Wisconsin made it look simple as they took down Montana at The Pit, winning 73-49. Jordan Taylor and Ryan Evans led the way for the Badgers as they posted the most lopsided win for Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament. Up next is the 3rd round and a date with Vanderbilt. Wisconsin also ended the Grizzlies 14 game winning streak with the 24 point victory.
Jordan Taylor led the way with perhaps his best overall game of the season, scoring 18 points, grabbing 8 rebounds, and adding 6 assists. Ryan Evans wasn’t far behind as he scored 17 points and added a Badger best 9 rebounds in the winning effort.
Most impressive was the overall team effort from Wisconsin. Mike Bruesewitz even got off of his 3 point shooting slump as he shot 2-3 from deep after going nearly a month without a 3 point FG make. As a team the Badgers shot 50% from behind the arc in the victory and shot 48% from the field as a team.
“We’re just happy to have the win,” said Taylor in a post game press conference. “It was a great team win. Everybody added something, whether it was Mike or Ben off the bench, knocking down shots. Jared getting blocks, playing great defense. So it was a great team win.”
Defensive stopper Josh Gasser did that and then some, as he added 12 points and helped to hold down Montana’s best player in Will Cherry. Cherry only had 9 points for the game. Speaking of defense, forward Jared Berggren had one of the best defensive games in school history, recording 7 blocks in the game. It was a career high for him and the 3rd highest total in a single game in Wisconsin school history.
The Grizzlies best effort came from an unlikely source in forward Art Steward who had 18 points. However, without the dynamic duo of Cherry and and Kareem Jamar going off Montana just didn’t have enough to keep pace with the Badgers.
“We just made sure that we tried to run him off the three-point line and tried to get some help to him and squeeze the court,” said Head Coach Bo Ryan. “Make the driving line smaller.”
In fact Montana only held two leads in this game, both coming early at 2-0 and 5-2. After that it was all Wisconsin as they could seemingly do no wrong.
With the win the Badgers are now 10-1 under Bo Ryan in the 1st round. It also means the 10th appearance in the round of 32 since 2002, the most of any team in the nation.
Ahead of the Badgers is a matchup with Vanderbilt. The Commodores dispatched Harvard in a hard fought win, taking the Crimson down 79-70.
The game against Vanderbilt is tomorrow at 5:10pm on TNT.
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