For the Badgers, a trip to West Lafayette, Ind. was supposed to be a cure for what has been ailing them of late. Losers of four of their last five coming into the game, a matchup with the last-place Boilermakers looked to be a relatively easy victory that would snap the Badgers out of their recent slump and keep them in the thick of the Big Ten title race.
Unfortunately for the Badgers (5-4 Big Ten, 15-7 overall), Purdue (2-8 Big Ten, 8-13 overall) had other ideas and rode the strong interior play of junior forward Marcus White (18 points, 6 rebounds) and senior forward Matt Kiefer (16 points, 8 rebounds) to a 70-62 victory before 11,502 at Mackey Arena Saturday night.
'We saw this coming, just from every game they were playing they were right there with a lot of teams,' head coach Bo Ryan said.
Things looked good early for the Badgers after junior guard Kammron Taylor hit his second three-pointer of the game to give the Badgers a 10-2 lead. But from there, it went downhill as Wisconsin went ice cold and did not score for more than seven minutes, and with 5:08 to go in the first half trailed 29-17. Poor shooting for the Badgers and the hot hand of Kiefer, who scored all 16 of his points in the first half, contributed to a seven point Boilermaker lead at the break.
Wisconsin closed to within five after junior forward Alando Tucker (game high-22 points) made a layup to open the second half scoring. But this would be as close as the Badgers would get the rest of the game as Purdue quickly pushed the lead back to 11 and would lead by double digits for the majority of the second half.
After sophomore guard Michael Flowers hit a 3-pointer to pull the Badgers within 61-51 with 4:26 remaining, he missed a chance to cut the lead to single digits when he failed to convert a breakaway layup after getting a steal at center court.
Tucker would pull the Badgers within five with 2:05 remaining, but ultimately it was too little too late as Wisconsin could not get the critical stops Purdue required to make a play for the lead.
As has been the case with so many Badger losses this season, the inability to convert from behind the arc again came into play. Wisconsin shot only 5-18, good for a lowly 28 percent, as no one besides Taylor or Flowers could hit from deep.
While the Badgers managed to contain Kiefer in the second half, the same could not be said of the athletic White, who scored all of his 12 second-half points no more than a foot or two from the basket.
'In the first half [Kiefer] was tough. White took over in the second half,' Ryan said following the loss.
If Wisconsin did not already have enough problems defending the post, the team may have to consider inserting walk-on freshman forward Kevin Gullikson into the starting lineup. The extent of sophomore forward Brian Butch's ankle injury he suffered in the closing minutes of the loss is unknown at this time.
With the loss, the one-time Big Ten frontrunners now find themselves in sole possession of third place as they collected their fourth conference loss. Though they still remain only two games out of the lead, trailing 7-2 Iowa, there are six teams currently ahead of the Badgers in the standings, making a return to the top a daunting prospect.
Wisconsin will face equally desperate Indiana Wednesday night at the Kohl Center, where staying in the NCAA tournament hunt has suddenly taken precedence over any Big Ten title aspirations.
