For most of the afternoon Sunday, Wisconsin’s shots weren’t falling, while Penn State could not miss.

Over the final 15 minutes, however, the Badgers turned the tables on the Nittany Lions as they rallied back to escape with a 79-71 overtime victory at the Kohl Center.

Wisconsin’s win, its sixth in conference play this season, extended the Badgers’ mark to 51-0 at home against unranked Big Ten opponents in the Bo Ryan era.

“We just kept sticking to our stuff; we knew some shots would fall,” senior guard Jason Bohannon said. “It didn’t look like it at times, but there were stretches where we got hot — Jordan (Taylor) certainly did toward the end of the game and that really propelled us to the victory.”

It took an incredible effort from both senior guard Trevon Hughes and sophomore guard Jordan Taylor to keep the Badgers undefeated at home in 2009-10. Hughes’ 22 points were a team-high while Taylor added 20 points, all in the second half.

Hughes and Taylor, along with Bohannon, have carried the Wisconsin offense since junior forward Jon Leuer went down with a left wrist injury. With the Nittany Lions employing a lot of 2-3 zone coverage, the Badgers’ guard trio was forced to fire from long distance 28 times Sunday afternoon.

As they struggled to hit open shots for most of the night, the Nittany Lions rode the hot hands of junior guard Talor Battle — who finished with a game-high 28 points — and sophomore guard Chris Babb.

During a 64-second stretch in the first half, Battle hit three shots from beyond the arc to extend the lead from 18-16 at the 10:04 mark to 24-16 with nine minutes to go in the first half. That barrage prompted a timeout from UW head coach Bo Ryan.

Four minutes and 22 seconds later, the Badgers found themselves down 13 points as Babb drained a three before the shot clock even reached 30. Combined, those four possessions took just over half a minute.

“Defensively, we weren’t playing that poorly in the half court,” Ryan said. “It was that explosion of nine points and then a fourth three in that first half where there was 12 points scored in probably, as far as a running clock, maybe within 30 seconds.

“Battle’s three threes and Babb’s other one. … If you take the number of seconds in those four threes, that’s 12 points in (31) seconds.”

Those four threes helped Penn State take an eight-point lead into the locker room with a halftime score of 33-25. Coming out of the break, the Nittany Lions’ hot shooting continued.

Penn State shot 7 for 14 to open the half on a 20-11 run, extending its lead to as many as 16 points with 11:14 remaining.

At that point, however, the game quickly turned in the Badgers’ favor.

After forward Andrew Ott blocked a shot by forward Ryan Evans, Hughes drained a long three on an assist from Taylor to cut the lead to 13.

Following an Evans foul with 10:12 remaining, Bohannon took the ball away from Babb and took it in for the layup, making it 52-41. On the ensuing Penn State possession, Hughes blocked a shot by Battle and hit another three on the other end with another Taylor assist.

Bohannon grabbed another steal with 9:04 remaining in the game, but a foul by Battle slowed the Badgers. Eighteen seconds later, sophomore guard Rob Wilson drilled a three on yet another Taylor assist to cut the lead to five points.

On the Badgers’ next two possessions — which were created by another Bohannon steal and junior forward Keaton Nankivil grabbing a key defensive rebound — Nankivil hit a pair of jumpers to make it 52-51 with 6:55 remaining.

“We made some foolish turnovers down the stretch, which really, really hurt us,” Penn State head coach Ed DeChellis said. “Give Wisconsin credit, they made plays down the stretch when they needed to.”

Of course, the game was far from over at that point.

Penn State responded in a big way, going on an 8-1 run to make it an eight-point game with just 2:02 to play. It looked like the Nittany Lions had it wrapped up at that point, but that was when Taylor got into the act.

“That’s the difference between this year’s team and last year’s team, to an extent,” Taylor said. “Last year against Purdue, I know (Robbie) Hummel hit a big shot and we were on clips, like three of us, with our heads down. This year I think we kept battling.”

Despite having gone zero for his last 18 shots from the field, Taylor hit a huge three to make it a five-point gave with 1:47 remaining on an assist from Hughes.

“He never changed expression,” Ryan said of Taylor during the 0 for 18 stretch. “He never got down on himself — same thing before with Trevon Hughes.”

Taylor hit another three 38 seconds later following another turnover by Ott. Those points made the score 60-58 and set up the Bloomington, Minn., native for a game-tying layup 43 seconds later.

In overtime, Taylor stayed hot, scoring seven of the team’s first nine points as the Badgers went on a 7-0 run over the first 92 seconds.

When the final buzzer sounded, the Badgers pulled out a 79-71 victory, despite trailing by as many as 16 in the second half and eight points with two minutes to go.

“We have tough young men that will just go toe-to-toe with you for 40 (minutes) and go another five if you have to,” Ryan said. “It’s just the young men that we have that can make something like that happen when it seems like everything is going the other way.”