In the midst of No. 10 Wisconsin’s (7-1 Big Ten, 18-3 overall) putrid shooting performance Saturday afternoon against Rutgers, head coach Greg Gard resorted to jokes to loosen up his players.
“Why did the cookie go to the hospital?” Gard asked his players during one huddle. “Because he was feeling kind of crummy.”
The Badgers as a team felt crummy for most of the game Saturday afternoon. Trailing for the majority of the game, UW shot a dreadful 33 percent from the field and an even worse 12 percent from three.
But Wisconsin was able to prevail and taste sweet victory Saturday afternoon. Tuesday, as Gard and the Badgers travel to Champaign to face Illinois (3-6, 13-9), UW will look to play a more proficient offensive game against an Illinois team that is far better at home than on the road.
The Fighting Illini already have six conference losses, but are 3-1 at home in the Big Ten. In each of their home conference wins against Ohio State, Michigan and Iowa, the Fighting Illini have scored at least 75 points.
Illinois’ best scorer, senior guard Malcolm Hill, averages more points at home than on the road and has had considerable success against Wisconsin in the past.
Hill had a game-high 20 points and seven rebounds in Illinois’ loss in Madison last February. When the Badgers visited Champaign last winter, Hill scored 22 points in another Illinois loss.
While the Fighting Illini have been better offensively at home than on the road, their defense has struggled no matter where they are playing. They are 13th in the Big Ten in both scoring defense, allowing more than 72 points per game, and opponent field goal percentage.
Wisconsin, coming off of its worst shooting game of the season, will look to take full advantage of such struggles.
“You can’t yell people into shooting better,” Gard said at his weekly press conference. “The shooting component, you can’t make that emotional. That has to be a feel and relaxed instinct that they need to draw upon.”
Saturday afternoon, when, as senior guard Bronson Koenig said postgame, UW couldn’t “throw it into the ocean,” Gard trusted his experienced team to execute down the stretch, even without consistent perimeter shooting.
Shots weren’t falling, but he was content with his team’s looks.
“We just had to keep having confidence that eventually one of them was going to go down,” Gard said. “So as long as the quality of the shot is good, I don’t have a problem with that as long as we’re playing inside out.”
On the inside, sophomore forward Ethan Happ is averaging just over 17 points in conference play.
On the perimeter, Koenig currently leads the Big Ten conference in three-point percentage, 50 percent, and attempts, 3.1, per game.
Koenig though made only two of his 10 three-point attempts against the Scarlet Knights.
Against a prolific home team like the Fighting Illini, UW will need to knock down shots from the outside to prevail Tuesday night or else, as Gard joked to his team Saturday afternoon, they’ll leave Champaign feeling “kind of crummy.”
Tipoff for Wisconsin and Illinois is at 8 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.
