Behind a 25-8 run in the last eight minutes of the first half, Wisconsin erased an early Marquette lead and defeated the Golden Eagles 77-63 Saturday afternoon at the Kohl Center.
In the second half, the Badgers only outscored the Golden Eagles by one point, 33-32, but the late first-half run was enough to secure the victory.
'[At] the TV timeout at the eight-minute mark, we had a four-point lead. I never liked our demeanor the rest of the first half,' Marquette head coach Tom Crean said. 'We were very aggressive early on, and we were doing a good job defensively. We were following the game plan, we had a four-point lead; we kept it. We did that for just a little bit longer, but then we lost our aggressiveness defensively.'
Badger head coach Bo Ryan also saw a change in the game during that stretch.
'I would say the last two four-minutes periods were pretty good to us,' Ryan said. 'We were sound defensively, and I thought offensively we moved the ball pretty well to get good shots.'
Scoring was not the only area that hurt the Golden Eagles; they missed seven field goals, compiled four of their 11 first-half turnovers and racked up five fouls.
Wisconsin's numbers in these eight minutes made the half for them, and proved to be the key to victory. After the TV time out, the Badgers hit 11 of their 19 first-half field goals, made three of their seven first-half steals, grabbed three of their six first-half offensive rebounds and pulled down seven of their nine first-half defensive rebounds. Marquette's senior forward Steve Novak made no excuses for Marquette.
'I think we did have them down by a bucket or two, and we didn't have the urgency we needed at that point, we needed to keep putting them away,' he said. 'Coming out of that timeout, it seemed like the tempo of the game changed for us, and they were a little more aggressive than we were.'
'We were able to get points, they were coming up dry,' Ryan said. 'It wasn't anything special, anything different. I'd love to tell you it was a coaching move, but that had nothing to do with it. Our players executed during those last couple TV time out stretches a little bit better, and that's why we went into halftime with a lead.'
At the half, Wisconsin led by 13 points, shooting a solid 50 percent from the field and 45 percent from beyond the arc. Marquette had 11 turnovers to the Badgers' two, shooting just 14 percent (1 for 7).
It was a more balanced second half between the Badgers and the Golden Eagles. Both teams had poor shooting from the field, 29 percent for Marquette and 35 percent for Wisconsin, but UW made them pay from the foul line. Wisconsin scored 15 of their 33 second-half points off of those opportunities, going 63 percent from the line in the second half.
Said junior forward Alando Tucker of Wisconsin's second-half mentality, 'We just wanted to stay solid. We wanted to make sure that we didn't try to do too much in the second half. We just wanted to stay solid and maintain our lead, but at the same time be aggressive.'
