Takeaways from No.19 Wisconsin's 81-75 Win Over Pittsburgh

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. – The news was positive every time Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard got the analytical report from video coordinator A.J. Van Handel, even though the results on the court were not. Despite some early flaws guarding back cuts and allowing dribble penetration, the Badgers were holding Pittsburgh under a point per possession. He just needed Wisconsin to take and make some better shots.

That, and John Tonje hoisting the Badgers on his back and carrying them over the finish line.

The resilience, toughness, and guts of the No.19 Wisconsin was on full display in front of a packed Colonial Hall at the Greenbrier Resort, as the Badgers got 33 points from Tonje and sound offensive execution in the second half to erase a 14-pint deficit in an 81-75 victory over Pittsburgh.

It’s the third November championship for Wisconsin (7-0) in the past four seasons and a victory that could serve as a springboard in the coming weeks, not to mention a nice thing to show the selection committee in four months.

Here are my takeaways from the foothills of the Alleghany Mountains.

Tonje said that he hopes to live in Madison when he’s retired from playing basketball. At the rate he’s going, he might have to come back anyway for his jersey retirement.

Tonje was the hero again for Wisconsin and treated as such, going into the crowd to celebrate with the vocal fan base that made the trip and mobbed by his teammates while waiting to do his postgame television interview. It was the only time anybody got the better of him after halftime.

Shaking off a 2-for-8 start, Tonje was 9-for-11 in the second half. He was 6-for-6 from the line, relentlessly going inside and getting rewarded because Pittsburgh kept reaching. Knowing the primary defenders on him were starting to rack up fouls, and that the Panthers haven’t shown to be a particularly deep team to this point, Tonje kept his head down and kept attacking.

“I was trying to be aggressive from the start,” said Tonje, who made all nine of his two-point shots in the second half, most coming at the rim or in the paint. “I didn’t shoot the ball well early, but I just kept with it. My coaches and teammates believed in me. I stayed with it and did everything I can in my power to get the win.”

After falling into the trap of taking quick shots or long-range jumpers, a problem that plagued the Badgers last season, Wisconsin found the gaps in Pittsburgh defense. UW scored 54 points in the second half, registered points on 83.3 percent of its possessions, and averaged a robust 1.8 points per possession.

“I don’t think we started the second half with the type of force that’s necessary,” Pittsburgh coach Jeff Capel said. “We allowed them to climb back into the game and really get into a great rhythm offensively, and then they just became really tough to guard … Their physicality wore us down.”

Tonje scored 25 of the second-half points but he had help. Kamari McGee scored eight of his 10 points in the last half and hit all three of his shots, including a pair of clutch three-pointers that were timely in the final six-plus minutes, one giving UW the lead and another extended it to four with 2:54 to go.

“We kept at it,” said John Blackwell (14 points). “We kept getting to the rim (and) stayed aggressive. Obviously, our shots weren’t falling in the first half, but we didn’t quit. We told ourselves at halftime just keep going. The shots are going to fall. We trusted each other.

“JT did his thing by getting to the rim, doing what he do best.”

Named the tournament’s most valuable player, Tonje averaged 24.0 points and 6.5 rebounds per game over UW’s two wins.

“He just drives and throws his body around,” Capel said of Tonje, one of only six players nationally to have two 30-point games this season. “We weren’t able to sustain the discipline required to guard someone like that. You can’t reach. He does a really good job of getting his body into yours. He’s really strong with the ball. He exposes it. You think you can swipe, and he gets a great whistle, and he’s earned that because it’s consistent.”

McGee said Friday that the close call against UTRGV Monday was not a wake-up call for the Badgers, only that it emphasized the need to be better polished in defensive areas. Call it what you want, but the Badgers’ defense took a major step in slowing down guard play in West Virginia.

Pittsburgh’s backcourt of Ishmael Leggett and Jaland Lowe averaged 33.2 points, 12.4 rebounds, 8.0 assists, and 4.5 steals per game. They combined for 43 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, and eight steals in Friday’s win over LSU. They managed 33 points on 32 shots.

“I just tried to match his energy,” Blackwell said of guarding Leggett, who finished 6-for-15 and 0-for-4 from three. “I know he picked up some quick fouls and he sat. All I can do is try to match his energy, because he’s a great player.”

The Badgers also took away Lowe’s ability to cleanly pass the ball. He finished with five assists but committed four turnovers.

“If we can guard ball screens as much as possible two on two and not have to send quite as much help, we knew we were going to have to plug the paint,” Gard said of the plan for Lowe.“Try to force him into some mid-range stuff. I didn’t think we were good at it early. He got loose on us, pinched us off, and got a couple lobs to Corhen, but I thought we got better with the back side of bumping the roller and plugging the lane. We forced him into some tougher shots.”

Wisconsin caught a break when Damian Dunn (13.0 ppg, .526 3FG) rolled his ankle and injured his hand two minutes into the game and didn’t return. Freshman guard Brandin Cummings replaced him and managed only two points.

With how poorly Wisconsin’s offense was in the first half (36.7 percent, .794 points per possession), the Badgers leaning into their defense was critical.

