Having started off the week with a dismal effort in
Wednesday’s loss to Virginia, Wisconsin men’s basketball got back on track
quickly Sunday as they cruised to an 81-56 win over previously undefeated
California.
Junior guard Ben Brust led the scoring for the Badgers (5-3)
with a season-high 22 points on 9-of-13 shooting, but it was once again the
energy of freshman Sam Dekker off the bench that sparked the Badgers’ first
half outburst.
Dekker checked in for the first time with 16:19 left in the
half and UW still scoreless. When the Sheboygan native was replaced by Kaminsky
less than 4 minutes later, the 2-0 Cal lead had turned into an 11-point
Wisconsin advantage, Dekker contributing to 10 of the Badgers’ 15 points during
the run.
“Dekker was good,” Cal head coach Mike Montgomery said of
Dekker. “He’s going to be a real nice player.”
“He was able to get a couple creases and he is pretty good
at finishing around the basket…” UW head coach Bo Ryan said. “He’s just
learning, but he did give us a good spark.”
The Badgers got plenty of production up and down the lineup
on their way to a third 80-point effort in the seasons’ first 8 games. Brust
and Dekker were joined in double figures by Evans and fellow senior Jared
Berggren, who followed an inconsistent effort against Virginia with an
18-point, 8-rebound performance that was one of the best Berggren has had thus
far this season.
“There were a lot of the same looks {as against Virginia},”
Brust said of the Badgers’ shooting. “Its just a matter of stepping up to the
plate and finishing the plays.”
While the Golden Bears (6-1) would climb back within 7 later
in the opening half, a 12-0 run by Wisconsin in response effectively ended any
hopes Cal had of leaving Madison unscathed. UW would finish the half with a
13-point cushion and sailed smoothly to victory from there, never trailing by
less than 17 over the final 15 minutes of play.
“They just outplayed us…” Cal junior guard Allen Crabbe
said. “We just dug ourselves too deep a hole in the first half.”
Having struggled most of the season on both the offensive
and defensive glass, UW finally had a good effort in the trenches,
outrebounding a California team that entered the game averaging over 40
rebounds per game. The Badgers converted their 14 offensive rebounds into 18
second-chance points, piling on with another 25 points on 23 California
turnovers.
“We took care of the small stuff,” senior forward Mike
Bruesewitz said. “The team that plays harder generally wins and that’s what we
did tonight.”
Though Wisconsin was able to hold most of the Cal attack in
check, Crabbe was an exception. The Los Angeles native was responsible for
nearly half of the Bears points, finishing with 25 on 8-of-15 from the field.
His teammate in the backcourt, Justin Cobbs, was not as fortunate. After
averaging over 20 points per game coming in, Cobbs was held to just 11 on
3-of-10 shooting, adding insult to injury with 7 turnovers and no assists.
“I thought we did a pretty good job on Cobbs because he has
been scoring like crazy…” Ryan said. “We did a better job of sticking to our
rules, make a guy make a jump shot rather than a layup or a power move at the
basket.”
Having finally gotten their first non-conference win over a
major conference opponent, the Badgers now have just one final tune-up Tuesday against
Nebraska-Omaha before next Saturday’s rivalry game in Milwaukee.
But for a Badger team that has failed to get on more than a
two-game winning streak over the first three-plus weeks of the season, another
tune-up before the duel with Marquette is certainly much needed.
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