Entering Thursday’s showdown with No. 8 Michigan State, the Wisconsin men’s basketball team had the fates of two different streaks hanging in the balance.
The Badgers were riding a seven-game win streak — the longest active streak in the Big Ten — and were seen as one of the hottest teams in the country.
Conversely, the Badgers were also riding a losing streak, one reaching all the way back to 2004, as the team had not walked out of the Breslin Center in East Lansing with a win since that time.
Unfortunately for Wisconsin, history repeated itself Thursday. The Badgers fell hard to the Spartans in a game that was never close, which not only ended the team’s seven-game win streak, but extended their eight-game losing streak in the “Izzone.”
But while Thursday’s result is disappointing given the roll this once-failing Wisconsin team was on, now is the time to remember: streaks in any form are meaningless.
The Badgers were not expected to win Thursday. They were 10-point underdogs against a team that matched their size and overmatched their talent with future All-American Denzel Valentine leading the way. Just as their hot shooting streak had to end — the team hit 36 threes in three games — their winning streak ultimately had to as well.
And the takeaway from Thursday should not be about any kind of streak. Rather, it should be how many of the Badgers’ glaring weaknesses, which seemed to be fixed during their seven-game win streak, were exposed once again. And with an NCAA tournament still not guaranteed, fixing these weaknesses is still a work in progress.
The biggest thing Tuesday’s game exposed was that the Badgers still aren’t a very good three-point shooting team. They shot 51 percent in their last three wins, an aberration of sorts. And while it appeared no Wisconsin player could miss during that stretch, the team had shot at or less than 40 percent from behind the arc in 16 of their first 22 games, which included 12 games where they shot at or below 33 percent.
The 30 percent (6-of-20) the Badgers shot from behind the arc against Michigan State ends up being more normal than one might think. This doesn’t mean UW should stop launching shots from the outside, but it does mean they should, for the most part, return to what works best for a team like the Badgers: working from the inside-out.
That inside-out method, however, becomes troublesome to execute when one of your two most effective scorers on the inside looks completely checked out of the game.
Junior forward Nigel Hayes looked disinterested and disengaged Thursday and put in an overall disappointing performance in a game against one of the country’s best players on one of its biggest stages. Hayes had a matchup with Valentine that gave him an opportunity to assert himself as one of the Big Ten’s best, and he simply couldn’t pull through.
And this isn’t the first time this issue has been observed this season, making it the more pressing issue the Badgers need to address as postseason play rapidly approaches.
During the team’s seven-game win streak, Hayes looked as if he was inching closer to playing at a level that matched the preseason All-American expectations the junior had coming into this season. His mid-range jumper was unguardable, he was getting to the free-throw line at will and he was hitting three’s when he had to.
But before that, Hayes’ performances had been rather inconsistent. He’d look engaged one night and disinterested the next. He would shoot more than 50 percent one game and then miss 10 of his 13 shots the next.
Simply put, UW has seen their best player at his best and at his absolute worst. But for a team like Wisconsin, that’s already light on talent, they cannot afford many more poor performances out of Hayes.
And the issue isn’t just Hayes is missing shots on his worst days, it’s the manner in which he is doing so. On the nights where the junior is shooting around a poor 30 percent from the field, he’s forcing jump shots, and instead of attacking the basket, he continues to try and get into a rhythm from the outside. It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle, and it’s one that Hayes needs to get himself out of.
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Because when Hayes is at his absolute best, Wisconsin has the ability to take down any team in the country, and at this point, these Badgers can’t afford anything less than that out of their best player. One slip up from Hayes in these final four games of the regular season could put an end to yet another streak: 17 consecutive trips to the NCAA tournament.
