Wisconsin sports fans can’t have nice things.
I don’t even know what to say anymore about this season. Just gut punch after gut punch, as the Wisconsin Badgers (16-13, 8-11 B1G) lose another heartbreaker, this time to the No. 5 Purdue Boilermakers (25-5, 14-5 B1G) by a final of 63-61 from the Kohl Center.
The margin of error continues to be extremely small for the Badgers.
UW had a turnover under Purdue’s hoop coming out of a timeout…led to a PU 3.
Steven Crowl had an easy putback late, but opted to try and dunk it with one hand…and missed.
Take away one of those and the Badgers beat the No. 5 team in the country. It’s been the story since January.
Someone needs to make a play in the closing seconds at some point. It’s getting exhausting coming up just short.
In Wisconsin’s last five losses, the end of regulation point differential has been: 2, 0, 1, 0, and 2. So nine points is the difference between 16-13 and 21-9, and that’s not including the non-conference slate either.
At some point you’d think the Badgers would just luck into one of these wins.
Purdue did a great job defensively on Tyler Wahl (2-for-11) and Steven Crowl (1-for-5) and prevented either from getting going and give them many clean looks. UW is going to have a tough time winning when the two of them go a combined 3-for-16 (18.8%).
Isaac Lindsey gave the Badgers a spark in the first half when Connor Essegian was battling foul trouble. Lindsey had eight points on 3-for-3 shooting in five minutes.
This is just another really painful loss. But UW came to play today, UW was well coached (as usual), and the crowd was good.
Wisconsin is now 8-11 in Big Ten play and could be finishing in the bottom four of the conference for the first time since the 1997-98 season.
Max Klesmit had another great game today, finishing with 19 points, four rebounds and an assist in 36 minutes.
With UW trailing 58-57 with 36 seconds left, Klesmit drove and missed a driving layup when it appeared to be some contact for a foul.
I don’t hate the no-call in that situation, but if you’re going to call what Zach Edey got all night, including just a handful of possessions prior, when he wasn’t shooting….you gotta call that.
Klesmit took the high road in his postgame interview and didn’t blame the officials, saying: “I missed it.”
Up Next:
The Wisconsin Badgers will travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota to take on arch-rival Minnesota Golden Gophers (8-20, 2-16 B1G) at Williams Arena on Sunday, March 5th. Tipoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (Central Time) and will be nationally televised on FS1.
If you’d like to support & subscribe to my website, you can do so by clicking here.