Following the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team’s epic collapse against Notre Dame Friday March 25 in the NCAA Sweet 16, fans were desperate to search for blame.
Whose fault was it? Who should be looked at as the reason for this loss?
Maybe it was junior forward Nigel Hayes, who, on top of yet another disappointing shooting performance, allowed the Fighting Irish’s full-court pressure to get to him when he turned the ball over and allowed the opposition to take the lead.
Or maybe it was junior guard Bronson Koenig, who not only botched the potential go-ahead layup late in the game, but also allowed Notre Dame junior guard Demetrius Jackson to strip the ball away from him in the closing seconds, disallowing the Badgers to even have a shot to tie it up down three points.
But pinning the blame on one, or even two people, is lazy and unfair.
The fact of the matter is that Wisconsin should have never been in that situation Friday with about 20 seconds remaining. They should not have needed a go-ahead 3-pointer from junior forward Vitto Brown, nor should they been breaking a press following a quick layup from Notre Dame’s Jackson shortly after.
The Badgers should have ended the game in the first half.
Men’s basketball: Badgers feel the sting of March, fall in Sweet Sixteen
While the start of the game was slow offensively for both teams, with just more than five minutes remaining in the first half, Wisconsin found themselves up 22-13, and the Fighting Irish had not scored a single point in almost four minutes. Notre Dame also had four turnovers in that time.
The Badgers were in a prime position to pull away, and there was a building sense that this team was about to improbably make a return to the Elite Eight for the third consecutive year.
But from that point till the end of the first 20 minutes, Wisconsin managed to score just one point. Notre Dame would pull within four, and despite still holding a lead, no one felt good about where UW stood.
After failing to build upon a nine-point lead early on, the Badgers had yet another opportunity to put the game away.
Trading baskets with the Fighting Irish for the first five minutes of the second half would open up their lead again. With 13:47 remaining in the game, Wisconsin held a 34-26 lead, and once again, it looked as if the game was firmly in their grasp.
But, three minutes, five missed jumpers and two turnovers later, the Badgers lost their lead once again, and Notre Dame was starting to gain rhythm and confidence once again.
From there, the teams traded baskets, with four turnovers in the final two minutes and an 8-0 Notre Dame run in the final 26 seconds ultimately dooming the Badgers.
It was an outcome that could have been avoided entirely.
“You blink your eyes and the next thing you know Jackson’s shooting two free throws, we’re down five and now we’re going home,” Hayes said.
And while it remains unfair to pin the blame on a single player, pinning the game on one thing is much more reasonable.
That one thing, or things, is the 17 turnovers UW committed over 40 minutes Friday, something head coach Greg Gard knows is unacceptable.
“I don’t know if there’s a program in the country that prides itself more on taking care of the ball and valuing every possession more than Wisconsin,” Gard said after the game. “I don’t know if there’s anybody that works on it more than we do.”
As a team, the Badgers averaged just 11 turnovers per game this season, and while the 17 that occurred against Notre Dame may feel like an abnormality, it was an abnormality that could not have come at a worse time.
But that’s how March works. The NCAA tournament requires a team to be at its best for 40 minutes on six consecutive nights, and sometimes, the team that may be better on paper doesn’t always play better.
That is a sentiment that Hayes felt following Wisconsin’s crushing defeat. He knew they had this game and knew they let it get away from them.
“I really do believe we should have won this game,” Hayes said. “We have the better team. We didn’t play well enough, had too many turnovers, but all in all, I’m proud of the team.”
