CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – With Wisconsin up 36-31 with 11:58 remaining in
the game, the PA system at the Dean Dome piped in the Mission:
Impossible theme for a game on the JumboTron. It could accurately
describe what many felt was No. 9 Wisconsin’s mission Wednesday in one
of the most intimidating environments in college basketball.
Impossible? No, but the Badgers knew to do the impossible it needed to
be spot on for 40 minutes and get a little bit of luck in the process.
It was mission accomplished … until a heated timeout conversation in
the North Carolina huddle certainly lit a match.
The Tar Heels broke out of their game-long shooting slump with a
decisive 18-5 run, engineered by All-American Harrison Barnes scoring
10 of his game-high 20 points, to help North Carolina stave off
Wisconsin to a hard-fought 60-57 victory in front of 21,750 that
extended its home court winning streak to 19 games.
It wasn’t easy, not by a long shot.
Wisconsin – denied its first 7-0 start since the 1993-94 season – was
doing everything it wanted to do in order to beat a team like North
Carolina. With 11:58 left, Wisconsin controlled the pace, shut down
the Tar Heels’ perimeter game, limited fast-break opportunities and
even outmuscled the fifth-ranked team in the country in their baby
blue backyard.
Problem was that it’s hard to keep a good team, or a good player for
that fact, down for too long.
Barnes, who was a game-time decision after tweaking his right ankle in
Saturday’s 90-80 loss to UNLV, simply exercised his will against a
Wisconsin frontcourt not used to his size. He used his teammates to
create screens and hit 3-pointers from the perimeter, he used his
length to score inside and he used his size to draw fouls and make
free throws.
“I think that they won (the momentum battle) early in the game, but
towards the second half we started pressing a little bit more,” said
Barnes, whose team scored eight points from the free-throw line on the
run. “That kind of sped the pace up which was more our style.”
But the Badgers were denied their first victory over a top five team on
the road since beating No. 4 Ohio State 72-71 on Jan. 26, 1980, a span
of 16 straight games, because the basket wasn’t kind to them.
Entering the night shooting 47.2 percent from three-point range
(second best in the nation) and 49.4 percent overall, Wisconsin was
cold from the start and never truly heated up, finishing eight of 28 from
three-point range (28.6 percent), 35.9 percent overall (23 of 64) and
made just three of six free-throw attempts.
Senior guard Jordan Taylor was the biggest culprit. He scored 18
points to lead UW but missed 14 of 20 field-goal attempts, including eight of his 11 from three-point range. Taylor was 2-for-5 in the final
six minutes, including an open three-pointer with 17 seconds left that
could have cut the score to 59-57.
In a hyped match-up of premier point guards, neither Taylor nor UNC
sophomore Kendall Marshall (four points) blew the top off the Dome,
but the program was a bigger detriment to Wisconsin considering the
importance of its senior.
“Some (shots) were forced; definitely in that run we forced some
shots, but we had quite a few good looks that just didn’t go down,” Taylor said. “A lot of people might attribute that to their length, but
those are shots we’ve been taking every day since a week after the
season ended last year.”
Juniors Jared Berggren (14 points) and Ryan Evans (10 points, 7
rebounds) were big contributors but couldn’t help Taylor and Wisconsin
extend the game in the final second. Even though UW scored
buckets on four of its final five possessions, the Tar Heels cashed in
by going 16-18 from the free throw line in the second half.
“Getting good looks isn’t the easiest thing in the world,” said UW
coach Bo Ryan, who was an assistant on that staff in 1980. “I always
keep referencing back to Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) when he told the little
kid in ‘Airplane,’ ‘You tell your dad to try and drag those guys up and
down the court.’ It was hard. It was hard to get a good look. That was
as hard of fought game as I have been in as a head coach.”
For all the things that went wrong in the first half for Wisconsin,
the 25-24 halftime deficit was a minor miracle. Wisconsin shot 32.2
percent (10 of 31) from the floor and 20 percent (3 of 15), but were
in the game because of eight first-half UNC turnovers and a 12-2 run
over an eight minute, 12 second stretch late in the first half that gave
Wisconsin a 22-21 lead with 2:25 to go. Throw in North Carolina
missing 13 of its last 16 shots, and the confidence was building on every
possession.
In the end, everything went right for the Badgers except for the final outcome.
