Coming off of two straight losses for the first time all season, the Badgers needed to fix something. They had to get their mojo back with the regular season wound down and the Big Ten Tournament fast approaching.
They did just that with a 71-60 win over then-No. 23 Maryland, and they’ll need to do it again as No. 16 Wisconsin (11-3 Big Ten, 22-5 overall) heads to Columbus, Ohio, to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes (5-10, 15-13) for the second time this year.
Despite an eight-game win streak from mid-January to mid-February, it was clear that the Badgers were starting to stumble. Sloppy, stagnant offense led to tight wins over weak opponents, and the two-game skid that followed seemed bound to happen. But with the postseason right around the corner, UW finally felt comfortable in its victory over the Terrapins.
“We just needed to play better and we needed to continue to do that and continue to improve,” associate head coach Lamont Paris said. “The season’s winding down, the Big Ten tournament is coming, anything after that is coming, we have to be playing well. Those are the teams that advance.”
The Badgers currently sit in second place in the conference standings, half a game behind No. 14 Purdue. With only four games left in the regular season, the UW players know that each game is critical for their chances of winning the Big Ten.
The Buckeyes are the next roadblock on the path to the conference title. Though the Badgers easily dispatched OSU back in January, no one on the team is banking on an easy win in the Value City Arena.
“Some teams just don’t shoot the ball well sometimes. I think that happened with them that game,” redshirt senior guard Zak Showalter said. “We gotta be ready for a much better offensive attack this week and know that just because we beat them by whatever we beat them [by] last game, it’s not gonna be that easy.”
A big part of UW’s resurgence in the second half against Maryland was the play of redshirt freshman guard Brevin Pritzl. Known as a sharpshooter, Pritzl did just about everything but hit a 3-pointer, finishing with seven points and seven rebounds, five of which came on the offensive end.
“Everybody thinks when I came here all I was was a shooter, but in reality what I did in AAU and high school was offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding, mix it up,” Pritzl said.
His teammates all echo those same sentiments, emphasizing his ability to move off the ball and find openings in the defense. It was quick thinking like that led to a strong, and-1 dunk in the first half of the game with the Terrapins.
“Sometimes shooters can just stick to only [being] a shooter, then you don’t really develop the rest of your game,” Showalter said. “But I think he’s done a great job of really developing his all-around game.”
Pritzl’s role will likely continue to grow in prominence as the Badgers start preparing for the Big Ten Tournament, and that journey starts in Columbus. With marquee matchups with some of college basketball’s heavyweights on the horizon, fine-tuning Pritzl’s game—and everyone else’s—is the focus right now.
Tipoff for the Badgers’ game with Ohio State is set for 8 p.m.
