BLOOMINGTON, Ind. ? On the night before Valentine’s Day, it was a kiss that sent the Wisconsin basketball team into a state of euphoria.
Brian Butch banked in a 3-point basket with 4.1 seconds remaining to give the Badgers a thrilling 68-66 win over the Indiana Hoosiers in Bloomington, Ind., Wednesday.
The win left the Badgers jumping in celebration at midcourt, alone in second place in the Big Ten standings and a game behind the Purdue Boilermakers.
“Sometimes the shot goes, sometimes it doesn’t,” Butch said. “That’s just the nature of the game: sometimes you’re a hero, sometimes you’re a loser.”
Count Butch as a hero.
Coming out of a timeout and trailing by one, Wisconsin (20-4, 10-2 Big Ten) was set to run a play similar to what they had in late-game situations against Texas and Purdue, looking for a guard to go off a Butch screen and see what develops.
When the Indiana (20-4, 9-2 Big Ten) defense made it difficult for Michael Flowers to inbound the ball to one of his first few options, Flowers had to force it to Marcus Landry on the left wing.
Landry tried to drive to the hoop, but seeing his path cut off, found Butch back behind the 3-point line to set up the heroics.
“He was astute enough to drive what the guards usually do, and if they leave, Brian is the throwback guy,” Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan said of Landry.
The shot was hardly a thing of beauty, but it felt good to Butch as it left his hand.
“You know, I really felt I was going to make it, too,” Butch said. “It left my hand, and ? I thought there was enough (touch) on it to let it go. I didn’t think I was going to bank it.”
Surprised by the bank and expecting the Hoosiers to call a timeout to set up their final shot, the Badgers seemed to temporarily lag off the defensive intensity. But Indiana head coach Kelvin Sampson, thinking such a move would have given Wisconsin a chance to set its defense, elected not to take a timeout, and the Hoosiers got a good look at a shot to win the game. Jamarcus Ellis wound up with the ball in his hands, but his 3-pointer from the side hit the rim and bounced over the backboard as time expired.
“I probably would like to have seen the ball in Eric (Gordon) or Armon’s (Bassett) hands in that situation,” Sampson said.
In the last 1:36 alone, there were seven lead changes as the two teams traded baskets.
Butch, who in recent games had seen his late-game minutes dwindle as Ryan settled on a “quick feet” unit of Landry, Joe Krabbenhoft, Flowers, Hughes and Bohannon, showed off some quicker feet late when he was able to slide into position to block Gordon’s path along the baseline and force the guard to step out of bounds with 1:52 left and the score tied.
“Brian did a better job tonight moving his feet,” Ryan said.
Just as in the last time the two teams met up, Indiana was a two-headed monster offensively. Gordon (23 points) and D.J. White (17) combined for nearly two-thirds of the Indiana scoring.
After being nearly unstoppable early on ? scoring 14 points in the first half without missing a shot ? Wisconsin was able to limit White to only three points after halftime. That may have come at the expense of guarding Gordon, however, as the freshman scored 17 in the second half.
Indiana led by as many as nine points in the first half, but Wisconsin was able to trim the deficit to one point by the end of the half.
Despite making just five field goals in the first half, the Badgers were able to hang around thanks to tremendous 3-point shooting. Bohannon led the charge with four baskets from long range, and UW made eight 3-pointers in all in the first half.
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Minnesota up next:
Wisconsin will have two days off before returning to Big Ten play against Minnesota (15-8, 5-6) Saturday at the Kohl Center at 1 p.m.
When the two teams last met two weeks ago, the Badgers ran away with a 63-47 victory. Hughes scored a game-high 20 points and nabbed six steals in one of his finer performances of the season.
Wisconsin will be looking to continue its drive for a Big Ten championship.
“You want to be fighting for it, you want to be competing for it,” Butch said. “That’s all you ask for.”
