The Wisconsin Badgers (17-14) fall short in Chicago, 65-57, to the Ohio State Buckeyes (14-18) in the First Round of the Big Ten Tournament.
Entering today, the Badgers had only played two bad halves in Big Ten play — second half at Indiana & second half at Nebraska — they picked a heck of a time to pick number three.
It was an extremely disappointing and uninspiring first 25 minutes of the game for the Badgers, particularly on the defensive end. The fact that they had at least seven missed layups in that span certainly didn’t help.
Ohio State was the more physical team and played with more urgency the first 25 minutes.
I’m proud of the fight in the final 15 minutes of the game and UW cut the 27-point deficit to four, but ultimately ran out of gas.
At one point in the second half, UW went on a 19-2 run, yet still trailed by five points.
Moral of the story: Don’t spot your opponent a 27-point lead.
Greg Gard postgame said: “By the time we rallied and got aggressive, we dug ourselves in way too deep of a hole.”
Gard also didn’t think that UW was physical enough with Ohio State shooters, evidenced by Wisconsin only committing four team fouls in the opening half. UW gave OSU’s shooters too much shooting confidence early.
Wisconsin was just 21-for-61 (34.4%) from the field, 4-for-22 (18.2%) from 3-point range and 11-for-18 (61.1%) at the free throw line.
UW committed 10 turnovers, which isn’t a horrible number, but a few of them came at key times, particularly in the first half that got OSU going.
You can name 50 flaws with this team, but you CANNOT say they don’t keep playing hard for Greg Gard.
For those of you delusional Gard haters that want him fired….I’ve got news for you, his job is safe and he’s not going anywhere, nor should he!
UW will put forth a 17-14 record in front of the committee, including an 11-13 record in Quad 1/2 games. Is it enough? We’ll see.
When asked about Selection Sunday, Greg Gard said: “I’m not a bracketologist. If we are (selected), we’ll get ready to go. If not, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to put ourselves in position (that we’ve missed on).”
I’ll be attending church Sunday morning and saying a lot of prayers.
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