Wisconsin’s starting lineup did most of the heavy lifting for the Badgers in a 68-57 win over Michigan, but Sunday night belonged to Jordan Smith.
The redshirt senior guard, the lone senior on UW’s roster this season, took center stage for a Senior Day ceremony prior to tip-off. And later, with the win in hand for Wisconsin, Smith trotted out back into the spotlight for his Kohl Center curtain call.
After subbing in to a raucous standing ovation from the Badger faithful with 34 seconds left in the game, Smith corralled a rebound off a missed 3-pointer by Michigan’s Aubrey Dawkins and was fouled, giving him a chance to record points in the final home game of his collegiate career.
It was an opportunity that he wasn’t going to let slip away.
Smith buried both free throws, making him Wisconsin’s leading scorer off the bench, and checked back out of the game to a standing ovation from the Kohl Center crowd.
“He's committed a lot to this program and any time you have somebody come in and walk on, pay their own way to go to school here and then decided to redshirt, to stay another year even though you come in with Frank [Kaminsky] and Trae Jackson, he gave up a chance to go out in his graduating class with those two,” UW interim head coach Greg Gard said. “You leave that group you came in with, that tells a lot about his commitment to this place and how important this program is to him.”
Of course, to provide Smith a chance to have his moment of glory, his teammates first built a comfortable lead thanks to an impressive run down the stretch of the second half.
Junior guard Bronson Koenig had one of his best performances of the season, scoring 19 points, grabbing three rebounds and dishing out two assists without turning the ball over even once. Koenig, who was 6-of-10 from the field, showed off his full offensive arsenal, going 3-of-6 from 3-point range while also attacking the basket for a couple layups. Koenig’s first three of the night extended his streak of games with at least one made 3-pointer to 40, setting a new school record.
In addition, he was making a concerted effort to chase down and fight for loose balls, including a diving save to prevent a backcourt violation in the first half, something Michigan head coach John Beilein felt that the Badgers as a team did particularly well.
“The 50-50 balls, they were getting all of them,” Beilein said. “Koenig and [Zak] Showalter were just so much more active than some of our perimeter guys in getting loose basketballs.”
Wisconsin’s starting frontcourt also did some major damage to the Wolverine defense, especially in the second half. Junior forward Nigel Hayes scored 16 points to go along with seven rebounds and a team-high four assists; junior forward Vitto Brown added 14 points, including a career-high four 3-pointers in six attempts from behind the arc; and redshirt freshman forward Ethan Happ chipped in 12 points, six rebounds and two steals, though he was also responsible for four of the team’s 11 turnovers.
In the first half, Michigan, like many of UW’s recent opponents, double-teamed Happ and Hayes anytime they got the ball in the paint to try and limit the Badgers’ post game. While they were successful over the first 20 minutes, the floodgates would eventually open in the second half.
After attempting just two shots in the first half, Happ went 3 of 5 from the floor in the second, with two of his buckets helping spark a 21-8 run that put away the Wolverines for good. Meanwhile, Hayes went 4-of-5 from the field in the second half after going just 3 of 9 over the first 20 minutes.
“I thought we did a decent job in the first half. They were just really collapsing down and we had to kick out a lot more,” Happ said. “Once we started hitting shots in the second half, they couldn't be as willing to dump down on us. We were then able to have our room to operate.”
For Michigan (10-7 Big Ten, 20-10 overall), junior Zak Irvin led the way with 14 points, including 10 in the first half, and sophomore forward Ricky Doyle, junior guard Derrick Walton Jr. and redshirt sophomore Duncan Robinson each contributed 10.
But outside of Doyle, who was a perfect 5-of-5 from the field on the evening, the Wolverine offense sputtered in the second half. Michigan had several chances to stop the UW run, but failed to convert on almost any of them, with the most notable example being Walton missing a wide-open layup in transition. After posting 1.00 points per possession in the first half, the Wolverines were held to just 0.84 in the second.
As a team, Wisconsin (11-5, 19-10), who now sits in a four-way tie for second in the Big Ten standings, shot 49 percent from the field and 38.1 percent from the field. Given the Badgers’ struggles at the Kohl Center earlier in the season, where they lost to Western Illinois and Milwaukee and were grinding out victories down to the final second, the fact that they could put away another quality opponent and give a guy like Jordan Smith a chance to bask in the spotlight is a testament to how far they’ve come over the past month and a half.
“I said before we came here how well Wisconsin is playing,” Beilein said. “They're playing as good as anybody in the league and they certainly showed that today.”
