Wisconsin Basketball returns home after snapping a two-game losing streak to play a sliding Purdue team who still has one of the better players in the country so what are the keys to the game for the Badgers?
Everything seemed to be going great for Wisconsin basketball. They were about to close out the non-conference slate with just two losses and the defeats were justifiable. The Badgers went on the road to play a Western Kentucky team with potential, but were barely .500. The Hilltoppers got Wisconsin in a classic trap game. Wisconsin returned home and fell to Minnesota.
The hot shooting of D’Mitrik Trice has cooled off. There’s no doubt that he had one of the hottest hands in college basketball, but he really struggled. It started against Grambling, but it wasn’t much of a game. It continued into the game against Western Kentucky and that costed him.
The game against Minnesota was a simple case of Big Ten play. It was in Madison, but they usually play each other two times per season. The guard play got overmatched against Minnesota. Amir Coffey couldn’t miss in the first half, Dupree McBrayer went to the line seven times and Brock Stull put in two important three-pointers in the second half.
Trice shot 30 percent from the field, Brad Davison only scored two baskets and neither of them went to the line. Brevin Pritzl and Kobe King both shot a three-pointer off the bench, but the back court of Minnesota was just too much at times.
Wisconsin was able to get Jordan Murphy fouled out and had Daniel Oturu playing with four fouls halfway through the second half. But other than Ethan Happ who had eight rebounds and Nate Reuvers who came up with five, no one else was crashing the boards. The two front court guys were the only Badgers in double-digits.
Wisconsin had the ultimate response. They went to Happy Valley and came up with a 19-point win. The play of Reuvers is evolving. He was in double-digits once again, made a three-point shot and blocked five shots. Happ came up with 22 points and eight boards of his own while Davison went three-for-three from outside. Wisconsin got 19-points from its bench and Aleem Ford didn’t even make a shot.
They still only went to the line five times combined as a team. Somehow Wisconsin put 71 and only made three shots from the line. It was certainly a nice get-right game and it was done on the road of all things.
Wisconsin will now get a Purdue team that has lost six games already. The Boilermakers have had a pretty difficult schedule, but only has wins over Maryland and Iowa to show for it. Purdue struggled to find a rhythm against a good Michigan State team on Tuesday. They have a quick turnaround going from the Breslin Center to the Kohl Center. Wisconsin will try and hand them their seventh loss. What do they have to do to accomplish that?