After a poor defensive effort Friday night that ended with an 84-74 loss to No. 14 Creighton, Wisconsin needed a bounce back effort Saturday against Arkansas to avoid heading into the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in a tailspin. Although the Badgers continued to struggle en route to a 40-29 halftime deficit, they recovered with their best half of basketball thus far this season and left Sin City with a 77-70 victory in the third-place game of the Las Vegas Invitational.
Having struggled mightily against the pressure shown by both Creighton and Florida, UW was in a tough spot facing a Razorback team that played the “fastest 40 minutes” style of their head coach, former Missouri head coach Mike Anderson. With just a day to prepare for the constant pressure Arkansas would show, the Badgers were clearly slow to adjust, committing eight first-half turnovers that resulted in 13 Razorback points.
But as ugly as the first twenty minutes were for UW, the final twenty were a complete reversal. Sparked by two quick three-pointers that cut the Arkansas lead to just five less than two minutes into the half, Wisconsin erased the Razorback lead with a 16-5 run to finally tie the game with 12:18 left.
“We were frustrated at halftime,” senior forward Mike Bruesewitz said of the locker room atmosphere at halftime. “We knew we could play better. In the second half we took care of the ball better, knocked down shots and played defense. That’s exactly what we needed to do and that’s exactly what we talked about in the locker room.”
One of the Badgers who led the charge was freshman Sam Dekker. Coming into the game averaging 10 points in just over 18 minutes, the Sheboygan native gave Wisconsin 12 big second-half points en route to a career and team-high 19 for the game.
Bruesewitz also played a key role in the turnaround. Despite spending most of the night in foul trouble, the St Paul, Minn., native finished with 11 points and nine rebounds in his best performance since an injury that left him out of practice for most of the preseason.
After UW made its initial run, the lead would change hands a total of six times (including ties) before the Badgers finally took control on a three-point play by Dekker off an explosive back cut and a perfect feed from senior center Jared Berggren. When the subsequent free throw was made by the freshman, Wisconsin had a 61-58 lead they would not relinquish over the final 5:56.
“We were hungry,” Bruesewitz added. “We were in the same position last night with six or seven minutes left and didn’t get it done. Tonight we did.”
One of the reasons the Badgers were finally able to close this game out was an improvement at the free throw line. After starting the game 8-for-19 from the charity stripe, UW finished strong by making 17 of their final 19 attempts in the second half.
More importantly, however, UW executed in the second half far better than they had in their previous five periods against major conference opponents.
“There was nothing said in that locker room at halftime that wasn’t said before the game,” UW head coach Bo Ryan said. “The guys just executed better and stuck to our plan.”
With Virginia and California set to visit the Kohl Center this week and a trip to Marquette just a week later, the Badgers need to continue executing on that game plan in order to build that momentum in one of the toughest stretches of non-conference play Wisconsin has seen in some time.
