With back-to-back losses, head coach Bo Ryan is offering "no excuses" for the way his UW men's basketball team performed last week.
But he will admit, they are human.
"When you lose a game, you just have to understand that there are factors that occur during the course of a game and you deal with it," Ryan said. "I know all the obsessive people who are kind of like, 'Wow, those kinds of things don't happen.'
"It's just amazing that things like that do not happen more to some teams," Ryan continued. "So maybe that hasn't happened very much around here in the past five years, and it does, our guys are human. They can miss shots."
And boy, did they miss shots.
Against North Dakota State on Saturday the Badgers (14-4) finished with a paltry 16-for-72 from the field and were 4-for-27 on 3-pointers.
The lack of shooting led to Wisconsin losing a 62-55 heartbreaker to North Dakota State — the first loss of the season to an unranked team and the fourth loss ever for Ryan at the Kohl Center.
"Our guys understand what competition is about, they know what needs to get done and sometimes you don't get it done," Ryan said. "When you lose a game you have to understand that there are factors that occur during the course of that game. You deal with it."
Not only was there a lack of good shots against North Dakota State, there was also a lack of players.
A month ago, redshirt freshman DeAaron Williams left the team; just recently, freshman forward Marcus Landry has been ruled academically ineligible and 6-foot-11 sophomore Greg Stiemsma has left the team for personal medical reasons.
The loss of these three players has left only two regular reserves, freshman Joe Krabbenhoft and sophomore Michael Flowers, on the bench for UW.
"I have been shorthanded before at other places … but we have some guys on the bench that are anxious to get on the floor and contribute, so we have got to try and find some of those contributions and get some more from the guys who are here," Ryan said.
One of those guys on the bench who has been anxious to play is Kevin Gullikson. The freshman has seen recent playing time against Northwestern and North Dakota State. To date, he has seen playing time in eight games with an average of 1.6 minutes on the court and .9 points.
"Yeah, he's got some bounce," Ryan said of Gullikson. "Kevin is a guy that I'm not leery of putting out there on the floor. I like what he's doing. I like how hard he's worked in practice. He commits all the time to what the scout team does and always works on the shooting drills and always has a lot of energy to do the things that are presented to him. "You've got to like those kind of people, and fortunately, we have a lot of those kind of people," Ryan continued. "Sometimes execution doesn't happen, but as long as the energy and the willingness to get better and to participate and to be active is there, then he's got a chance."
Badgers take a plunge in the polls: With two losses last week, the men's basketball team fell from No. 13 in the ESPN/USA Today Coach's Poll to No. 21. It was the week's largest drop for a ranked team. The one Big Ten loss to Ohio State dropped the Badgers to a tie with Indiana atop the conference standings.
