A depleted Minnesota basketball team that was missing three of its top six scorers — including their leading scorer in sophomore guard Nate Mason — stood no chance against the red-hot Badgers.
Wisconsin (20-10 overall, 12-5 Big Ten) used a dominant first half to take down the Gophers (8-21, 2-15) Wednesday 62-49, giving UW their 11th victory in their last 12 games.
The Badgers used a dominant first half, where they held a lead as large as 20, to take down a Gopher team that struggled mightily to score all night. In the end, while Minnesota did outscore Wisconsin 25-22 in the second half, they were simply in too large of a hole and never got the margin lower than 11 points.
The victory leaves Wisconsin in a three-way tie for second place in the Big Ten, and the team also owns the tiebreaker over both Michigan State and Maryland, giving them the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament.
UW will play their final game of the regular season Sunday night against No. 15 Purdue in West Lafayette.
Wisconsin player of the game: Redshirt freshman Ethan Happ
Happ recorded his ninth double-double of the season, scoring 12 points and grabbing 10 rebounds — four offensive. The redshirt freshman is also the Big Ten leader in steals per game this season, averaging 1.8 per game, and his one steal Wednesday gave him 54 on the year. He is now just four away from the Wisconsin freshman steals record set by Mike Kelley.
Minnesota player of the game: Freshman guard Stephon Sharp
Sharp had played sparingly all season, but as a result of three Minnesota players being suspended for the remainder of the season, the freshman stepped in and played great. He scored 16 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished out three assists on the night.
By the numbers:
41 – The number of games junior guard Bronson Koenig has hit a 3-pointer in a Wisconsin record.
8:57 – The amount of time in the second half the Badgers went without a made field goal.
23 – The number of rebounds Nigel Hayes, Vitto Brown and Happ combined to grab Wednesday.
26.5 – The number of points the three suspended Minnesota players — Mason, Kevin Dorsey and Dupree McBrayer — have combined to average this season.
1 – The number of windmill dunks Wisconsin freshman Khalil Iverson failed to execute:
https://vine.co/v/igPYK3m1WVx
