The Wisconsin Badgers hit the road on Thursday night for a tricky road matchup against Nebraska basketball. The Cornhuskers have been good at home this season, and they were slight favorites over the Badgers in this one. It looked like it was going to be a blowout win for Wisconsin, however, as the Badgers led by 18 points with 17 minutes to go. Nebraska wasn't done, though.
Wisconsin basketball completely collapsed in the second half on Thursday night. Nebraska closed the second half on a 38-20 run to come all the way back from that 18-point deficit, and they controlled the overtime period to come away with a huge 80-72 win over the 6th ranked Badgers. Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard wasn't happy with his team's shot selection.
“Even in the first half we took some (bad) shots and talked about the shot quality needs to be better,” Greg Gard said, according to an article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It’s OK when it is one or two. But when it continues to be questionable decision after questionable decision, we’ve got to catch ourselves and we can’t continue to rely on that.”
This has been a very good season for Wisconsin so far, but the Badgers went away from a lot of the things that have gotten them this far. Gard wasn't happy about that.
“I thought we got completely away from what makes us good,” Gard said. “The shots we settled for at times and then obviously turning the ball over. Gambling defensively when we didn’t need to gamble. Just doing some very uncharacteristic things.”
On defense, things weren't much better for Wisconsin. The Cornhuskers were burying threes left and right, and one player that got going for Nebraska was C.J. Wilcher.
“C.J. Wilcher is the one that got going tonight and he had been playing well,” Gard said. “That’s not a surprise. He had been shooting it well. He can get it off quick. Doesn’t need a lot of space. (Our) offense isn’t going to be there when you’re not getting to the free-throw line and you’re taking a lot of two-point jump shots and bad threes. We’ve got to get back to being more disciplined in terms of shot selection.”
Gard wasn't the only one that was upset after the loss. His Wisconsin players weren't pleased either. These losses happened last year, and Chucky Hepburn wasn't happy that they let it happen again.
“Games like this are supposed to be left in the past,” Chucky Hepburn said. “We’re supposed to know how to finish games. Tonight, we just didn’t come out and show that same intensity we have the past couple games. Last year showed us we can’t rest with a big lead. We had a lot of missed opportunities last year and we’re supposed to learn from that.”
Steven Crowl noticed the same issue that his coach did. Wisconsin basketball simply wasn't taking good shots.
“It kind of plays with your head,” Steven Crowl said in regards double teams. “That’s not something you see every day, but I’ve got to be more aggressive and get shots up. We’ve got to try to get better shots. And it goes back to me getting the ball in the post a little bit more and being more aggressive and getting more than two shots up.”
Wisconsin is now 16-5 overall on the season and 8-2 in Big Ten conference play. The loss dropped them from first place in the conference standings as they are now .5 games back of Purdue. It's going to be a tight race to the finish line. The Badgers return to action on Sunday for a critical home game against the Boilermakers.
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