MADISON, Wis. â After losing five of six, including several of the ugly or embarrassing variety, style points no longer should matter to the University of Wisconsin. Just find a way to get the job done and move on to the next one.
The Badgers accomplished that feat Tuesday, using a first-half surge to open a wide enough gap that they were able to hold despite a furious comeback attempt by Maryland in a 74-70 victory at the Kohl Center.
A Quad-2 victory that improved the Badgers record to 12-9 in Quad 1/2 games, making just one of four teams with that many victories in such games, Wisconsin (18-9, 10-6 Big Ten) gets a week to rest before facing two road and two home games before the postseason, including a pair of games against top-15 teams.
Here are my takeaways from Wisconsin’s triumph.
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Defense Delivers A Better Effort
Seeing a team that is second-to-last in the league in field goal percentage (39.8) shoot 50 percent in the second half and 46.2 percent for the game would lend itself to being another negative against Wisconsinâs on-again, off-again defensive effort.
However, Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard and forwards Tyler Wahl and Steven Crowl agree that this was a solid defensive effort against a team that has had hard luck in one-possession games (1-6) and plays better than the one hovering around .500.
One of the lower-possession and slower-tempo teams in the league, the Badgers â mainly guard Chucky Hepburn – made all-conference point guard Jahmir Young work (20 points on 17 shots) and kept him off the three-point line (1-for-4), prevented center Julian Reece from taking over the glass (18 points, 7 rebounds) and drastically limit all the other options.
While the Terps shot 46.2 percent, including 50 percent in the second half, the Badgers held them to 1.07 points per possession.
A big part of Marylandâs offense is its ability to draw fouls. Maryland ranks No. 14 in the country at getting offense at the free-throw line per KenPom (42.3 percent ratio of free throw attempts to field goal attempts) and nearly 25 percent of its points have come from the free-throw line.
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UW held Maryland to 23 attempts, over half of which came in the final 5:30.
âWe did a pretty good job of playing clean but still playing physical,â Wahl said. âI think we did a really good job of playing team defense where we had guys in the gap, guys helping, and not over-rotating. That keeps us all on the same page, it keeps us from running around and giving up those open looks.â
It wasnât perfect. The Badgers gave up 34 points in the paint and the Terrapins went 14-for-21 on layups or dunks. Maryland also scored 14 points off its last seven possessions to prevent the Badgers from winning comfortably.
Wahl Surging at the Right Time
Wahl admitted it was hard to replicate Marylandâs physicality early, evidenced by Wisconsin having eight first-half turnovers, including three by him in the first eight-plus minutes. That didnât discourage him as much as motivate him to keep plugging away in the low post.
The result was Wahl posting 18 points, matching his third-highest total of the season, and adding six rebounds.
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In a decisive 10-0 run around the midpoint of the first half, Wahl scored six of the points. He also notched a steal and an assist to A.J. Storr on the fast break for a ferocious dunk in traffic. It wasnât nearly as pretty, but Wahl followed up Storrâs dunk with a right-handed hooked shot and a right-handed layup that counted the same. UW never gave back the lead.
Wahl scored in double figures for the 18th time this season and the 61st time of his career.
He may never admit it, but the loss of Kamari McGee and John Blackwell looked like it was starting to catch up to Max Klesmit. Having to play more minutes with the reserves out, Klesmitâs points per game dipped over the last three contests as heâs gone 5-for-27 from the field and 3-for-16 from the perimeter.
But with Blackwell back at full capacity Tuesday (and played tough with nine points (7-8 FTs), Klesmit found his rhythm offensively.
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Klesmitâs 16 points were the most since January 19 (the game McGee got hurt) and his clutch gene was in full effect. After Young crashed the rim and hit a layup to cut the lead to four, Klesmit took a high screen from Steven Crowl and buried a three-pointer with 56 seconds left to put UW up three possessions.
When the game became a whistle fest, Klesmit calming went 6-for-6 from the line over the final 36 seconds.
As a team, UW went 28-for-31 (90.3 percent), a season-high and the most made free throws since Jan.26, 2016.
