On Saturday, Wisconsin plays host to No. 12 Minnesota at Kohl Center. It gets started at 2:00 EST and you can see it on Big Ten Network. The Badgers are 3-3 against the Golden Gophers over the last four years. They won 52-45 on 2/28/2012 the last time they played.

Minnesota is in 6th place in the conference and nipping at the heels of 4th place Wisconsin.

In their last match-up on January 22nd, Mike Bruesewitz put up 10 points and 7 rebounds for the Badgers in a loss to Michigan State, 49-47. He is averaging 7.5 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. For the Golden Gophers, Trevor Mbakwe finished with 14 points and 16 rebounds in the 55-48 loss to Northwestern on January 23rd. With 8.6 rebounds per game and 1.7 blocks per game, he has team-best marks in both categories. The Four Factors in which Minnesota stands out are offensive rebounding percentage at 48.0 and free throw rate at 44.4.

Minnesota StatSmack

• Wisconsin has a much better NCSA Power Ranking than Minnesota (#52 vs #81).
• Jared Berggren is ranked 1st in the Big Ten in blocks.
• We're so much better than you, we get lazy. Wisconsin has come back to win after being down at half against Minnesota 6 times since 1996.
• We just win. Wisconsin has more wins over the last 5 years than Minnesota (135 vs 116).
• Ben Brust is ranked 10th in the Big Ten in rebounds and 7th in the Big Ten in three-pointers.
• At least you keep showing up. Wisconsin has an average margin of victory of 9 over Minnesota in 29 wins since 1980.
• AP voters think more highly of Wisconsin and have put us in the AP Top 25 more often over the past 10 years than Minnesota (132 vs 35).
• We have a history of cultivating talent. Over the past 10 years, Wisconsin has had more players drafted by the NBA than Minnesota (3 vs 2).
• Minnesota has to pay up to win. The coach for Wisconsin has a much lower base salary than Minnesota ($1,550,000 vs $1,861,000).
• The Wisconsin three-point leader (Ben Brust) has more three-pointers than the Minnesota three-point leader (Andre Hollins).