The Wisconsin Badgers (4-1) took their first loss of the season as they fell to Wake Forrest (3-0), 90-80, last night at the Kohl center. The Badgers came within four points in the game’s final minute after sophomore guard Devin Harris grabbed the rebound off his own missed free throw and drilled a three-pointer on the wing.

Unfortunately for the Badgers, Harris’s efforts were too little to late, as Wake Forest made their free throws down the stretch and pulled the game out of reach. Harris played a complete game for the Badgers, totaling 19 points, nine rebounds, and four assists while playing physically tenacious defense.

All ?American candidate Josh Howard recorded a career-high 31 points for Wake Forest, along with nine rebounds. The Demon Deacons were statistically dominant on the boards; they out rebounded the Badgers 37-27.

Vytas Danelius brought down key rebounds down the stretch for the Deacons. Danelius did not score a field goal until the 7:15 mark in the second half, but his late effort appeared to be the difference.

“They got too many [rebounds]” Badger head coach Bo Ryan said. “The way they got a lot of them was by hitting those threes early, and we extended [our defense] and got out of our normal support positions. That’s something we’ve done to teams. When we hit some outside shots and open up the middle a little bit. That’s what every team is trying to do, and tonight they did it.”

The Badgers were also outscored in the paint 40-28, as the Badgers were generally oversized by the Wake Forest frontcourt. While rebounding was a concern, the Badgers had trouble wrapping up loose balls, allowing the Deacons to push away from the Badgers.

“It’s something we need to work on, the loose ball,” senior Kirk Penney said. “Giving up second-chance points [is] where we have to lock up and make sure we get the job done. They did a good job of countering everything we took at them.”

Penney scored 16 points on five-of-eleven shooting. The senior had a tough time finding open shots all night as the Deacon defense really keyed in on the Badger team captain. Penney did his part in distributing the ball, leading the way with six assists for the Badgers.

The Badgers went with a smaller lineup for most of the game and tried to out-quick the Deacons. The Badgers had used a smaller lineup through several games this season, putting four guards on the court while leaving sophomore Mike Wilkinson as the lone big man.

“I thought Wisconsin went with a bit of a smaller lineup and allowed us to play a little bit smaller as well,” Wake Forest head coach Skip Prosser said. “Howard even played a little bit at power forward, which is atypical of how we like to do it.”

The Wake backcourt of Justin Gray and Taron Downey proved to be too quick for the Badger defense. Gary recorded 20 points, while finding easy lanes to the basket. Downey also chipped in 15 as the guard combo proved to be quite active throughout the night.

“Their quickness and their ability to hit the outside shot was very tough,” Harris said. “If you try to cut them off from going under the basket, they’ll set the ball screen and hit the three, so it was very tough to guard.”

“Defense starts on the ball and then with help and recovery, and there were some things that just got away from us that if we correct,” Ryan said. “You can’t let those sort of things happen again. We have a good, athletic team in UNLV coming in that can do the same things. We have to catch ourselves early and dig in.”