largely controlled.

Wilkins’ impressive program needs to find a way to take one more step and be its best in the postseason. As Gard’s teams have shown, that’s easier said than done, but I wouldn’t bet against Wilkins.