As the Wisconsin Badgers head across Lake Michigan to Ann Arbor for a Saturday night showdown, they will be looking to hold on to their fourth-place position in the Big Ten.
After winning three straight games against Michigan State, Minnesota and Purdue, the Badgers (12-10, 5-4 Big Ten) have dropped two of their last three, getting destroyed at Illinois, 80-48, barely scraping out a 66-63 home victory against Penn State, and losing 69-60 Wednesday to lowly Northwestern.
Wisconsin will be up against a Michigan team that has struggled with inconsistency all season but has been fairly effective at home. The Wolverines (8-10, 3-5 Big Ten) have won seven of their 10 home games on the season, with their only Big Ten home loss coming to the very same Northwestern Wildcats that recently defeated the Badgers.
Michigan’s other two home losses came against unanimous No. 1 Duke and Boston College, considerably tougher opponents. The Badgers have only accumulated four road wins on the season, and their last-second defeat of Michigan State was their only Big Ten win away from home.
The Badger will have to focus on LaVell Blanchard, Michigan’s do-it-all forward, if they want to contain the Wolverines. Blanchard provides matchup problems for most teams, as he is quick enough to beat most slower forwards off the dribble and a good enough shooter to simply rise up and fire over smaller guards.
The 6-foot-7 Blanchard leads the team in scoring, with 14.9 points per game, and rebounding, with 7.1 per contest. He has also averaged 1.4 assists in an 28.5 minutes per game.
Michigan’s other main threat is sophomore Bernard Robinson Jr. The 6-foot-6 forward has been effective on the inside, averaging 11.7 points and 4.6 rebounds per contest. Robinson has been stellar from the free-throw line, shooting 86 percent, the highest clip on the team for players who average more than five minutes per game. From behind the arc, however, Robinson has been anemic, hitting only seven of his 34 three-point attempts on the year, a 21 percent success rate.
To beat the Wolverines, the Badgers will have attack the basket and cut down on the turnovers that have recently plagued them. Wisconsin has turned the ball over more than their opponents in each of the past three games, and second-half giveaways contributed to the Northwestern loss and almost cost the Badgers the Penn State game.
The hottest Wisconsin player of late has been Freddie Owens, who led the team in scoring against Northwestern with 20 points on an impressive seven of eight shooting from the field, including three of four from downtown. He also hit all three of his free throws and was the only Badger who was perfect from the line against the Wildcats.
In the Badgers’ debacle against Illinois, Owens was one of only two Wisconsin players to shoot better than 50 percent, as he tied Devin Harris for the team lead in points, with 13, on six of ten shooting.
Owens has been taking advantage of his quickness and penetrating ability, and has finished well around the basket. The 6-foot-2 guard has been working on his long-range jumper after practice, and it has paid off: the sophomore has connected on six of seven three-point shots in the last four games.
Guard Kirk Penney has also been hot for the Badgers, scoring 20 points against Penn State while also grabbing six rebounds. Penney, Wisconsin’s leading scorer on the season with 14.1 points per game, has been shooting 45 percent from the field this year. Penney has been effective both inside and out, using the 20 pounds he added over the summer to his advantage in the post.
“We saw some things early in our post moves drills that he talked about the other night and he was right — he’s better,” Head Coach Bo Ryan said of Penney. “There are players that couldn’t be very good in the post because they weren’t very tall, but we believed that he could be a very good scorer on the inside and the outside.”
The Badgers will once again go into the game with their customary short bench. Ryan has used only seven players in his main rotation, with guard Neil Plank seeing time but not playing every game. Guard Clayton Hanson has also seen time in eight games, including the recent Illinois game and the Northwestern loss.
With no other Badgers expected to see considerable time against the Wolverines, Bo Ryan’s team will have to rely once again on their athleticism and high fitness level to carry them down the stretch, and the coach feels that his team is up to the challenge.
“I am not asking them to be heroes,” Ryan said. “I am asking them to continue to work and I am not going to wear them out with three-hour practices. We have them in April and May, then not in the summer, then they comeback and we have individual workouts and conditioning, and I think a lot of lights went on early.
“They are learning, they kept their minds open, and they are trying. If I have players playing on nerve, emotion and guts, this is where you find it out and will be able to tell how far we will go.”