Coming off four straight losses, the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team is looking to end their losing streak against the Boilermakers at the Kohl Center tonight. At Monday’s press conference, Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan addressed the matchup between his team and Purdue.
“The game hasn’t changed over the years; there’s still the basic things that you have to try to execute well and those two teams (Illinois and Purdue) are in that mold right now,” Ryan said. “They (Purdue) played better than we did on both ends. That’s something that when you play you have to change that. Hopefully we can change that.”
Ryan emphasized the importance of playing with confidence and remaining consistent with a lead. Against Iowa and Minnesota, the Badgers had leads before squandering them as time expired.
?”You want it in the beginning, you want it in the middle, you want it three quarters, and you want it at the end,” Ryan said. “You want as much consistency as you can possibly have. So if somebody had a formula for the first 10 minutes I’m sure they’d be selling it.”
Badgers shoot for consistency
The Badgers have been lacking in consistency, shooting less than 40 percent from the field against Illinois with much lower percentages in the first half. The also shot about 70 percent from the free-throw line. The shooting percentages from the field have been below 40 percent in three of the last four games.
“We haven’t finished around the basket,” Ryan said. “If you’re not making the shots, the only way you can get on the left hand side is you need to be getting at the free-throw line quite a bit because you’re getting fouled and then hit free throws.” ?
The lack of consistency has forced the Badgers to play from behind. They had to force a last-second three to put the game into overtime against Iowa and a late-game surge brought Wisconsin within six points of Illinois in last Saturday’s match.
“If you’re not making shots, you’re not getting some kind of a lead or putting defenses into position where they have to foul you and then you’re the ones that need the fouls at the end,” Ryan said. “If you look at the two overtimes we were playing from behind in both of them, so what’s the answer? Don’t get behind. That’s pretty easy.”
Although the Badgers have been less consistent lately, Ryan is pleased with the shots the players are taking. He also added shooters must have a significant amount of confidence when they go up for a shot.
“When I say confidence it is with shooting that belief, and nobody, nobody that I’ve ever seen can tell me they’ve known a good shooter who wasn’t very very confident about the ball going in, it’s in,” Ryan said. “When you have people shoot it and hope, that’s when you run into problems.”
Freshmen come up big
Despite going on a four-game losing streak, the men’s basketball team has had some bright spots. Freshman guard Jordan Taylor has begun to see significant playing time off the bench, including 27 minutes against Illinois last weekend. He also contributed four points, three assists and a steal against the Illini. Rob Wilson, another freshman guard, has also been playing significant time off the bench in defensive situations
?”Jordan’s just a man who wants to play and has patiently been working everyday looking for his opportunities, and he’s just a guy with a lot of moxie which we felt coming out of high school and he’s starting to show it,” Ryan said of Taylor.
“Sometimes you can play a little older and sometimes you’re going to be a freshman,” Ryan said of Wilson. “Rob is a freshman. He just has to keep learning.”
