COLUMBUS, Ohio ? That was the ending they were hoping for
last time.

A year after having its conference championship hopes dashed
on the very same court, the Wisconsin basketball team stayed atop the Big Ten
race with a 58-53 win over Ohio State at the Value City Arena Sunday.

“That was a great win for us,” guard Jason
Bohannon said. “Ohio State played pretty good today. ? For us to come in
here and get a victory was pretty good.”

Bohannon led all scorers with 16 points and Michael
Flowers added 14 as the Badgers (23-4, 13-2 Big Ten) overcame 12 first-half
turnovers to hand the Buckeyes (17-10, 8-6) their second consecutive loss.

Marcus Landry narrowly missed his second double-double of
the season with a 10 point, nine rebound effort for 10th-ranked UW.

Wisconsin took what had been a back-and-forth defensive
struggle between UW’s man-to-man and OSU’s 3-2 zone and created some separation
for itself midway through the second half.

Trailing by two after Jon Diebler made his only 3-pointer
of the game, the Badgers used their balanced offense to go on a 9-0 run that
saw no UW player contributing more than one field goal.

The spurt was started by Flowers, who leaped high at
midcourt to intercept a pass from Ohio State’s Jamar Butler and then went in
for a layup that eventually fell in after nearly coming to rest on the back of
the rim.

“I have never looked up and seen a guy that size that
high up in the air. ? What a great read,” Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan
said. “And that was a big play.”

The next UW possession, Flowers found Bohannon open for
one of the guard’s four 3-pointers. After Brian Butch made a mid-range jumper
off an assist from Tim Jarmusz, Landry finished off the run with two free
throws with 5:08 to play.

As it turned out, the Badgers would need just about every
one of those points, as their next points came on Landry’s breakaway dunk to
put the game away with 11 seconds left.

The Buckeyes picked up the pressure defensively, bringing
back the full-court trap used in the first half and swarming around the ball to
try to create turnovers. While the Badgers were able to deal with the zone,
limiting their turnovers to just three in the second half, at times they
struggled to get off a good shot.

“They even got more aggressive those last five
minutes,” Landry said. “They picked up their defense even more. ? You
have to make the right decision at the right time or else something bad might
happen or you might not get the shot you want.”

But just as Wisconsin struggled to score at the end of the
game, so too did Ohio State. After drawing to within three points with 3:18 to
go on two Butler free throws, the Buckeyes couldn’t score the rest of the way.
Included in that drought were two missed layups that forward Brian Butch was
able to alter.

“I was just trying to be strong more than anything,
and be big,” Butch said. “I’m 6?-11?, and just try and get the ball.?

“The first one on (OSU forward Matt) Terwilliger I
just got a good block on and got the rebound. Then (Evan) Turner tried taking
it in and got a little piece of it. I didn’t try to jump and block that one;
usually that’s when you get a foul called.”

In total, Ohio State missed its last five shots and was
not able to come completely back.

“I think we won the first war, and then towards the
middle to the end of the second half they were up seven and I think that’s
where we could never recover from,” Terwilliger said.

After trailing by as many as seven early on, Wisconsin was
tied with Ohio State 32-32 at the end of a sloppy opening half. Wisconsin
turned the ball over 12 times in the first 20 minutes of play, nearly matching
its season average for a complete game. The Buckeyes were also careless with
the ball, losing possession 10 times.

The Buckeyes at times extended their 3-2 zone to a
full-court trapping zone to bother the Badgers, and it got to two of UW’s more
reliable ball handlers. Michael Flowers and Joe Krabbenhoft each contributed
three turnovers to the total.

Wisconsin
took the upper hand early thanks to an 8-2 run to open the game. But Ohio State
stormed back, eliminating the deficit with a 15-4 run to take a seven-point
lead ? its largest of the game ? with just under eight minutes left at 19-12.