Going into a tough Big Ten game with two starters injured on the bench does not sound like a good recipe for a win. Furthermore, having the team’s all-conference point guard play only seven minutes in the first half certainly does not make the job sound any easier.

However, leave it to the Badgers to turn to unlikely players for some big minutes and key plays to pull off the victory.

“We have been around long enough to know that sometimes when you have an injury, teams can rise to the occasion,” said Michigan coach Tommy Amaker. “Certainly when you have a championship level program, like Coach Ryan’s program right now, you will have players that will step forward. It’s usually a player like that [who] can do a lot of damage to an opposing team and I thought they did very well with that tonight.”

With his team down by 5 points with seven minutes and five seconds remaining in the first half, walk-on Clayton Hanson calmly entered the game and went off for 11 points in less than five minutes. His third 3-point basket gave his team its first lead since the opening minutes of the half.

“After the second [3-pointer], then we started running some sets where I was running off some screens and I was feeling pretty good at that point,” said Hanson who explained he used his time on the bench at the beginning of the half to watch how Michigan players Lester Abram and Bernard Robinson, Jr. were coming off screens in order to get himself good angles for his shots.

This preparation helped as Hanson scored a career-high 17 points while going 5-for-6 from behind the arc, which also marked a career-high in total 3-point field goals.

Not only did Hanson’s sharp shooting alter the momentum of the game, his perimeter game alleviated some of the pressure the Michigan defense was putting on Mike Wilkinson in the paint by forcing them to respect UW’s outside shooting.

Wilkinson began the game red-hot, scoring 14 out of the team’s first 18 points, as he looked like the only Badger in sync on offense in the early going of the game.

“Our game plan is always to try to establish something inside and we got some good looks early. They played a lot of pressure defense early and I got some driving lanes,” Wilkinson said. “Then I think they tried to pack it in a little with their zone and then Clay came in.”

In the end, however, it was players like Hanson opening up the Michigan defense and Dave Mader and Ray Nixon keeping the Michigan post players, especially center Graham Brown, under control. It was the little things like boxing out, diving for loose balls and taking charges that the reserve players did to ensure their team would not miss a beat even if it was without the services of a few key players.

“They were ready and anytime you have people practicing every day and are part of a team, they never know when they are going to get called on or how much they are going to get called … they’re always ready, they just work and then when they get their chance they play,” said Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan.

Ryan preaches to his team that basketball is all about the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back of the jersey, and last night his team proved that philosophy is very powerful when all players buy into that attitude.

“As long as we win, it doesn’t matter who scores on this team as long as we get the job done,” Wilkinson said.