[media-credit name=’JEFF SCHORFHEIDE/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]The No. 4 Wisconsin Badgers may not have played their best game in Saturday's 74-62 victory over Iowa, but, luckily for them, they got some second chances.

Twenty-four of them, to be exact.

As Iowa (14-11 overall, 6-5 Big Ten) remained within striking distance midway through the second half, Wisconsin (24-2, 10-1) took control of the offensive boards and made the most of its second-chance opportunities, scoring 24 second-chance points.

"One thing Coach really emphasized was making sure we crashed the offensive rebounds," said UW forward Brian Butch, who grabbed seven rebounds and scored 15 points. "I don't think our shooting percentage was that good — at least when we were rebounding, it didn't seem that good. It seemed like there [were] a lot of chances out there."

The 24 second-chance points matched the number of wins Wisconsin now has on the season, leaving the team only one victory shy of setting the school record for wins in a season with a minimum of seven games remaining.

The Badgers trailed 35-31 at halftime, shooting just 35.1 percent in the first half. Early in the second half, Butch put back an Alando Tucker miss to pull within one point of the Hawkeyes' lead at 40-39. Junior guard Michael Flowers then knocked down a 3-pointer to give Wisconsin its first of the second half, and the Badgers secured their lead by hitting the glass.

Wisconsin sophomore forward Joe Krabbenhoft led the way on the boards, grabbing a team-high eight rebounds — five of which were on the offensive glass. And Krabbenhoft cashed in on his offensive rebounds, putting two of them back up for buckets as Iowa lingered within four points.

"I thought Krabbenhoft was the difference in the game," Iowa head coach Steve Alford said. "It seemed like his offensive rebounds were back-breakers for us."

Krabbenhoft's contributions off the bench — he had eight points and three assists to go along with his eight rebounds — were much needed for the Badgers. Tucker got his points — a game-high 21 in reaching his milestone of 2,000 career points, but Wisconsin's backcourt of Flowers and Kammron Taylor struggled to take care of the ball.

Combined, Taylor and Flowers had nine turnovers, and things just didn't seem to click for the starting backcourt.

"We just didn't do a good job of taking care of the ball," Taylor said. "A game like [Saturday] is not a typical game from our backcourt."

The Badgers' guards still chipped in, though. Flowers had three steals in the game, while Taylor shot 3-of-4 from behind the 3-point line. With 9:27 remaining in the second half, the two hooked up when Flowers intercepted a pass and Taylor knocked down a three to give Wisconsin a 62-51 lead, its largest lead until breaking away at the end.

"We didn't make some really good decisions with the ball," Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan said. "Thank goodness it's a 40-minute game."

A switch from facing zone to man-to-man defense may have harassed the Badgers' backcourt. Following Wisconsin's Jan. 28 contest at Iowa, the Badgers had faced some sort of zone defense each game after and they even expected the Hawkeyes to come out with a zone.

"We've faced so many zones. Everyone's throwing a zone at us. We thought Iowa would throw a zone at us," Tucker said. "We've been preparing for a lot of zone, [but] when you come out and you're expecting a zone, you have to be able to adjust — and that showed."

Once again, Wisconsin's defense shut down Iowa's top two scorers. After Adam Haluska and Tyler Smith shot 3-of-18 and 3-of-17, respectively, at Iowa, the Hawkeyes one-two scoring punch didn't fare much better in Madison.

Smith scored eight points on 3-of-13 shooting, and Haluska had a team-high 16 points while shooting 7-of-20 from the field.

"I wish I could tell you that the coaches came up with this game plan defensively that we felt could shut the two of them down," Ryan said. "We chased, hedged, pinched, rotated — did everything the way we've been doing it for decades, and it worked."

For Iowa's Alford, it was just another prime example of how hard it is to win at the Kohl Center.

"We would've liked to gotten this one, but [Wisconsin's] 17-0 in here for a reason," Alford said.