It wasn’t a pretty finish, but it didn’t need to be. The Wisconsin Badgers (15-10, 7-8 B1G) won a thriller at the Kohl Center, taking down the Michigan Wolverines (14-12, 8-7 B1G) by a final of 64-59, despite going 0-for-15 from the field in the final 10:45 of the game.
The atmosphere at the Kohl Center was like a frenzy, clearly fueled by the Juwan Howard incident from last season as well as Hunter Dickinson’s comments calling Wisconsin “scumbags” on a podcast earlier this year.
Michigan took a 32-31 lead into halftime, largely due to Steven Crowl’s 3-for-10 and Chucky Hepburn’s 1-for-5 first half shooting, which had UW as a team shooting just 36-percent from the field.
UW jumped out of the gates and outscored Michigan 23-10 in the second half to take a 54-42 lead with 10:27 remaining.
Then the Badgers suffered the worst cold stretch of the season, where they didn’t hit a field goal the rest of the game (0-15), which allowed Michigan to creep back into it.
Luckily, Wisconsin’s defense was able to answer the bell and held Michigan to just 2-of-11 from the field to finish the game, where the Wolverines went nearly seven minutes without a bucket.
At the end of the day, with the game on the line, Chucky Hepburn generated a game-securing steal, eventually providing the Badgers with their 15th win of the season in a game they quite frankly really needed to win.
The Badgers defense shut down Hunter Dickinson in the second half. Dickinson was 0-for-3 from the field in the final 20 minutes after shooting 4-of-6 in the first half.
Connor Essegian was fantastic offensively for UW in the win. Essegian finished with a career-high 23 points on 6-of-12 from the field, with three rebounds and an assist.
The thing I loved from Essegian was that he didn’t settle for 3-pointers, he stayed aggressive and attacked the rim.
The kid is clutch and a special player.
The game ball in Tuesday’s win over Michigan goes to an unlikely hero. Kamari McGee played his tail off on both ends of the court and provided a much needed spark for UW.
Jordan Davis and Carter Gilmore had their moments off the bench as well, but McGee was HUGE.
McGee got the most playing time of the season (13:42) and scored a season-high six points, but most importantly he had a big rebound and an assist.
We all know about the UW struggled at the free throw line since the calendar flipped to 2023, but here’s a surprising stat to those that follow the program and actually watch the games: UW made 14-of-18 (77.8%) free throws for the game, they hit 12-of-14 (85.7%) in the second half, and 9-of-10 (90%) in the final 3:25 of the game. In the final 3:25, Essegian hit 7-of-8 and Klesmit went 2-for-2.
This was a monster win for the Badgers and hopefully the confidence of this one will carry over to we can see the Badgers that began the year 11-2.
Up Next:
The Wisconsin Badgers will host the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (16-10, 8-7 B1G) at the Kohl Center for Alumni Day on Saturday, February 18th, in another big game for UW.
Tipoff is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. (Central Time) and will be televised on the Big Ten Network (BTN).
If you’d like to support & subscribe to my website, you can subscribe by clicking here.