The Wisconsin Badgers came into Sunday’s matchup with the Purdue
Boilermakers in need of a victory to keep their Big Ten title hopes
alive.

What they got was a rout. Behind Mike Wilkinson’s double-double
of 23 points and 12 rebounds, the Badgers (19-6, 10-4) drummed the
Boilermakers (17-10, 7-7) to the tune of 82-46. With the win, UW
recorded its first undefeated home season since 1929-30.

“For our players, they beat a very good team, they are very
mentally tough and physically tough,” Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan
said. “For us it was a very important win because it was against a
very good team that plays the way teams are going to play that
we’re going to face from here on out, no matter where that is.”

Wilkinson opened the game by hitting a jump shot and a
three-point field goal, giving UW a lead it would never
relinquish.

“I thought he was great. What can you say?” Purdue head coach
Gene Keady said of Wilkinson. “We had nobody that could stop him.
He did a nice job with his footwork, [he] battled, [he was]
competitive.”

Purdue’s Brett Busher knocked down a jump shot that brought the
Boilermakers within one five minutes into the game, but that would
prove to be as close as Keady’s squad would come.

Wisconsin pushed its advantage to as many as ten in the first
half and took an eight-point lead into the locker room, despite
only two points from Devin Harris. Wilkinson and Zach Morley led
the way for UW in the period with 10 and six points,
respectively.

“Harris had only two points, so I did not think he was going to
let up,” Keady said. “He is going to come back and stick it up your
fanny and get you. You have to be ready to play.”

Harris and Wisconsin did just that in the second half, exploding
out of the gates to turn the eight-point contest into a blowout.
The junior point guard scored 14 of his 16 points in the second
stanza, which the Badgers opened with a 13-2 run.

“We were able to push it, get some easy buckets, threes and guys
rebounded,” Harris said of the second half outburst, “so it was an
all around effort from everybody.”

Seven minutes into the half, the lead had been stretched to 17
after a Harris lay-up. Minutes later, Wilkinson went on a personal
7-0 scoring run that put Wisconsin up by a score of 56-31.
Finishing with his third double-double of the season, the junior
from Blue Mounds, Wis. ripped down a jaw-dropping eight offensive
rebounds.

“The numbers are there, but in order to get those numbers he was
opportunistic,” Ryan said. “He was active offensive rebounding,
defensive rebounding. There aren’t too many people that get eight
offensive rebounds in a game against a team where there are usually
a low number of possessions.”

The Badgers finished the game with an impressive 38-19 edge in
the rebounding department, as four players finished with five or
more rebounds.

“We did a pretty good job tracking down some of the long
rebounds at both ends of the floor,” Wilkinson said. “We did a
great job of boxing out. Devin came back and got some big rebounds,
and Boo (Wade) came back. It was a big team effort.”

The Wisconsin margin broke the 30-point barrier when Harris sank
his final basket of the game, a fall away jumper from the right
wing. After seven points from Ray Nixon and a bucket from Ike
Ukawuba, senior Freddie Owens capped off the victory with an
uncontested slam dunk, the final points of the game. The 36-point
win was the largest margin of victory for Wisconsin this
season.

“I thought we were going to win,” Keady said. “We always
practice hard because I have the whistle. If I had the whistle in
this game we would gone back up into the auxiliary gym and
practiced. About eight minutes into the game, I would have said,
‘time out (referee) Teddy (Hillary), I want to go upstairs and get
something ironed out.”

Boo Wade quietly had a standout performance in all aspects of
the game. Wade scored eight points, dished out a game-high seven
assists and pulled down five rebounds, all without committing a
turnover.

“That’s what Boo has meant to this team all along,” Ryan said of
his sophomore guard. “He had a great game defensively, handling the
ball, rebounding…he was good today.”

Seniors Owens, Dave Mader and Ukawuba finished their Kohl Center
careers in style. Owens scored six points while holding Purdue’s
Kenneth Lowe to just six points. Mader tallied four points to go
along with five rebounds, while Ukawuba recorded four points of his
own, his first points of the season.

The Badgers have yet to lose a Big Ten game at home under Ryan.
They are now one game behind Illinois and a game and a half behind
Michigan State in the race for the Big Ten crown.

“This is a game we wanted coming in,” Wilkinson said. “We played
real well in the second half and we got the momentum going our
way.”