“We have to give all credit to the coaches,” Blackwell said. “They prepared us well to know what their tendencies are, what they like to do. We just trust each other. Our bigs got our back if they get past us with good wall ups. We just trust our technique.”

Frustrating opposing guards has become a common theme.Arizona preseason All-American Caleb Love generated more technical fouls than made three-pointers against UW’s guards. He finished 2-for-13 from the floor and scored six points before fouling out

In Friday’s semifinals against UCF, which possessed a guard trio of Jordan Ivy-Curry, Keyshawn Hall, and Darius Johnson that scored 62.4 percent of its points, the Badgers’ ability to challenge them with movement and spacing held the group to 9-for-36 from the floor.

The Panthers have proven to be one of the better rebounding teams in the country in the season’s first month. Having won the rebounding battle in five of its first six games, Pitt wasaveraging 41.2 rebounds per game, was 21st nationally in defensive rebounds (30.83) and had four players averaging at least 6.0 rebounds per game.

They took the Badgers to task in the first half. Finishing the first half plus-four on the glass, Pitt’s first 11 points were all on actions toward the rim, mostly on back cuts behind UW’s defense, dribble actions where a Pitt player hit the cutter, or a guard attacking the paint to hit an open pull-up jumper.

Even after reserve forward Zack Austin switched things up with a three-pointer, Pittsburgh went right back to the post with an alley-oop and multiple driving layups. The 6-10 Cameron Corhen was the biggest benefactor of UW’s lapse defense, as the 68.0 percent FG shooter had 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting in the opening half.

Wisconsin 2-for-10 to start and was largely absent in the glass when shots went up. UW started 0-for-5 from the perimeter and most attempts didn’t have a red jersey close to the rim. UW’s first offensive rebound came at the 10:54 mark, but the possession ended with Blackwell airballing a three-pointer with the shot clock about to expire, a possession that didn’t include a post touch.

Wisconsin was averaging .533 points on its first 15 possessions. UW raised it modestly at halftime because Blackwell, McGee, Tonje, and Nolan Winter (11 points) started getting to the rim and converting.

The inability to match a team’s frontcourt physicality has been an underlining theme when the Badgers have faced Power-Four schools. Arizona outrebounded UW, 52-28, including 24-2 on the offensive glass, and gave up 13 boards to forward Tobe Awaka.

UCF wasn’t nearly as big as Arizona, but the Knights still outrebounded Wisconsin, 41-39, with all 11 players getting at least one offensive rebound.

Things flipped in the second half. Senior Steven Crowl (6 points, season-high 9 rebounds, 3 assists) helped draw two quick fouls on Corhen, sending him to the bench for five-and-a-half minutes of the second half. He attempted only two shots in the final 12:51 after he returned.

With Corhen out and Guillermo Diaz Graham at the five, Wisconsin’s low-post offense ran more efficiently by creatingmore lanes for Tonje to attack and more space to attack the glass. After getting only two offensive rebounds in the first half, the Badgers had nine in the second half that led to 11 second-chance points.

“Once we got rolling in the second half we went to him quite a bit,” Gard said on Crowl. “I liked his physicality on Corhen. That’s one thing I felt Steve’s advantage was on Corhen on both ends of the floor was he could be physical. Corhen is a really good player but a little lighter than Steve. To be able to keep a big body on Corhen, and when we got him in foul trouble, we were able to go at the rim a little bit more with everybody else.”

The championship game was scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. eastern, roughly 30 minutes following the conclusion of the third-place game between LSU and UCF. The Knights’ collapse made the evening a waiting game.

UCF led by 20 in the first half, 18 with 12:57 left, and 14 with 8:31 to go, but ended up losing, 106-102, in triple overtime.

When the teams finally took the court, went through introductions, and were ready to start, one of the electronic game-and-shot clocks above the basket shorted out. Unable to restart the system, or find a long enough extension cord, officials agreed to shut off the working shot clock to even the playing field.

Throw in the jump ball needing to be done twice after a Pitt player jumped the gun, the game didn’t officially start until 6:43 local time, an hour, 13 minutes late.

That delayed doesn’t account for the two brief stoppages in play in the second half when the bank of lights that illuminated center court kept flickering on and off.

“I thought we handled all the adversity well,” Capel said. “What we didn’t handle was Tonje.”

6 – Wisconsin turned the ball over just six times, including only two in the second half. Averaging 9.4 turnovers per game, Wisconsin has had fewer than 10 turnovers in four games.

17.5 – The Badgers held Pittsburgh to 5-for-23 (21.7) from three-point range and held their two Power-Four Conference opponents to 7-for-40 (17.5) on threes.

30 – After scoring just eight points in the first 10 minutes, the Badgers scored 73 in the final 30 minutes.

60 – Tonje has made 60 free throws this season to lead all Division 1 players. His 63 attempts are tops in the Big Ten and tied for fourth nationally. He’s the first UW player since Brad Davison (2017-18) to have made at least 10 free throws in three games.

300 – Gard coached his 300th game on Sunday, the fourth-most games of any coach in Wisconsin history. He improved his record to 193-107 (.643) overall and 72-22 (.766) in regular season nonconference games.