Jordan Taylor made sure his final game against his hometown team would be a memorable one as he led #14 Wisconsin (22-8, 11-6 conf.) to a come from behind 52-45 victory over Minnesota (17-13, 5-12 conf.). He poured in a game best 22 points to cap a season sweep of the Gophers. The Badgers win pushed Minnesota’s losing streak to six straight games.
With the victory the Badgers clinched the 4th seed in the Big Ten Tournament and more importantly a bye into the quarterfinals.
Taylor did most of his damage in a huge 2nd half comeback as he scored 17 of his 22 points in the final period of the game. The only other scoring option for Wisconsin was once again Ryan Evans who had 12 points and a team high 8 rebounds in one of the ugliest games in recent memory between these two teams.
Saying this game was ugly might be the understatement of the year. This game had it all – bad shooting (teams combined to shoot 27%), long scoring droughts, terrible officiating, and a ton of fouls (48 between the teams).
Just how bad was it? Wisconsin went the last 12:27 of the first half without a field goal as they managed to go into the half down 23-16 after narrowing down what was a 10 point lead by the Gophers. Minnesota wasn’t much better going the final eight plus minutes of the half without a field goal themselves.
The 16 points is the least amount of points it has had in a single half since the 2011 Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal loss to Penn State, which was also 16.
Wisconsin shot just 2-10 from three point range and a terrible 4-21 (19%) from the field overall in the half. But on the bright side was a great effort from the Wisconsin defense as it kept them in the game by holding Minnesota to just 22.7% field goal shooting of it’s own.
The first half’s only good performance came from the Gophers Andre Hollins who had 13 of the Gophers 23 points.
As bad as the 1st half was for the Badgers the second half was equally as good. Although it took them a minute or two to get going once they did there was virtually no stopping this Badgers team. It also helped that the Gophers failed to score a field goal for a whopping 15 minutes between the first and second half’s as the Badgers managed to keep themselves in the game and eventually take the lead.
After Wisconsin tied the game up at twenty-five Minnesota finally got out of it’s field goal scoring drought on a layup by Rodney Williams that made it 27-25 Gophers. Evans answered with a quick jumper of his own and from there it was the Jordan Taylor show as he scored the next 5 points to give Wisconsin a 32-27 lead that it wouldn’t relinquish the rest of the game.
What was the difference for Wisconsin in the 2nd half?
“Those three’s that we hit early certainly made a difference with the score,” said Bo Ryan in a post game press conference. “Once we got it to where it was tied, and they were play physical, we got to the foul line… so it ended up being a game that pretty much came down to free throws, aside from those three’s we hit.”
Overall Wisconsin’s defense came through in a major way as they held the Gophers to just 23.9% (11-46) from the field for the game. The 45 points scored by Minnesota was a new season low for the Gophers and marked the 15th time the Badgers have held an opponent to their season low in points. Just how bad did things get for the Gophers? They scored just 2 more points from the field than they did from the free throw line: 23 to 21 points.The Badgers shot a much better 44% (8-18) in the 2nd half and Wisconsin added 16 points from the free throw line as they scored 36 points alone in the 2nd half.
After playing three games in six days Wisconsin takes a well deserved rest as they won’t be on the court until they honor Jordan Taylor and Rob Wilson on Senior Day this coming Sunday against Illinois. Tip is scheduled for noon Central on BTN.
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