If there’s one thing opposing defenses have learned about the Wisconsin men’s basketball team’s offense, it’s that there’s plenty to worry about outside of point guard Jordan Taylor.

The Badgers’ most recent foe, Nevada-Las Vegas, applied some heavy pressure on the preseason All-American in Wisconsin’s most recent game, a 62-51 win at the Kohl Center Saturday afternoon.

UNLV pressured Taylor up and down the court Saturday, forcing fellow guards Josh Gasser and Ben Brust to take the ball up the court and administer the first actions of UW’s swing offense. The Rebels also occasionally collapsed two defenders onto Taylor on ball screens, again forcing him to defer to someone else.

Those tactics did prove effective against Taylor, who averaged over 18 points a game last season and was averaging over 12 prior to Saturday’s tip-off. Against the Rebels, however, Taylor failed to hit any of his 10 shots from the field and managed to score a total of just four points on the day.

But if Wisconsin’s (8-2) next opponent, UW-Milwaukee (8-2, 2-0), wants to employ the same strategy, the Panthers will have to remember to keep an eye on the rest of the Badger roster Tuesday night at U.S. Cellular Arena.

Against the Rebels, Taylor nevertheless managed to surpass his quota of assists in dishing out six to his teammates, who handled the responsibility of scoring appropriately.

Brust tied a school record in shooting 7-for-7 behind the 3-point arc on his way to totaling 25 points, while forwards Jared Berggren and Ryan Evans contributed nine and seven points, respectively.

“Teams, they have to do something special to control [Taylor],” Berggren said. “I think UNLV did a pretty good job of scoring the ball out of his hands. He’s always able to find open teammates, and when you put that much pressure on one player, it’s going to open some other guys, and he’s great at finding some other people.”

Brust and Berggren are the two largest beneficiaries of Taylor’s reduced direct influence on the scoreboard this season. Brust, a 6-foot-1 sophomore, leads the team with 12.6 points per game despite coming off the bench in every game and is shooting a fiery 49.2 percent from 3-point range.

Berggren, a 6-foot-10 redshirt junior, has been a steady source of inside scoring for the 3-point-happy Badgers, scoring 11.8 points per game (just above Taylor) and shooting at a clip of 52.7 percent.

Gasser, as the starting guard opposite Taylor, has done well to fill in for the senior in both scoring and facilitating offense. Gasser is shooting 48.1 percent from the field and 60.7 percent from the arc and has nearly twice as many assists (21) as turnovers (11).

“When Jordan gets pressured, against UNLV, I think me and Josh did a better job than in the past of going to get the ball and bringing it up to take some pressure off him,” Brust said. “We just try and find each other.”

It’s this basic scoring structure that has allowed Wisconsin to outscore its opponents by an average of 23.2 points.

UW-Milwaukee, in the meantime, has had to deal with more close games this season. The Panthers, despite holding their opponents to a stingy 58.6 points on average, have only been winning games by about six points.

Of the Panthers’ seven players regularly playing more than 10 minutes a game, four of them are shooting better than 45 percent from the field, but only one has been able to convert at least 40 percent of his shots from the perimeter.

All told, UWM is currently seeing 34 percent of its shots from the arc fall on target. Although the Badgers aren’t necessarily expecting that trend to continue when they enter Milwaukee, the Panthers do have a skilled frontcourt that can cause headaches, despite being shorthanded.

Starting forwards Kyle Kelm and James Haarsma are the only big men who have earned more than 10 minutes on the floor consistently, and together they put up about 20 points and grab just over 13 rebounds a game.

So while the Badgers won’t ignore the Panthers from perimeter, they’ll be sure to mark Kelm and Haarsma as well.

“Threes haven’t gone down for them, but they got guys that are definitely capable of shooting them; they’ve got a more experienced frontline with Haarsma, … who’s had some experience,” associate head coach Greg Gard said. “Kelm got some experience last year as a freshman.”