He riled up the Badgers crowd early in its eventual 75-64 win over No. 3 Marquette — a third straight win over its I-94 rival for the first time since it won four from 1998 to 2001 — rising quickly on the left wing for a highly contested 3 he drained. His third of five 3s gave Wisconsin a 27-16 lead. He reacted passionately and urged the crowd to join him, putting his hands in the air and lifting up his fingers to siphon them.

In the first half, the Badgers went as far as Klesmit took them, to a 13-point  halftime lead with 21 points . But then, he didn’t score for the remainder of the game.

Last year, perhaps there would have been a different ending. Wisconsin (6-2) did have a similar outcome in its 2022 matchup with the Golden Eagles (6-2), getting 16 first-half points from point guard Chucky Hepburn only to weather a storm without him for most of the second half. But this large returning group of Wisconsin players had been part of several collapses before missing the NCAA Tournament last year.

Saturday, the shooting stalled (the Badgers missed all seven of their second-half 3s), Klesmit’s dynamic play was gone, but Wisconsin still outplayed — with team defense, rebounding and free throw shooting — one of the country’s best teams for all but eight minutes to secure its best win of the season (and perhaps one of the best wins it could possibly grasp with its schedule).

“I think now they believe,” Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Greg Gard said.  “They believe in what our coaches have been talking about, kind of the vision of what we made out way back in the summer for what we thought this team could be and how good they can be. And you still got to go do it. You got to go earn it and you got to finish games.”

Marquette tested the Badgers’ newfound ability to win tight games. The Golden Eagles turned the Badgers over four times leading to six points during a 15-2 run that started with Kam Jones’ 3 with 3 seconds left in the first half.

Following the Badgers’ comeback win over SMU, Gard had alluded to the idea that this year’s Wisconsin team was better equipped to handle difficult situations. Part of that was by necessity, as the three-game stretch for Wisconsin of the Golden Eagles, at Michigan State on Tuesday and at Arizona on Saturday was the second such daunting stretch of the season, already having faced several marquee programs in the Fort Myers Tip-Off and with a trip to Providence.

“Maybe you won’t always get the same result, but the response is that much better than what it was,” Gard said Saturday. “Part of that’s just growth and maturity, they’re another year older.”

This team, to reach its potential, needed to fight through things. And its response didn’t come via any other outlier individual performance. Marquette cut the Badgers’ lead to one point and then Wisconsin won by playing within itself, never trailing after its first basket 17 seconds into the game.

Wisconsin shot 42.6% to Marquette’s 41.8%, but outrebounded the Golden Eagles 38-23, outscored them at the free-throw line by 13 points, pulled in eight more offensive rebounds and forced nearly three more turnovers (11) than Marquette’s season average of 8.6 — which was the fifth fewest in the country entering Saturday.

“A punch was going to come,” Wisconsin senior Steven Crowl said, “and it was just all about how we’re going to handle that. And I think we responded pretty well.”

Crowl and Wahl each collected four offensive rebounds with several more up and down the lineup hand-fighting and throwing around their bodies to create extra opportunities out of bounds or draw loose ball fouls. With the Badgers up 60-55, Wahl and Crowl secured one apiece on the same possession. Then when Badgers guard AJ Storr drove to the rim on the third opportunity, Crowl secured his second offensive rebound of the possession to clean up the miss and make it 62-55 Wisconsin.

It was the same formula Wisconsin used to shift the game against a team it was heavily favored in Western Illinois on Monday, now working against the Golden Eagles. The Badgers kept responding again and again until it was time for Klesmit to lead them once more.

The game was well over by the time it happened. Wisconsin had secured its upset and a whistle toward the end of regulation nearly sent the Badgers bench (and student section around them) running onto the floor. But Klesmit, again passionately, ushered team off the court, waving his hands as he flapped at his teammates with the vigor of a flightless bird. The shot clock had expired, so Wisconsin needed Marquette to throw in one more inbounds. Then the Badgers could finally finish.

“It’s fun to be out there with these guys,” Klesmit said after the game. “Especially when we’re winning.”

After a brief pause, that finally came. Marquette tossed the ball onto the floor and a sea of white ran onto the court in a frenzy, not a second of passion wasted in a stunning early-season win.