Every time the Maryland Terrapins made a run and got within striking distance Saturday night, Wisconsin seemed to have an answer.
As a result, the Badgers picked up their seventh win in a row and the biggest boost yet to their blossoming NCAA Tournament résumé.
Wisconsin (8-4 Big Ten, 16-9 overall) upended No. 2 Maryland (10-3, 22-4) 70-57 on the road, snapping the Terrapins’ 27-game home winning streak and handing them their first conference home loss as a member of the Big Ten.
Junior forward Vitto Brown scored a career-high 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds, while junior guard Bronson Koenig added 16 points and six rebounds to UW’s victory. Junior forward Nigel Hayes had 14 points as well, shooting 4 of 5 from 3-point range but going 0 for 7 on shots from inside the arc.
Meanwhile, sophomore guard Melo Trimble, Maryland’s star point guard who hit a late 3-pointer to lead the Terrapins past Wisconsin earlier in the year, had a rough night offensively. Though Trimble finished with 10 points, he went 1 of 14 from the field and scored eight points from the free-throw line.
As a team, the Badgers shot 41.1 percent from the field, including going 12 of 26 from deep. UW did major damage on the offensive glass, scoring 20 second-chance points on 13 offensive rebounds compared to just four second-chance points on nine offensive rebounds for the Terrapins.
A 12-0 run put Maryland up 14-7 early, but the Badgers struck back with a 23-2 run to seize control of the game. Though Wisconsin took a double-digit lead into the locker room at halftime, an incident involving Maryland freshman center Diamond Stone in the waning seconds of the half caused tempers to flare up and seemed to take some wind out of the Badgers’ sail.
After both men went down at the end of a play, Stone slammed Brown’s head into the floor, sparking an angered response from UW freshman forward Charlie Thomas. Though the incident looked like it would result in an ejection for Stone upon review, officials instead called Stone for a contact technical foul and hit Thomas with a technical foul for his response.
Though the Badgers held a commanding 36-21 lead at halftime, the focus had shifted away from their stellar performance to the incident involving Stone and Brown.
Maryland came out of the locker room in the second half playing much more aggressively and with more energy on both ends of the floor, causing early foul trouble for Wisconsin and leaving UW all out of sorts on offense.
Redshirt freshman forward Ethan Happ and redshirt junior guard Zak Showalter each headed to the bench with four fouls early in the second half, leaving the Badgers without two of their starters for a significant stretch as the Terrapins clawed their way back within striking distance.
A trio of 3-pointers from Koenig, Hayes and Brown kept Maryland at bay temporarily, the Terrapins fought back and cut the deficit to six, getting the Xfinity Center crowd on its feet and putting Wisconsin’s back against the wall.
In desperate need of a spark on offense, UW interim head coach Greg Gard sent Happ and Showalter back into the game with 10:36 remaining, a gamble that ended up paying off huge dividends for the Badgers down the stretch.
Showalter was an unheralded hero for Wisconsin in crunch time. Six of his 11 points came after Gard put him back in the game with four fouls, including a 3-pointer and a highlight-reel drive and finish on a layup.
Happ only scored four points on 2-of-7 shooting, but he grabbed 10 rebounds and gave Wisconsin a post presence that it was desperately lacking at the start of the second half.
The Badgers finished the game on a 25-18 run, staving off Maryland’s rally and securing the biggest win yet of the Greg Gard era.
Now just two games out of first place in the Big Ten standings, Wisconsin will take its winning streak to East Lansing for an 8 p.m. matchup with the Michigan State Spartans this Thursday. A win there would not only be the Badgers’ eighth in a row, but it would add yet another quality victory to an NCAA Tournament résumé that continues to grow stronger and stronger with each passing game.
