SPORTS
Not again: Badgers stunned by Boilers
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Also by Mike Ackerstein:
- UW faces struggling Illinois (February 20, 2008)
- UW hoping to avoid injury bug (February 19, 2008)
- Badgers exterminate pesky Gophers (February 18, 2008)
- Canseco's ethics absent in 'Juiced' (February 14, 2008)
- Bohannon catches fire from deep (February 14, 2008)
Related Stories:
- Young, fearless Purdue squad has bright future (February 11, 2008)
- Badgerball climbs up rankings (January 22, 2002)
- Badgers hit by upset train at Purdue (January 28, 2008)
- Wisconsin suffers heartbreaking OT loss to Purdue (March 5, 2007)
- Purdue ends UW's win streak (February 6, 2003)
by Mike Ackerstein
Monday, February 11, 2008
Statistics don’t always tell the whole story. Saturday
night, they hardly got past the opening sentence.
Wisconsin made 18 more free throws than Purdue, grabbed 21
more rebounds and still found itself the loser of a 72-67 battle. The No. 8
Badgers never led after the first 49 seconds.
“It is a very deceiving stats sheet,” Purdue coach Matt
Painter said. “If you look at the stats sheet, we were outrebounded and they
(Wisconsin) were unbelievable from the free throw line. To be able to get this
win after getting outrebounded the way we did is a little bit unbelievable.”
Though the Badgers dominated the boards and had a
season-best performance from the line, the Boilermakers rode hot shooting to
beat UW for the second time this season.
Freshman Robbie Hummel, whose block in the closing seconds
sealed Purdue’s win in the teams’ first meeting, had a career-high 21 points,
and the Boilermakers shot 53 percent from the field and sank eight 3-pointers
against the Big Ten’s top scoring defense.
“We didn’t think we gave best effort tonight,” junior Joe
Krabbenhoft said. “I think we’re more disappointed in that than the loss.”
Though Wisconsin trailed by as many as 15 points in the
second half, the Badgers rallied back, cutting the lead to just four points
with 1:10 to go.
After Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson only converted one of two free
throws, Wisconsin had control of the ball with a chance to make it a
one-possession game. But Trevon Hughes turned the ball over, allowing Purdue’s
Keaton Grant to throw down a dunk that extended a lead the Boilermakers would
not relinquish.
Hughes’ turnover came while the sophomore tried a risky move
to split Purdue’s defense and was perhaps UW’s most costly one on a night when
the team lost possession 18 times.
“That wasn’t the only one,” Ryan said of Hughes’ miscue.
“There’s 18 lessons in here.”
“When you turn it over 18 times, you usually have to pay.”
Marcus Landry had six of the team’s turnovers, a problem
that set the Badgers back in the earlier loss to the Boilermakers as well.
“We were careless with the ball today,” Landry said.
UW’s last possession came with the team down five and 38.3
seconds remaining, but the Badgers let 18 seconds tick off the clock before
Landry finally settled for a 3-pointer that missed its mark, effectively
sealing Wisconsin’s fourth overall and second Big Ten loss of the season.
“When you’re out there and you’re playing from behind and
things are going a mile a minute… at the time he thought that was a good
decision,” Ryan said of Landry’s look. “He’s hit a three like that during the
season.”
Wisconsin was led in scoring by fellow guards Michael
Flowers and Jason Bohannon, who scored 14 points each. Joe Krabbenhoft also
added 12, complimented by nine rebounds. Four Badgers (Flowers, Bohannon,
Krabbenhoft and Brian Butch) scored in double-figures, but the team was still
held to just 32.7 percent from the field and 16.7 percent on 3-18 shooting from
3-point range.
“To be honest, we had a difficult time guarding them,”
Painter said, “so we just pressured them and got after them to knock out what
they were trying to do.”
Ryan acknowledged that the Badgers were taken out of the
rhythm by Purdue’s aggressiveness.
“Sometimes with the pressure, getting bumped and the
physicality … sometimes we gave in,” Ryan noted.
While UW was having trouble maintaining possession from the
start, Purdue was maximizing its touches with the ball, shooting 6-10 from
behind the arc in the first half and entered halftime with a 42-32 lead.
“Purdue comes in here, made shots, and we didn’t recover,”
Ryan said.
The Boilermakers were able to stretch its lead to 53-38 with
13:02 left, but the Badgers battled back largely on the strength of its
rebounding and free throw shooting.
“I just thought our guys just really hung tough, got on the
glass, got second chance points, hustle opportunities,” Ryan said.
Anonymous (February 11, 2008 @ 10:42am):
What's not deceiving about the stat line is that the Badgers allowed 20 points off of turnovers and shot 3-18 from outside.
The free throws are the only thing that kept us in this game. Would have been an 11+ point loss if we'd been shooting our average from the line.
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