Badgers Continue to Roll With Big Road Win Over Illini

If there is one thing that Badger fans should have learned by now it would be to never count a Bo Ryan-coached team out for the count. After Wisconsin men’s basketball dropped three straight to fall to 1-3 in Big Ten play, many thought the season was headed for a disastrous finish. But after Sunday’s 67-63 win at No. 25 Illinois (4-3 Big Ten, 15-5 Overall), UW is right back in the Big Ten title hunt and playing as well as anyone in the conference.

After finding themselves in an early 7-2 hole, UW (5-3 Big Ten, 16-3 Overall) responded with a quick 16-4 run that gave them a seven-point lead just under halfway into the opening half.

“You don’t want to get the crowd too into it and you want to get your confidence going,” sophomore guard Josh Gasser said. “To get one to go down early is definitely big and then we can get it going from there.”

After a first half that saw the lead change hands seven times, finishing with a tie at 26, the second half was another seesaw affair. Illinois took the lead first, extending their cushion to as much as four with just over nine minutes to play. Senior guard Jordan Taylor got the Badgers within a basket with a quick floater then junior forward Mike Bruesewitz buried a three-pointer, erasing Illinois’ final lead of the game with just under either minutes left.

The Badgers knew that victory hinged in large part on their ability to hold Illinois junior guard Brandon Paul and sophomore forward Myers Leonard in check. Leonard, coming in averaging over 13 points and 7.5 rebounds per game, struggled for most of the first half, managing just two points on 1-of-5 shooting.

“We’re not long and lanky outside of the five spot,” UW head coach Bo Ryan said. “So we have to work hard to try and not allow looks in the post.”

Perhaps more importantly, Gasser held Paul to just 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting, never really impacting the game. This after the Gurnee, Ill native put up 43 points against Ohio State in the Illini’s last home game back on January 10^th.

“Brandon Paul’s been playing with a lot of confidence and probably has been the best player in the league the past couple games,” Taylor said. “Josh {Gasser} came in and did an outstanding job to slow him down a little bit.”

While Leonard picked up his game in the 2^nd half, finishing with 16 points and 11 rebounds, Berggren matched him step-for-step. The Princeton, Minn native had perhaps his best performance since the loss at North Carolina back in early December, finishing with 18 points and 5 rebounds while staying out of foul trouble defending on the interior.

“{Jared} knocked down some huge threes and also down low he had some nice moves,” Gasser said. “When Jared is playing like that, it is tough to stop us.”

But as the Badgers looked to close the game out in the second half, it was Taylor who got them to the finish line. Managing only 5 points in the opening half, Taylor turned up the heat down the stretch, finishing with a game-high 19 points, a team-high 9 rebounds, and a perfect 5 assists to zero turnovers.

“I just try and run stuff that we run everyday in practice. When the opportunity presents itself, I just try to take shots and knock them down…” Taylor said. “I’m still not shooting a great percentage, but I will take the win.”

Wisconsin struggled at the line, making just three of their first ten tries at the line. But despite the struggles (finishing 10-of-18), Taylor was about as clutch as it gets coming down the home stretch. The Bloomington, Minn native posted UW’s final seven points, icing the game by hitting five consecutive free throws right in front of Illinois’ vaunted “Orange Krush”.

“He is our leader…” Berggren said of Taylor. “He is as clutch as they come down the stretch.”

“We have struggled at times this year at the free throw line,” Taylor said. “But I feel like when we have actually needed to step up and knock them down, we have.”

Already the only Big Ten team with at least five wins away from home, the Badgers are now 6-2 in road or neutral-site games. With wins at Purdue and Illinois, UW has swept games in West Lafayette and Champaign for the first time since 1918.

More importantly, Wisconsin is now 5-3 in conference play and just a half game behind the top spot, a far cry from where they stood just two weeks ago after losing at Michigan.

“It’s a crazy league…” Berggren said. “It’s a long season and everyone is going to take some bumps. We were able to fight and scratch our way back into things and now we are in a pretty good position”