Despite being forced to fill yet another void in its starting lineup, the UW men’s basketball team picked up an emotional 80-66 home victory over Minnesota Wednesday night.

About three hours prior to tip-off, UW head coach Bo Ryan learned he would be without shooting guard Boo Wade due to a violation of the Wisconsin Student-Athlete Discipline Policy. The Badgers, with their savvy point guard Devin Harris leading the way, would channel their emotion, however, and capture a 25th-consecutive home victory.

“We knew what was going on (with Wade) once we got here,” Harris said. “But we couldn’t really worry about it then. We’re going to deal with it when we deal with it as a team, but we forgot about it and tried to look forward to the game because that was the next thing we had to take care of.”

Harris didn’t just take care of the game, though. He took it over.

The Badgers’ floor general exploded for a career-high 38 points on 10-12 shooting and knocked down 13 of his 14 attempts from the charity stripe.

“The zone was something that we tried to sell our guys on. If we could hang in there in the zone, we’d get them frustrated,” Minnesota head coach Dan Monson said. “I think we had some of them frustrated, but we never got to Devin (Harris). Devin never got frustrated. He kept his composure.”

As incredibly as Harris played, the Badgers did not have the game in hand throughout all of Wednesday night’s contest.

After holding a 33-26 halftime lead, Wisconsin found themselves down 36-37 with 15:01 remaining.

The Gophers, led by freshman forward Kris Humphries, mounted an 11-3 run to start the second half and had effectively shifted the game’s momentum onto their side.

UW head coach Bo Ryan then called a timeout, however, and the Badgers quickly recaptured the lead.

“We knew we had to pick it up on the defensive end,” said UW forward Mike Wilkinson, who scored 15 points and pulled down eight rebounds. “I think after that timeout, everyone just kind of calmed down a little bit. The good looks we got, we started to knock down and we got a couple stops here and there. And then the crowd got into it, and from there it went on.”

Besides Harris, also playing a huge role in the Badgers’ second-half surge was junior forward Zach Morley.

After finishing the first half 0-4 from the floor, the Maryville, Mo., native connected on all six of his second-half field-goal attempts and finished the game with 14 points — which included an overhead lay-in while being fouled.

“At the time, we were a little flat out there, and I just wanted to do whatever I could to bring energy into the game,” Morley said. “Things started going good for us, and then the crowd got into it, which was amazing tonight. And then from there, things just kept going.”

Thanks in large part to Morley, Wisconsin held the lead for the final 12:37 of the game. The Badgers were never really able to slow down Kris Humphries, though. The freshman phenom, who originally committed to Duke and entered the game leading the Big Ten in scoring (22.2 ppg) and rebounding (10.6 rpg), netted a team-high 24 points and pulled down eight rebounds in 34 minutes of playing time.

“[Humphries] is a specimen. He’s a good player; he’s got a good feel for the game,” Ryan said. “The rest of the people now can guard him for the rest of the year. We just tried to make him take some uncomfortable shots.”

Also chipping in a considerable amount of the Gophers’ points was senior guard Ben Johnson. Johnson finished the game with 17 points on 8-12 shooting and was at the delivering end of some of Humphries’ alley-oop dunks.

As a team, the Gophers only mustered 13 free-throw attempts, compared to the Badgers’ 33.

The No. 14-ranked UW men’s basketball team (15-3, 6-1) will be in action again Saturday when they face the Northwestern Wildcats in Evanston, Ill.

Throughout the season, the Badgers have proven an ability to bounce back from adversity and/or setbacks. So, although they will now be without Boo Wade for an indefinite period of time, Minnesota head coach Dan Monson is still high on Wisconsin’s chances in the Big Ten.

“This is a championship team; they’ve won two-straight Big Ten championships for a reason,” Monson said. “They’re missing guys, but they’re a team, they’re not about an individual. That’s what makes them good.”