[media-credit name=’DEREK MONTGOMERY/Herald Photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]With a 76-50 dismantling of Michigan (12-14, 3-9) Wednesday, the Wisconsin men’s basketball team (17-6, 8-4) handed the Wolverines their ninth-consecutive defeat. In the process, the Badgers improved to 6-0 following a loss.

“They’re a streaky team, so we wanted to come in early and try to pound on them and keep them low on confidence,” forward Alando Tucker said. “If they start knocking down shots, they can be a tough team.”

The Wolverines struck first on a dunk from forward Chris Hunter to take a 2-0 lead in the game’s opening minute. It was all Wisconsin the rest of the way.

Forward Mike Wilkinson put the Badgers on his back in the early going, scoring his team’s first six points. A Wilkinson lay-up three minutes in gave the Badgers a 4-2 advantage. That was the last time the lead changed hands.

“I thought at the early stages of the game we struggled to put the ball in the basket,” Michigan head coach Tommy Amaker said. “I thought they got out of the blocks early shooting the 3-ball. That definitely put us on our heels, and it was definitely downhill from there for us. Our kids really lost whatever energy that we had.”

The turning point came at the 13:20 mark, when Ray Nixon knocked down a 3 to spark an 11-0 run that put the Badgers ahead 21-8 with 9:05 to play. Wilkinson capped the run with a jumper in the lane after a pair of Zach Morley 3-pointers helped break the game open.

“He really hurt us early with a couple 3’s in the first half,” Amaker said of Morley. “He really stretched us out.”

Forward Graham Brown finally stopped the bleeding for the Wolverines with an old-fashioned 3-point play to cut the lead to 10 at 21-11, but the damage was done. Brown’s bucket ended a Michigan scoring draught that spanned 6:37.

Wisconsin quickly regained the momentum when Wilkinson drew a foul inside and guard Sharif Chambliss knocked down a 3-pointer to give the Badgers a 25-11 lead at the 3:52 mark. After a dunk from Ron Coleman cut the lead to 12, Wisconsin reeled off a 12-2 run to extend the lead to 22 points, 37-15.

Wolverine leading scorer Dion Harris scored his first basket of the game as the first-half buzzer sounded, sending the teams to the locker rooms with the Badgers leading 37-17.

Wilkinson led all scorers with 13 first-half points, and Morley gave the Badgers a lift off the bench with 10 in the opening stanza. He finished with 12 points on 4-for-8 shooting, including 2-for-2 from beyond the arc.

The Wolverines came out firing in the second half, cutting the lead to 17 on a 3 from Coleman. Then Wilkinson took over. The Blue Mound, Wis. native poured in seven of the Badgers’ next eight points to shift the momentum back in Wisconsin’s favor.

After Michigan cut the lead back to 17 with a 3-pointer from Harris, Wisconsin put the game out of reach with a 12-0 run to take a 29-point lead, 52-23, with 14:04 to play.

With the game well out of reach, Michigan mounted an inconsequential run to cut the lead to 24 points, 59-35, at the 9:37 mark. The Badgers would push the lead to as many as 30 points before eventually claiming a 24-point win.

The already depleted Michigan roster suffered another major loss fewer than three minutes into the first half, when Hunter left the game after landing awkwardly in an attempt to secure a rebound. Hunter would return late in the first half, but he was not a factor, scoring just two points in nine minutes of action.

The hobbled forward did not play in the second half. After the game, Amaker speculated that the injury was an aggravation of the high-ankle sprain that had hindered Hunter earlier in the season.

“At the halftime mark, [Hunter] indicated that he was still hurt and he didn’t know if he could go, and so we opted to go in a different direction with Courtney Sims and held [Hunter] out in the second half,” Amaker said.

With Hunter watching from the sidelines, the Wolverines could not contain Wilkinson, who poured in a game-high 22 points on 8-of-9 shooting and hauled in nine rebounds in a dominant effort.

“We just wanted to get the ball inside,” Wilkinson said. “If we get the ball inside, usually good things have been happening. We got it inside early today … and then the shots just started to fall for everyone else.”