He was only on the floor for four minutes, but freshman guard Michael Flowers may have been the difference in Wednesday night’s game.
The two teams entered halftime deadlocked at 34-34, but Iowa came out firing in the second half. The Hawkeyes opened the period on an 18-5 run, giving Steve Alford’s squad a 13-point lead.
The catalyst of the Iowa run was Hawkeye sniper Jeff Horner, who poured in 11 points in the first eight minutes of the second stanza. Horner was virtually unstoppable, burying the Badgers with a barrage of perimeter jumpers.
With Horner scoring at will and showing no signs of slowing down, there was no stopping the streaking Hawkeyes. It was reminiscent of the first-half explosion Travis Diener laid on Wisconsin at the Bradley Center earlier in the season. Unless someone could slow Horner down, Alford’s crew was headed for a blowout.
Enter Michael Flowers.
Desperate to cool the Hawkeyes’ hot hand, Coach Bo Ryan turned to his seldom-used defensive specialist. Flowers entered the game with 12:30 to go, just after Horner drained a 3-pointer to extend the Iowa lead to 13.
Horner did not score again all night.
“He came in when Horner was hot, and he came and gave us some intensity and for a point there he was riding Horner the whole time,” forward Alando Tucker said of Flowers. “He kind of put Horner in a dry spell. That’s what we need. We need guys like that.”
Flowers cased Horner for just a handful of minutes, but his defensive presence took the Hawkeye sniper out of his game. In rhythm, Horner was unstoppable. But Flowers disrupted that rhythm, and even after Flowers left the game in favor of Clayton Hanson, Horner never recovered from it.
“Michael Flowers gave us a nice little stretch in there where he really forced Horner to do some different things,” Ryan said. “Maybe not that he realizes it, maybe Horner didn’t think that it was any different when Michael was on him, but I thought that kind of slowed him down some. And then Clayton (Hanson) came back in and did a much better job because there’s that rhythm that people lose.”
After silencing the Iowa sniper, Wisconsin took control. Over the next six minutes, the Badgers erased the deficit with a 15-2 run to even the score at 54-54. A Mike Wilkinson lay-up put Wisconsin in front, 56-54, and the Badgers never looked back.
Tale of two halves: With forwards Zach Morley and Brian Butch out of commission, Ryan turned to a myriad of different combinations in the early going. With the exception of guard Tanner Bronson, the UW helmsman cycled through every player at his disposal by the 9:15 mark of the first half.
Ten players saw court time in the opening stanza, including rarely used forwards Greg Stiemsma and Jason Chappell.
“I had two players that I was counting on that you don’t have, and then OK, how are we going to keep the other guys rested?” Ryan said. “What I wanted to do was get some [bench] minutes early.”
In the second half, Ryan opted for a far more conservative approach. Finding his team down 13 points with 12:44 to play, Ryan could not afford to experiment with mix-and-match configurations.
“When you’re playing from behind, then you have to give your guys a chance who have the most experience,” Ryan said. “They were playing their same guys, too. We could get away with that tonight because they also played their top five or six.”
Tucker on the mend: Athletic swingman Alando Tucker continues to return to form while battling the lingering effects of a bruised toe on his right foot. In Saturday’s game against Minnesota, Tucker’s first game back after a two-game absence, the dynamic scorer said he felt tentative and was conscious of avoiding anything that may have aggravated the injury.
In Wednesday’s contest Tucker was back to his old tricks, attacking the basket, skying for rebounds and creating matchup problems in the post.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Tucker said. “I can penetrate and create for guys and get open shots. That’s what I’m looking to do now more. Every day I’m going to get more comfortable being out on the court and reading these guys. I’m starting to get a feel for how everybody’s timing is and how mine fits in with everybody else.”
