Nolan Winter, Nick Boyd comment on flagrant, technical fouls vs UCLA
Wisconsin forward Nolan Winter and guard Nick Boyd explain what happened with their flagrant and technical fouls in the Badgers’ win over UCLA.
- The Wisconsin Badgers defeated UCLA 80-72, with a balanced scoring attack. Nick Boyd led the team with 20 points.
- Wisconsin showed improvement with its 3-point shooting and halfcourt defense against the Bruins.
- The game concluded with a flagrant foul on Wisconsin’s Nolan Winter and offsetting technical fouls.
MADISON – Wisconsin men’s basketball got the palette-cleanser it needed.
After losing to its last three high-major opponents by double-digit margins, the Badgers enjoyed a double-digit lead for almost the entire game en route to an 80-72 win over UCLA on Jan. 6 at the Kohl Center.
“The thing I like about tonight is we showed some fight and some togetherness and some heart,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said after the game. “And it wasn’t perfect, but when you have heart and you have fight, you always have a chance. … We were physically and emotionally engaged and after it.”
BOX SCORE: Wisconsin 80, UCLA 72
Wisconsin boasted a balanced scoring attack. Nick Boyd had a team-high 20 points, followed closely by Nolan Winter with 18 and John Blackwell with 17. Andrew Rohde also had 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting.
UCLA, meanwhile, relied on 18 points from Eric Dailey Jr. and 16 points from Tyler Bilodeau while the Bruins were playing without standout guard Skyy Clark.
Here are three takeaways from the win:
Badgers benefit from far superior 3-point shooting
One of the many what-ifs from Wisconsin’s 16-point loss to then-No. 6 Purdue was its 3-point shooting. UW went a mere 4 of 25 against the Boilermakers, marking its second consecutive game with sub-20% perimeter shooting.
The Badgers’ Jan. 6 win over UCLA was a much different story, as they made more 3-pointers in the first nine minutes against the Bruins than they did in all 40 minutes against Purdue.
UW finished the game with 33% shooting, going 10 of 30. But the perimeter shooting was more of a difference-maker than one might surmise from glancing through the final box score.
The early 3-pointers helped the Badgers claim 16-4, 28-9 and 38-19 leads throughout the first half – a sizeable enough cushion to withstand UCLA’s 14-4 run in the second half without the outcome ever seeming in serious jeopardy.
“When you see your teammates shoot with confidence and you see see them go in a few times, then it’s contagious,” Blackwell said. “It rubs off on others to make other shots and just be aggressive.”
Gard similarly said the improved 3-point shooting “creates energy.”
“As much as you try to say, ‘Don’t get emotionally attached to your shot going in or not,’ I thought we got good looks,” Gard said. “We knocked them down. We took the right ones. And that energizes both ends of the floor.”
Meanwhile, UCLA – ranking 16th in the NCAA in 3-point shooting at 38.6% ahead of the Jan. 6 game – had uncharacteristically lackluster shooting from deep, missing its first 14 3-point attempts and ultimately going 1 of 17. The Bruins’ lack of Clark – a 49.3% 3-point shooter – surely played a factor in that.
Wisconsin shows improvements, imperfections in halfcourt defense
As much as Wisconsin’s improved 3-point shooting captured the spotlight, the Badgers’ improved halfcourt defense also was instrumental in the Badgers enjoying a double-digit lead for much of the game.
“We were connected,” Gard said. “We were energetic. We were physical. We were covering for each other. We had each other’s back.”
UCLA averaged .969 points per possession in the first half, and the Bruins did not score outside of fastbreak opportunities until the 13:23 mark in the half.
UCLA was better in the second half, but even then, its 1.029 points per possession over the course of the entire game was the fewest allowed by UW to a high-major since holding Marquette to exactly one point per possession on Dec. 6.
“Our communication was really high-level,” Winter said. “These last two days of practice probably have been some of our best practices all year from a communication standpoint and a defensive standpoint.”
That’s not to say Wisconsin’s defense was perfect against the Bruins, however. UCLA made six straight shots at one point in the second half, and Gard picked out a few other issues with UW’s halfcourt defense.
“We had a couple ball-screen mistakes – one we hedged way too far, one we didn’t hedge at all,” Gard said. “Other than that, I thought we were pretty solid, and a lot of good things to build upon. We’ll have to continue to get better on that end of the floor.”
What happened with Nolan Winter’s flagrant foul, Nick Boyd’s technical foul
The Wisconsin-UCLA game ended with some drama as the officiating crew handed out a Flagrant 1 and offsetting technical fouls.
Winter received the flagrant foul after a somewhat of a hard foul on Eric Dailey Jr. as the UCLA forward attempted a layup.
“Yeah, it was a hard foul,” Winter said of his flagrant. “I didn’t really mean to get a flagrant, obviously, but I didn’t want to give him any free points, especially at the end of the game. … We played to the whistle.”
Gard pointed out that UCLA was “pressing us until the very end,” too.
After Winter’s foul, Dailey appeared to give Winter a light shove. Boyd and others ran to Winter’s defense, and Boyd made contact with Dailey. Boyd and Dailey received offsetting deadball technical fouls after replay review.
Boyd saw Dailey “push my guy,” he said after the game.
“Over these last couple weeks, man, we’ve just been getting pushed around too much,” Boyd said. “So I just had to have his back. That’s the mentality we’re carrying with us the rest of the year. We get pushed. We’re stepping right back up.”
UCLA coach Mick Cronin, unlike many of his peers this season, did not hold a postgame press conference at the Kohl Center. So Gard was the only coach in a position to share his thoughts on what transpired.
Gard’s thoughts were shaped by other officiating decisions that he did not want to specifically identify.
“I’m not going to get into refereeing, and those guys got a really hard job,” Gard said. “But there was some actions on the other end that if they get them under control, then that never happens because the play would have been whistled dead. … I’ll deal with that with the league in terms of we should have never gotten to that based on some other stuff.”
