Iowa City, Iowa — Mike Wilkinson scored a career-high 20 points as UW defeated Iowa 61-53 in front of 15,500 fans at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The Hawkeyes held the lead for much of the afternoon, but Wilkinson’s hot hand in the second half turned the tide for the Badgers and repeatedly deflated the emotional Hawkeye crowd.
With Iowa clinging to a 36-34 lead and the Hawkeye faithful on their feet, Wilkinson caught a pass at the free-throw line, set his feet and calmly stroked a jump shot to tie the game with 12:50 to play. After Iowa took the lead again on the ensuing possession, Wilkinson buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key and another from the left corner to give UW a 42-38 lead. It would be a lead the Badgers would never relinquish. Wilkinson’s eight-point outburst cut the emotion right out of the screaming Iowa crowd.
“Going into the game, I’d much rather have Wilkinson shooting threes than (Kirk) Penney or (Devin) Harris,” Iowa head coach Steve Alford said. “Wilkinson’s a very solid, very tough player and gets a lot done. He let the game come to him … but [he] got away from us.”
Junior guard Brody Boyd hit Iowa’s second 3-pointer of the game to pull the Hawkeyes to within four points at 57-53 with 1:50 left, but the Hawkeyes couldn’t get any closer. Harris, who had just three points, missed a layup after Boyd’s three and fouled Iowa’s Glen Worley on the rebound.
But Worley, who had 14 points and 14 rebounds, missed a pair of free throws. After Penney, who scored 15 points, missed a 3-pointer, Chauncey Leslie came up empty on a runner for Iowa. Worley couldn’t get a follow-up chance to go in, and Harris pulled the ball out of a scramble on the floor and called a heads-up timeout. After that sequence, UW closed the game at the free-throw line.
That scramble was indicative of the physical style of the game, which Iowa controlled the entire first half. The Hawkeyes opened a 16-4 lead in the first eight minutes, with junior center Sean Sonderleiter dominating the inside for eight first-half points on 4-4 shooting. The Badgers, who were thoroughly outsized, failed to get the ball inside while repeatedly missing jump shots in a half that saw them shoot just 34.6 percent. They also failed to get to the free-throw line.
“You talk about a physical first half — it was a battle,” UW head coach Bo Ryan said. “Guys have welts on their arms — both teams, I’m sure. We weren’t shooting it well, and we had a stretch like that at the end of our last game [at Penn State]. Fortunately, this time it happened early.”
After a Jeff Horner layup and a Worley free throw put Iowa up by 12 with 1:52 to go in the half, Wisconsin responded with two important offensive sequences that gave them some much-needed halftime confidence. Penney finally hit his first jump shot with 52 seconds to play, and Boo Wade fired a beautiful pass to Freddie Owens for a layup with just five seconds left, making the halftime score 29-21 in Iowa’s favor.
“You want to finish the half strong when you’re in that situation, and we were able to do that. And it carried on into the second half,” Penney said.
Wisconsin certainly wasted no time in pulling the game even, opening the second half with an 8-0 run. Alando Tucker took a feed from Wilkinson for a layup on UW’s first possession, and a Harris steal minutes later led to an Owens layup that tied the game at 29. After an Iowa basket, Owens, who had 13 points, hit a 3-pointer from the right corner to give the UW its first lead at 32-31 with 15:50 to play.
Throughout the second half, Wilkinson and Tucker clamped down on Iowa’s entry passes to the post, holding Sonderleiter to no points and eventually forcing him to foul out. Despite a staggering 40-22 rebounding edge in the game for the Hawkeyes, 18 Iowa turnovers kept things even for UW. Ultimately, however, it was UW’s 53.8 percent second-half shooting that won the game.
“Every time we needed a basket, we got a basket. Every time we needed a stop, we got one,” Wilkinson said. “That’s just how you win in the Big Ten, especially on the road.”
The loss puts Iowa (13-10, 5-7 Big Ten) in dire straights as they begin a three-game road trip. The Badgers (19-6, 9-4), on the other hand, gained back some of the momentum they lost in the Penn State game. With a Purdue loss Saturday, UW finds itself alone in second place in the conference, with first-place Michigan coming to the Kohl Center Wednesday night.
