SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — It isn't too often that college students travel to South Padre Island to gain some valuable knowledge and education, but that's exactly what happened to the Wisconsin men's basketball team at the South Padre Invitational. The Badgers, in splitting the two games they played just north of Mexico, very well could have learned some valuable lessons about what the team is going to need to do in order to realize its full potential.
The Badgers got to see how much guard play — especially the play of senior point guard Kammron Taylor — will ultimately decide how far Wisconsin's season may go.
In Wisconsin's 66-64 loss to the Missouri State Bears Friday, shoddy guard play killed the Badgers. Junior Michael Flowers had six assists and 10 points — including four in the final two seconds of the first half — but had three ugly turnovers and missed all four of his three-pointers.
It was Taylor's performance that was shocking, however, as the Wooden Award watch-lister made only one of his six shots and managed only one assist against three turnovers.
"We have to mature at our guard spot," senior Alando Tucker said after the loss. "We're still trying to find guys who are going to make great decisions. We didn't make good decisions down the road. We took bad shots and made turnovers."
"We need to make better decisions with the ball," UW head coach Bo Ryan said on Friday afternoon. "Anybody could tell you that. People in the fourth row — if you asked them — would say that."
You could say that lesson was also learned, as the Badger guards responded with an impressive showing versus Auburn Saturday. Against a very aggressive defense that spent much of the game pressuring UW, the guards kept their cool, as Wisconsin only turned the ball over 12 times, including only a single second-half giveaway.
"We got things done," Ryan said of the stellar guard play.
Flowers drained both of his three-point attempts and Taylor had maybe his best game of the season, shooting 6-of-10 from the field for a team-leading 16 points. He also pulled down five boards, grabbed two steals, dished out two assists and only had a single turnover.
"That's the Kam that we know, that's the Kam that I know," Tucker said. "He has to be that confident with the ball and with his shot. When we get that from him, that's the result that we get: We get wins."
"Well, my teammates did a great job of picking me up," Taylor said of his rebounding from such a rough game. "I just felt that they still trusted me out on the floor."
Taylor indicated that he believes playing in a tournament format was helpful, as he didn't have any time to really dwell on his performance against Missouri State.
"It was a good thing that we got to play within the next 24 hours, because I didn't have to go home and sit in my room and think about it," Taylor said. "I had to bounce back because I couldn't let my team down again."
In losing their first game of the season Friday afternoon, the Badgers finally were penalized for a slow start, not being able to overcome a 19-point deficit to Missouri State with only a minute remaining in the first half.
"Guys have to realize that we can't try to play from behind with as big a deficit as we did," Tucker said after the loss to the Bears.
The lesson was learned, as Wisconsin jumped all over Auburn the following day, scoring the first 10 points.
Wisconsin also found one more thing in South Padre: a reliable third point guard option. So far this season, freshman guard Jason Bohannon had been serviceable on the court for UW, but on the southern tip of Texas, the Marion, Iowa native came alive. While many of the players looked uncomfortable in the team's first trip from home, Bohannon was poised. Although he missed all three of his shots Friday, the three-point specialist handed out four assists without a turnover. In Saturday's win, he contributed again, this time by hitting two three-pointers and scoring 10 points.
The strong play drew the attention of head coach Bo Ryan who raved about the play of a first-year player in a tough road environment.
"Look at his assists; these are the first turnovers he's had. … He's 12-to-2 on the season," Ryan said of his freshman guard.
School's out in South Padre and back in at Madison as the Badgers return home. How much the Badgers learned in Texas will be tested Tuesday when Florida State invades the Kohl Center.
"We've got to make sure we learn from this," Tucker said. "Otherwise, why did we come?"
