In what was a highly anticipated Top 25 matchup, the No. 6 Wisconsin men’s basketball team dominated the No. 25 Iowa Hawkeyes from start to finish in an 82-50 rout at the Kohl Center Tuesday night.
The Badgers (17-2 overall, 5-1 Big Ten) had four players in double figures led by junior forward Sam Dekker, who had a game-high 17 points and a season-high 8 rebounds, and senior forward Frank Kaminsky who recorded a Big Ten-leading eighth double-double of the season with 13 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists. Sophomore forward Nigel Hayes (16), and sophomore guard Bronson Koenig (13) rounded out Wisconsin’s double digit scorers.
It was no surprise that the Badgers had four of their five starters score in double figures with the way they shared and took care of the ball. Wisconsin had 16 assists on their 29 made field goals and only 1 turnover that came a shot clock violation following an air ball from Dekker.
“I thought our guys did an excellent job making the extra pass and using good ball fakes,” Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan said. “You have to give our guys a lot of credit. There are not too many times you can [have no turnovers].
“Iowa can cause a lot of havoc, and they have,” Ryan said. “I just think our guys made some pretty good decisions and the ball has to go through the hole to get an assist. You got to make some shots.”
The Badgers definitely did make some shots and as a result of their offensive efficiency, were able to get out to a hot start verse the Hawkeyes (13-6 overall, 4-2 Big Ten) and they never looked back.
Early on, with the game tied at 4-4, Kaminsky, Koenig, and senior guard Josh Gasser made three-pointers on three straight possessions to bring the lead to 13-4. From there, the Badgers continued to roll offensively.
Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery did all he could defensively to stop Wisconsin, mixing it up with both man-to-man and zone defenses, but there was nothing he nor his players could to do stop the Badgers.
“We broke down [defensively],” Fran McCaffery said. “They’re an excellent three-point shooting team, but they are also a great one on one team. They spread you and they go. We stayed a little longer than we probably should have on our help. We didn’t recover quickly enough, didn’t rotate quickly enough, and they hit a couple early.”
While Iowa struggled mightily on the defensive side of the ball, Wisconsin’s defensive effort was as great as it has been all season. The Badgers forced the Hawkeyes into 9 turnovers while only allowing 7 assists, and also recorded 6 steals on the night.
“I think we did a great job eliminating their transition points and rebounding the ball so they didn’t get many second opportunities,” Gasser said. “In the scouting report, the goal is a lot of individual stuff, individual tendencies. I think we took away what some of their guys like to do individually.”
Two of those individuals were Iowa’s top scorers on the season in senior forward Aaron White and junior forward Jarrod Uthoff, who average 16.1 and 11.8 points per game respectively. The two were held in check by Wisconsin’s defense, as they combined for just 19 points on 7 of 15 shooting, and doing so was the biggest reason as to why Iowa struggled offensively throughout the game.
In a game where Wisconsin was near perfect on both sides of the ball, the Badgers may have put together their most complete performance and best win of the season thus far.
A big reason for that stems back to Wisconsin’s upset loss to Rutgers on January 11, as they saw, regardless of their competition, that the team needed to play effectively for a full 40 minutes in order to walk away victorious. The Badgers did just that against an Iowa team that has been playing well as of late and had a 32-point margin of victory to show for it.
“We haven’t really shown that all year,” Gasser said of his team’s performance. “We’ve had good spurts throughout the year, but I think tonight might have been our most complete performance.”
Wisconsin will look to continue their great play when they travel to Ann Arbor Saturday to take on the Michigan Wolverines. Tip is scheduled for 6 p.m.
