WASHINGTON — After falling to Iowa on Jordan Bohannon’s 3-pointer with under 10 seconds to play a week ago, the Badgers walked sullenly into the media room of the Kohl Center and quietly, robotically answered questions.
They had lost five-of-six games, all to teams they should have beaten, giving rise to questions about their NCAA Tournament qualifications.
All that seems a world away now. Just three days later, red-hot Minnesota strolled into Madison, and Wisconsin turned them right around, blowing the Golden Gophers out by 19 points in the second half to end the regular season with a much-needed win.
Friday night at the Verizon Center, the Badgers bested Indiana 70-60, stringing together consecutive wins for the first time in more than a month. That win over Minnesota may have finally brought this team back to its roots.
“We kind of picked up where we left off during the Minnesota game,” senior guard Bronson Koenig said. “[We're] playing more together, we’re playing as a unit, we’re having fun again, we're making the extra pass, and I think now everybody from the guys on the court to everyone on the bench is electric, having fun. It’s a good feeling.”
The Badgers’ issues during their losing stretch were myriad, and it was hard to figure out where the cracks were coming from. Now, finally, for the first time in a long time, all the pieces are starting to fall back into place.
“For a while there, our offense kind of sputtered and our defense was keeping us together. Then once we got the offense going, our defense was kind of lacking,” redshirt sophomore forward Ethan Happ said. “[Now] we're focusing on both, and we’re doing a good job of doing both and not letting one lapse.”
Now armed with a winning streak, the UW players feel like they are back to where they were when they were the No. 7-ranked team in the nation. They’re hitting timely threes, rebounding the ball well and locking down defensively. Koenig said that it’s been a return to the Wisconsin identity that has gotten the team back on track.
And while the Badgers looked like the furthest thing from an elite team during their midseason lull, winning cures all. The players have nearly forgotten about those five losses and want to use a run in the Big Ten Tournament to catapult themselves into another run to the Sweet 16 or beyond.
“Better late than never. March is always better to pick it up. A lot of teams in the past have done that, you know, they kind of started well, had a little wall in the middle of the season,” senior forward Nigel Hayes said. “As long as you pick it up and find yourself at the right time, you can be extremely dangerous, and I think we’re starting to do that.”
