[media-credit name=’DEREK MONTGOMERY/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]The Wisconsin men’s basketball team (16-5, 7-3 Big Ten) got a career-high 26 points from sophomore Kammron Taylor as well as 20 from senior Mike Wilkinson in overcoming a 13-point second-half deficit to beat Iowa (15-7, 3-6), 72-69, in front of 17,142 at the Kohl Center.

The difference in the game came down to free throws. Wisconsin made 27 of their 35 attempts, including going 11-14 over the final 3:27 to seal the victory. At the other end of the court, Iowa made just seven of the 15 free throws they attempted.

“We committed 10 more fouls than they committed and they got to the line 20 more times,” Iowa head coach Steve Alford said. “That’s a very difficult stat to overcome.”

The Badgers’ two leading scorers, Taylor and Wilkinson, were the biggest beneficiaries of the difference in free throws attempted, as Taylor went 9-10 from the line and Wilkinson went 10-12. The duo combined to shoot 9-11 during the stretch run that saw the Badgers hang on to a slim lead as the Hawkeyes tried to fight back in the final minutes.

“Well, Wilkinson got to the line 12 times, so he did a great job getting to the line and making the most of it,” Alford said. “[Taylor] got to the free-throw line 10 times.”

Wisconsin never got into a rhythm during the first 28 minutes of the game, falling behind numerous times. With 12:44 left in the second half, Iowa’s Jeff Horner hit a 3-pointer that gave the Hawkeyes their biggest lead, a 13-point advantage, at 52-39. It was Horner’s third 3-pointer during a five-minute stretch that saw Iowa extend a four-point advantage to 13. However, Horner and Iowa went cold after that, opening the door for Wisconsin’s comeback.

“We didn’t do a lot of things right up to that point in the game [when the Badgers were down 13], yet we still found a way to get things done at the end of game and when we needed to,” Wilkinson said. “But we need to come ready to play like that all the time.”

While the Badgers may not have played their best basketball during the first 28 minutes of the game, they turned things around over the final 12.

After Iowa opened its 13-point lead, Wisconsin put together a 15-2 run over the next seven minutes to tie the game up at 54 with 5:42 remaining in the game.

“We didn’t get too anxious when we got down,” Taylor said. “We took one possession at a time and I think we executed pretty well down the stretch.”

Taylor led the charge with six points in the game-turning run. The sophomore poured in a pair of 3-pointers including a fade-away 3 from the right corner with the shot clock down to just three seconds to even the score. However, it was Wilkinson who set the tone early in the run, as he aggressively attacked the basket, getting a pair of buckets as well as a free throw in back-to-back possessions to trim Iowa’s lead to three.

“The key was in the second half, when Mike [Wilkinson], on a couple dribble attacks, a couple things that he did that said, ‘Get on my back, we’re going to win this thing,'” Badger head coach Bo Ryan said. “By him making sure there was attention being paid to the post, that allowed some of the perimeter stuff to take place.”

After the Badgers tied up the score, Wilkinson and Iowa’s leading scorer Greg Brunner exchanged baskets. Taylor’s third and final 3-pointer of the game put Wisconsin up for good, and outside of an Alando Tucker lay-up, the long-distance jumper was the final field goal the Badgers scored in the game.

The first half was much like the second half, as Iowa jumped out to an early nine-point lead only to see it evaporate by halftime. Brunner scored 16 of his game-high 27 points in the first half on a myriad of moves to the basket, with a handful of jump shots strewn in.

While the Hawkeyes’ lead reached nine with 11:35 left in the first half, it took the Badgers the rest of the half to slowly chip away at the lead. Finally, with the clock showing 0.0, Wilkinson made a pair of free throws to send the two teams into their locker rooms with the score tied at 34-34.

“Iowa came in here, and their coach Steve (Alford) and his guys had them ready to do some things and they did those things pretty well,” Ryan said. “Finally we started to take some of those things away from them.”

While not always pretty, it was a scrappy battle right to the end of the game, with Wisconsin proving to be just a bit tougher.

“It was a hard-fought game,” Ryan said. “That’s as hard a contested game as I think we’ve been in.”