UW-Green Bay's only lead came at 19:46 in the first half and lasted 13 seconds.
Senior guard Ray Nixon scored the first Badger points and at 19:33 and started their 8-0 run with two back-to-back 3-pointers. Four other Badgers hit 3-pointers in the first half: junior forward Jason Chappell, junior forward Alando Tucker, junior guard Kammron Taylor, and sophomore guard Michael Flowers each added a shot from beyond the arc.
Flowers also continued to establish his reputation as a force on the other half of the court, holding UW-Green Bay's second-leading scorer, freshman forward Ryan Tillema, to zero points for the game and grabbing six steals, a career high.
'When [the Badgers] went to a smaller lineup, he was a little bit more of a match-up problem,' said UW-Green Bay coach Tod Kowalczyk of Flowers' defense. 'We needed to do a little bit better job of posting him up.'
'[His energy] was needed,' UW-Madison coach Bo Ryan said. 'Michael is one of those guys who always is working on his PHD'he's poor, hungry and driven, and I want guys to stay that way; I don't want him to change; I don't coach pretty boys; I don't coach guys who aren't competitors.'
Compete they did. The first half ended and UW-Green Bay had clawed its way back to within three points after trailing by 10, Badgers 40, Phoenix 37. They stuck within this margin through the first three minutes of the second half. Then the Badgers, leading by one point three minutes into the second half, blew up for a 24-9 run and never looked back.
'That was the story of the game,' said Kowalczyk. 'When you're not making shots, you better get stops. That's when I thought Tucker's athleticism took over [for the Badgers]...We didn't do a good job of guarding him during that run.'
The Badger offense was solid and balanced, eight of the 11 Badgers with minutes scoring five or more points. Tucker led the team with 18, 10 coming in the second half. Chappell, Tucker and Taylor were integral to the offensive balance finding three assists each, but Flowers led the category with four.
The Phoenix stayed with the Badgers for roughly 30 minutes before the cardinal and white took control. Tucker commented that it took some time for the Badgers to match the intensity with which the Phoenix was playing. He took it upon himself to be the game-changer for UW-Madison.
'I thought we were dead for a while,' said Tucker. 'I told the guys, you know, at one point, I said, 'Give me the ball and I'm gonna score for you.' And that's basically how it went.'
