MADISON — Saying it’s tough to beat Wisconsin at home would be an understatement. In fact, to say it’s anything other than nearly impossible is a lie.

According to the statistics that Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan has racked up in his 10 seasons with the Badgers, an opposing team entering the Kohl Center has just a seven-percent chance of leaving with a victory.

Michigan coach John Beilein has never won on the main court at the Kohl Center. And Wednesday was no different, with Michigan dropping its game against Wisconsin, 66-50.

“I just heard everybody talking about how hard it is to play there and they haven’t been losing like other Big Ten schools at home, so I knew it was going to be a tough one for us on the road," freshman guard Tim Hardaway Jr. said after Wednesday's game.

The ambiance of the arena was quite different this year since Wisconsin students don’t return to campus for classes until January 18th, but the student section — known as the ‘Grateful Red’ — still filled nearly seven sections of bleachers.

The $76-million facility seats 17,142 fans — more than 3,500 more seats than Crisler Arena, but Ryan doesn’t believe the arena had an effect on the young Wolverines.

“A lot of these guys played in state championships with 20,000 or 10,000, they played in packed gyms,” Ryan said Wednesday. “I think that factor in college now of, ‘Wow, are they gonna go into our place or somebody else’s place and have it effect them.’ I don’t think in this day and age it’s that big of a deal.”

But with the win, Ryan advanced to 71-6 in Big Ten play at the Kohl Center and 145-11 overall. There are just three other teams in the country that play better on their homecourts — Kansas, Duke and Utah State.

For seven first-year Wolverines, the loss in Madison marked the first Big Ten road game of their careers, with an outcome that has occurred frequently. But not a single player on the Michigan roster has ever beaten a Wisconsin squad, home or away.

The most experienced members of the team, juniors Stu Douglass and Zack Novak, are now 0-5 in their matchups against the Badgers. But in the co-captains' two previous seasons, the Wolverines improved greatly from their first to second showing against the Badgers.

In the 2007-08 season, Michigan lost 70-54 to Wisconsin in Crisler Arena, before coming back and losing by just three at the Kohl Center. The following year, the Wolverines lost by nine points in the first matchup of the season and lost by just five in the second contest.

“Obviously this is a great facility and a great atmosphere in the Big Ten,” administrative specialist and captain of the 2007-08 team C.J. Lee said Wednesday. “We always played well for 25 to 30 minutes and then we’d have those lapses where we wouldn’t score and we wouldn’t get stops, and a similar thing happened tonight.”

In Ryan's ten-year tenure, the Badgers have dropped just 11 games on their home court. Six were Big Ten games, but just three schools have managed to upend Wisconsin in Madison — Purdue, Minnesota and Illinois. The Badgers have fallen to the Fighting Illini three times, the Boilermakers twice, and the Gophers once.