What was supposed to be a walk in the park for the No. 9 Wisconsin men's basketball team in their final exhibition game against Division III opponent Carroll College Wednesday night, turned into a tough matchup. At least until the second half.
After UW took a two-point lead just over three minutes into the game on a 3-pointer by junior guard Michael Flowers, Carroll College was able to use their transition and long-range games to exploit the Badgers early building up a 19-10 lead. UW was unable to regain the lead until freshman guard Jason Bohannon knocked down a 3-pointer of his own with just over four minutes left in the first half, 26-25.
However, the Badgers took over in the second half, and a fast-break layup by Bohannon with less than a minute left stretched the Badger lead to 20. UW would go on to win by that same margin, 81-61.
""The thing is, you can't get it back in one possession. So you keep chipping away,"" UW head coach Bo Ryan said. ""Basketball is like that.""
Senior guard Kammron Taylor led the way with 14 points, six assists and no turnovers, while Flowers and sophomore forward Marcus Landry pitched in with 11 and 10, respectively.
Ryan praised Flowers for not only his offensive play, but also his hustle defensively and left him on the floor because of it. Flowers' 32 minutes was the high mark for the Badgers.
""If a guy is going to play defense like that and set that kind of example, you need to have that guy out there,"" Ryan said. ""Everybody knows how to get rewarded in this game, if you're working hard and doing the right things.
Senior forward Alando Tucker was virtually a non-factor for the second game in a row. Tucker shot 4-of-12 from the field, including 0-of-5 from the 3-point arc, and finished with nine points. The Badgers' John Wooden Award candidate scored only five points on 2 of 8 shooting against UW-Stout last Friday night.
After building up a six-point lead at the end of the first half, the Badgers took over in the second half. With just over seven minutes remaining, Carroll sophomore guard Wes Ladwig had a four-point play that cut the UW lead down to eight. But that is as close as the Pioneers would get and a late 11-1 run, capped off by a jumper by Landry, stretched the lead to 19.
The Badgers were able to hold senior guard Nathan Drury to just 2-of-12 shooting, but senior forward Buck Colomy torched UW to the tune of 25 points, including 12 from long range.
""When we got those defensive rebounds, we pushed the ball up the court, passed the ball up the court to the open man,"" Drury said of the Pioneer offensive attack that knocked down 11 shots from behind the arc. ""Then from that we used our transition to look for each other, set up our screens and we got open looks and if we got open looks we got some pretty good shooters who can knock them down.
The Badgers missed many open looks from close. Landry emphasized the need for UW to place more importance on each individual possession.
""We didn't finish around the basket like we wanted to, but when you have teams like this, you have to treat every possession like it's your last one,"" he said.
Though the Pioneers were able to score on the Badger defense, they only shot 34 percent from the floor and 37 percent from 3-point range. For the Pioneers and their head coach David Schlutz, it was more about the opportunity than anything.
""We competed for forty minutes,"" Schultz said ""And for us it's something we can build on and for our players coming over, it's the most fun they had in a loss.""
The Badgers kick off their regular season Sunday at 4 p.m. in the Kohl Center, when they take on Mercer.
Badgers announce signings
The Badgers announced Wednesday that three players have signed letters of intent. Tim Jarmusz, Jon Leuer and Keaton Nankavil all will play basketball for Wisconsin in fall 2007.
Jarmusz is a guard who helped Oshkosh West to the Division I state title last year as a junior, averaging 13 points, five rebounds and three assists a game.
From Long Lake, Minn., Leuer is a 6'10 forward who averaged 18 points and eight rebounds a game as a junior. Leuer earned honorable mention all-state and all-conference honors.
Madison-native Nankivil might be the most heralded recruit coming in. He led Madison Memorial to a 24-2 record last year and lost to Oshkosh West in the state title game. The forward averaged 16 points and eight rebounds per game, which earned him Big Eight Conference, All-City and All-Area player of the year honors.
