The Minnesota-Wisconsin men’s basketball rivalry has been a one-sided deal since 2020, and Gophers head coach Ben Johnson knows that isn’t going to cut it.

“We got to hold our end of the bargain better,” he said Tuesday.

The Badgers extended its winning streak to nine straight games — eight with Johnson on the sideline — with a 74-67 win over the Gophers on Senior Night in front of an announced sellout of 14,625 at Williams Arena.

The 12th-ranked Badgers (23-7, 13-6) were a six-point favorite but the Gophers (15-15, 7-12) cut the lead to 61-58 with four minutes left.

John Blackwell finished with a game-high 25 points.

Leading scorer John Tonje picked up his fourth foul with nine minutes left and went to the bench.

Tonje returned and appeared to hook Brennan Rigsby, with Rigsby hitting the court, but no call was made and he made a lay-up with 1:48 remaining. Tonje added four free throws to ice the game to give him 19 points.

Besides Frank Mitchell going 5 for 5, the rest of Minnesota’s players were shooting 25% from the field until Brennan Rigsby provided a jolt midway through the second half. His eight points helped Minnesota tie the game at 46-46.

Rigsby ended with a game-high 18 points, with Lu’Cye Patterson having 15. Mitchell had 11 and 11 rebounds.

Dawson Garcia eclipsed 2,000 career points with a game-opening 3-pointer, but he didn’t score again the first half. After the crowd-pleasing trey, Wisconsin responded with a 12-0 run. Minnesota missed its next five shots.

The Gophers fell to 2-8 in Big Ten home games this season, including letdown losses to Penn State and Northwestern in late February.

Johnson was looking for a response.

“There are going to be a ton of people here,” Johnson said Tuesday. “It’s Senior Night. You are coming off a good win. Can we emotionally handle everything that is going to coming (Wednesday)? I don’t think we necessarily handled that well the last two home games.”

Minnesota did came back with their own 9-0 spurt to make it 12-12. The Gophers were switching defenders on all ball screens and Wisconsin shot 46% from the field in the first half to take a 33-27 lead at the break.

Badgers guard Max Klesmit, who is averaging 9.7 points per game, missed his second straight game with a lower-body injury.