The Wisconsin men’s basketball team beat the EA Sports team 71-52 in a typical exhibition game Wednesday night. The contest was not marked with crisp, spectacular basketball, but rather with choppy, physical play that dragged along at times.
For the first 27 minutes, the EA Sports team, made up of former college players including former Illinois stars Sergio McClain and Lucas Johnson, hung with and often outplayed the Badgers. But with UW clinging to a one-point lead with 12:54 to play in the game, sophomore Badger forward Mike Wilkinson nailed a three and got fouled. He converted the four-point play, giving Wisconsin a 37-32 lead. It proved to be just the spark the Badgers needed, as they outscored EA Sports 35-20 the rest of the way.
The Badgers started the game jittery, misfiring early and often. EA Sports jumped out to a 10-0 lead as UW went 0-6 from the field. Wisconsin was able to forge a 26-26 tie by halftime, thanks in large part to senior forward Kirk Penney’s three three-pointers, but the offense wasn’t pretty for either team. EA Sports shot 32.4 percent from the field in the first half, while Wisconsin shot 35.7 percent and was a paltry 1-8 from the charity stripe. The slow offense for the Badgers was parlayed by the fact that head coach Bo Ryan gave every player on the roster playing time in the first half, and many of those players were participating in their first college action.
“They’ve been working so hard, everybody in the preseason here,” said Ryan. “I wanted to get them all in the game, they all wanted to play. In the first half, with Mike (Wilkinson) picking up two (fouls), it just made it easier to make sure everybody got on
the floor and see how some guys looked.”
Ryan said he was happy with the performance of his young players, but tightened up his rotation to eight men when the game got tight in the second half. The Badgers also concentrated more on getting the ball into the post to set up the outside shot, rather than firing shots up early in the possession.
“You can’t shoot a bunch of threes firing them out there after one pass,” said Ryan. “We shot an extremely low percentage on three-point shots that did not come through penetration and kick or pass into the post and a kick-out. Every team in the country will shoot a higher percentage of threes when the ball touches the post.”
EA Sports brought a measure of size and physicality that seemed to intimidate the Badgers early. However, UW was able to ratchet things up on the inside, out-rebounding EA Sports 54-38 for the game and getting to the line 23 times in the second half. The Badgers were physically battered, as EA Sports committed 30 fouls in the game, but showed a willingness to take the beatings that Big Ten games will offer.
“If (the young players) haven’t realized already, they’re going to realize pretty quickly that it’s going to be physical and you have to play hard the whole time,” said Penney, who took a hard shoulder himself on a screen play in the second half. “(The EA Sports team) didn’t really give up any easy baskets.”
Penney led the Badgers with 14 points, but was surprisingly matched by freshman guard/forward Alando Tucker’s 14, who led all Badger freshmen with 24 minutes and showed a willingness to bang with the big boys. He finished his scoring by throwing down an emphatic dunk that brought the crowd to its feet with 18 seconds left.
Junior guard Freddie Owens also played a strong game, scoring 12 points and pulling down nine rebounds in a hustling effort. Sophomore guard Devin Harris pleased Ryan in his first game at point guard, turning the ball over just three times, but struggled to find his shot, scoring his first field goal on a three with 3:24 to go in the game.
McClain led the EA Sports team with 16 points, while former Wright State center Marvin Rodgers impressed with 15 points and four rebounds.
Besides earning the victory, Ryan stressed that the importance of the two preseason games (the Badgers play another one Saturday night) is to get the players into a routine.
“What do they do? In high school, did they take naps before the game, did they start getting into a routine that you do game day?” he said. “It gives the players two more nights to do that. And then there was some action out there. They found out some things in the heat of the battle.”
