The Badgers sorely missed Bronson Koenig against Michigan Thursday as they watched 3-pointer after 3-pointer clang off the rim in their second-straight conference loss. But Sunday afternoon against Maryland, Koenig was the spark that ignited the UW offense.
In his first game back from a calf injury, the senior guard played 31 minutes and scored nine points, including two critical jump shots that woke the Badgers up in the second half. Behind his presence, redshirt sophomore forward Ethan Happ and senior forward Nigel Hayes, No. 11 Wisconsin (11-3 Big Ten, 22-5 overall) got back on track with a 71-60 win over No. 23 Maryland (10-4, 22-5).
The Badgers came out of the gates looking lethargic, scoring just 27 points on 28 percent shooting from the field in the first half. Yet even with their shoddy performance on the offensive end, they found themselves dead even with a ranked team with 1:11 remaining before halftime.
But with redshirt senior guard Zak Showalter and sophomore forward Khalil Iverson sitting for most of the half with two fouls, there was no one on the court for UW to contain Terrapin superstar Melo Trimble. He drilled deep 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions while Hayes and Koenig both airballed jump shots heading into halftime.
The Badgers would immediately turn it on out of the locker room, though. They hit a few quick layups to bring the game to within three points, then Koenig hit a deep 3-pointer from the right wing to knot the game at 36. Just over 30 seconds later, he caused a defender to fly by with a pump fake and took a one-dribble pull-up that found nothing but net, and the Kohl Center blew up.
With a packed crowd, the stadium was significantly louder than in previous games all afternoon, and helped the Badgers gain traction every time the game started to get out of hand.
“This place was unbelievable, and that’s a credit to our fans,” head coach Greg Gard said. “I thought they were as loud as they’ve ever been today, and that was terrific.”
Happ punctuated what was a 19-5 run to start the half as UW opened up an eight-point lead, which would never get closer than a three-point difference for the rest of the game.
Trimble was one of the only performers for UMD, as he dropped 27 of his team’s 60 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field. But despite his dominance, he was held in check by Showalter every time the Badger guard was on the court.
With Showalter in the game, Trimble was held without a field goal until 8:22 in the second half, by which time the Badgers had already built up a healthy eight-point lead. Outside of free throws, his only points with Showalter on the court came in that 61-second span around the eight-minute mark.
Redshirt freshman guard Brevin Pritzl played big minutes after not seeing the court against the Wolverines. He snagged five offensive rebounds and gave the Kohl Center crowd a treat with a big and-1 dunk late in the first half.
The Badgers took a season-high 37 free throw attempts in the game, their most in a regular-season conference contest since February of 2013. Though they converted a heinous 56.8 percent of those attempts, getting physical and drawing fouls in the paint is something Gard has been trying to emphasize all year.
“We finished around the rim. We didn’t fade away, we went strong through people. We drew fouls,” Gard said. “That makes us really good. When the threes go down—and that will happen—then we’ll start to sparkle and shine, but we have to find other ways.”
The victory pulls the Badgers even with the No. 16 Purdue Boilermakers, who beat UW in West Lafayette back in early January. With the regular season coming to a close and their lead in the Big Ten standings evaporating, the Badgers know that they will need to fight in every game for the rest of the year for this quality win over a ranked opponent to matter at all.
“What’s it worth? It means we were able to stay in a tie for now with Purdue,” Gard said.
