After a big victory, coaches often say 'A win is a win.' However, for the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team, (6-4 Big Ten, 16-7 overall) Wednesday night's 72-54 drubbing of Indiana accomplished a lot more than just putting another 'W' in the win column. It pulled them out of a five loss in six game slide that not only threatened to drop the Badgers from the Big Ten title race, but also from contention for the NCAA tournament.
Early on, things looked startlingly similar to Wisconsin's Jan. 31 contest against Illinois, where a frenzied Kohl Center crowd witnessed the Badgers build a big lead in the first half only to quickly relinquish it. After a three-pointer by senior forward Ray Nixon gave the Badgers a 20-6 lead at the 9:38 mark, the Hoosiers (5-4, 13-7) quickly ripped off a 10-0 run that threatened to erase the Badgers lead. But unlike the Illinois game, the Badgers were able to scrape together enough offense to keep Indiana a comfortable distance away and led 31-22 at the half.
'What we did a better job this time is getting back to getting some good looks and knocking them down,' head coach Bo Ryan said. 'I'd like to tell you there was something we did differently, some wrinkle we put in, but no.'
Though the Badgers were tough on the defensive end all night, they were aided in large part by a Hoosiers squad that simply could not hit their open looks, as evidenced by their 29-percent performance from the field.
'Like I said to Mike [Davis], we just had a couple of games like this where we couldn't knock shots down,' Ryan said. 'They had pretty good looks, and some nights it isn't going to come out through the bottom of that net.'
Indiana also shot poorly from behind the arc, hitting only 2-of-10, uncharacteristic for a team that came in shooting a solid 43 percent from behind the arc.
In the second half, a combination of foul trouble on Indiana senior forward Marco Killingsworth (14 points, 8 rebounds) and the dominating play of junior forward Alando Tucker proved too much for the Hoosiers to overcome.
After Indiana pulled within 49-38, the closest they would get in the second half, the Badgers went on an 8-0 run that was capped by back-to-back three-pointers by sophomore guard Tanner Bronson and Nixon to put Wisconsin up 19, after which the game was never again in question.
Tucker in particular put any Hoosier hopes of victory to rest with an impressive all-around performance (29 points, 6 rebounds, 12-20 shooting) and during the second half repeatedly scored inside on Indiana's weak interior defense, who sorely missed Killingsworth's intimidating post presence.
Progress was also made in the Badgers' search for an elusive third scorer as Nixon contributed 13 points.
Wisconsin will next take on Penn State who, despite their lowly conference standing, is more than capable of pulling off an upset as exhibited by their recent victory on the road against Illinois.
