For the second time in three days, the No. 3 Wisconsin men’s basketball team has a 30-point victory under their belts.
After the Badgers took down Northern Kentucky 62-31 Friday night, UW (2-0) followed that up by blowing out Chattanooga (1-1) Sunday afternoon at the Kohl Center 89-45.
Preseason First Team All-Big Ten selection Sam Dekker led the way for the Badgers scoring a game-high 18 points to go along with four rebounds and two assists. The Big Ten’s preseason Player of the Year Frank Kaminsky added 15 points, 10 rebounds and four assists to pick up his second double-double in as many games. Traevon Jackson (16) and Nigel Hayes (15) followed after Dekker and Kaminsky in the scoring column for UW.
Hayes continued to show prowess on the glass, adding 13 rebounds to pick up his first double-double of the season. He also knocked down his much-anticipated first career three-pointer in the first half.
The Badgers jumped out to an early lead on the Mocs scoring the first eight points of the game en route to a 20-4 advantage a little more than five minutes into the contest. UW shot 58.1 percent (18-for-31) from the floor including 54.5 percent (6-for-11) from beyond the arc and took a 52-21 lead into halftime.
Four Wisconsin players hit double figures in the first half with Sam Dekker leading the way with 13 points. Hayes finished the first half with a double-double, going for 10 points and 10 rebounds. UW outrebounded the Mocs 26-8 and held them to only 28.6 percent shooting in the first half as well. Wisconsin ended up outrebounding Chattanooga 49-21 over the course of the game.
“Wisconsin’s a great team. I really like their team,” Chattanooga head coach Will Wade said. “They did a phenomenal job. We’re a team that relies a lot on offensive rebounding and obviously you’re not going to get a lot of those when you play Wisconsin.”
It was much of the same in the second half as the Badgers dominated the Mocs on the glass and offensively, outscoring Chattanooga 37-24. The Mocs finished the game shooting only 32.1 percent (18-for-56) and just 27.3 percent (6-for-22) from three. After shooting just 23.5 percent from three in their opening game against Northern Kentucky, UW bounced back and shot 44.4 percent (8-for-18) from beyond the arc Sunday.
“That’s 24 points on 18 shots. That’s what you want,” Ryan said.
Chattanooga is well-known for their up-tempo offense and “chaos” defense that forces turnovers which leads to fast break points. The Mocs scored 110 points in their first game of the season but the Wisconsin defense held them to no fast break points Sunday as they committed just nine turnovers, largely taking Chattanooga out of their preferred style of play.
“They can create some chaos and that’s what they advertise,” Ryan said. “I thought our guys stayed really solid. We had three turnovers there in the last couple of minutes which we shouldn’t of had. But other than that, for about 36 minutes, 37 minutes, I thought we did a real good job of getting looks that we wanted.”
“You can’t run it against Wisconsin,” Wade said of his offense. “They would’ve scored 130 points on us if we would’ve run it against them, so we had to back off of it.”
Sophomore forward Vitto Brown once again came off the bench and provided valuable minutes in the absence of fellow forward Duje Dukan. Brown finished the day with six points and was third on the team with nine rebounds. In two games so far this season, Brown has played 34 minutes and contributed 13 points and 13 rebounds.
“I just want to come in and make a positive impact on the game,” Brown said. “I think getting offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds allows our team to have more opportunities to score.”
“It’s real simple in the way we play. Play defense and rebound and take your scoring opportunities when they come,” Ryan said of Brown. “So he’s done that in his first two games but we’ll play against bigger teams where some of our bigs will be challenged more inside. But he’s brought great energy off the bench.”
Wisconsin will continue their four-game home stretch to open up the season when they take on Green Bay Wednesday night at the Kohl Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m.
