It wasn’t pretty, but Wisconsin was still able to slog through a tenacious Penn State team and put another Big Ten road win on the board. The Badgers (12-1 Big Ten, 24-2 overall) prevailed 55-47 over a Nittany Lions team (3-11, 15-12) that played very unlike the Big Ten’s cellar dweller.
Coming into this game, a few things were clear: Win or loss, Penn State was going to ride star senior guard D.J. Newbill. Wisconsin held a clear frontcourt advantage that would be continuously leveraged. If Penn State was going to have a chance, it would have to grind UW out and force them to settle for jump shots.
Pretty much all of that happened.
To call Penn State a one-man team would probably still have been an understatement for Newbill, who finished with a game-high 29 points on 13-21 shooting. The next highest-scoring Nittany Lion was junior forward Brandon Taylor with seven.
Senior guard Josh Gasser drew the Newbill assignment and still struggled, as Newbill routinely broke into the paint and single-handedly kept the Nittany Lions in the game.
Overall, Newbill accounted for 61.7 percent of Penn State’s points, 61.9 percent of its made baskets and 60 percent of its assists, along with all of its attempted free throws.
He also recorded the team’s first 12 points, but the Badgers held a healthy 21-12 lead at that point. Both teams ran cold after that, going a five-minute stretch with three total points scored. Things picked up at the end of the half though, with the Badgers leading 31-24 as they ran back into the locker room.
Wisconsin opened the second half on a 15-6 run to seemingly put the game out of reach at 46-30, but Penn State was able to keep it close until the final minutes. At one point UW only led by five with three minutes left.
To their credit, the Nittany Lions played Wisconsin closer than anyone expected. They actually won the paint scoring battle 30-20 and kept senior center Frank Kaminsky out of his comfort zone for most of the night.
After making his first three field goal attempts, Kaminsky shot 1-9 for the rest of the game to finish with a lower-than-expected 16 points, considering the Nittany Lions’ lack of frontcourt depth.
Junior forward Sam Dekker was able to pick up most of that scoring slack with a career-high 22 points on 9-13 shooting, along with a highlight reverse dunk at the start of the game. Sophomore forward Nigel Hayes also chipped in nine points and 13 rebounds, which tied his career high in boards.
It wasn’t a smooth game for Wisconsin, and it’s easy to see where this one could have turned for the worse had the Nittany Lions possessed a single secondary scoring option. Of UW’s five starters, Gasser registered the lowest number of minutes with a still-high 34. In total, UW’s bench registered 20 minutes and zero points.
Bench production will probably increase when Traevon Jackson’s return pushes Bronson Koenig back to the bench, but it’s still a problem that could rear its head during tournament time.
For now though, the Badgers will take their ninth straight win and move on to a border battle with the Minnesota Golden Gophers (5-8, 16-10) this Saturday at the Kohl Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 11 a.m.