âThe thing with Kles, you always know youâre going to get energy out of him,â Wahl said. âWhen heâs on the court, when heâs locked in and heâs ready to go, he brings a whole other dynamic to our team ⦠When he gets a few baskets to go in, then heâs a whole other problem for the team to worry about and it just opens up the court for us.â
Wisconsin has typically matched its No.4 with Maryland forward Donta Scott in past seasons, but the Terrapins had moved the fifth-year senior to the three with the addition of Indiana transfer Jordan Geronimo. Needing someone physical and mobile on Scott, the coaching staff gave that job to Klesmit.
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The result was Scott having two points on five shots in the first half and finishing with 12 before fouling out.
âScott tried to establish the post early, one of the first possessions and Max got a foul on him, but Max wasnât going to relent to post position,â Gard said. âYou need somebody pretty physical on him.â
By The Numbers
4 – Number of Big Ten games where Wisconsin had four starters in double figures (at Penn State, at Michigan, at Iowa).
18 – The Badgers out-rebounded Maryland, 33-24. UW has now tallied more boards in 18 of 27 games this season.
20 – UW has now hit double-digit Big Ten wins in 20 of the last 23 seasons. No other team can make that claim.
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22 – Scoring 10 points against Maryland, Storr has reached double figures in each of his last 22 games, the longest consecutive streak by a Badger since Ethan Happ tallied 42 straight games spanning the 2019 and 2020 seasons. Storr has scored 10+ in 25 out of 27 games this season.
56.7 – Wisconsin’s shooting percentage on two-point shots (17-for-30)
90.3 – UW’s 90.3 percent (28-for-31) at the line is the team’s highest FT percentage with at least 30 FTAs since going 28-for-31 against Indiana on Feb. 3, 2015.
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Immigration authorities in Baltimore, Maryland, have arrested 153 illegal immigrant sex offenders this fiscal year, a record, with the latest being a Honduran man who was deported from the United States after he was previously convicted of raping a Maryland resident.
The Enforcement and Removal Operations branch under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said last week that Madai Gamaliel Amaya was taken into custody on Aug. 29 in the suburb of Montgomery Village.
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Madai Gamaliel Amaya, a convicted rapist, has been deported from the United States multiple times, authorities said.(ICE)
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“This is a landmark arrest for ERO Baltimore, in that they secured a record 153 noncitizen sex offenders arrested in their area of operations during a single fiscal year, but more importantly, there are 153 victims who need not fear their predators because of ERO officers,” said ERO Executive Associate Director Daniel Bible.
Amaya initially illegally entered the U.S. at an unknown date and place years ago, ICE said. On Jan. 8, 2009, he was arrested by Montgomery County police and charged with second-degree rape.
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He was convicted months later and sentenced to 10 years in prison and three years of supervised probation upon his release. Two years and six months of the sentence was suspended by a judge. ICE filed a detainer request in 2010 with local authorities and Amaya was deported in 2013.
On July 27, 2016, Amaya was caught trying to illegally enter the U.S. by U.S. Border Patrol agents near Hidalgo, Texas. He was convicted of unlawful entry in 2017 and sentenced to 30 months in an Oklahoma federal prison.
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He was deported once again in 2018. He then entered the U.S. again at an unknown date.
His most recent arrest came last month and he remains in custody pending deportation proceedings, authorities said.
BALTIMORE Since the last presidential election, Maryland has seen a concerning rise in turnover among our state’s election officials—with almost half new to their positions—according to research from the Bipartisan Policy Center.
As of January 2024, Maryland saw turnover in 11 voting jurisdictions.
Turnover is also on the rise nationally according to a CBS News investigation.
What is driving the exodus? Some blame an increasingly hostile environment, fueled by citizens who do not trust the election system.
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Documenting Threats in Harford County
Stephanie Taylor oversees elections in Harford County.
She gets a lot of correspondence from the public—and keeps all of it in a binder with the title “Love and Not So Much Love Notes” on the cover.
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“These are our nice letters, and these are our nasty letters,” she showed WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren
“There’s a lot of cursing. We’ve been called Nazis,” Taylor said. “We’ve been accused of cheating, changing voter turnouts, changing the results, which is very hurtful to us because we take great pride in our job that we do here.”
Hellgren asked her what that says about where Maryland stands right now. “There are a lot of angry people who do not trust the election process. I don’t know how to get through to them,” she said.
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Since the 2020 presidential election, Maryland has seen a 46 percent turnover rate among election officials. That is larger than the 36 percent national average.
“Have you had people leave because they could not take it?” Hellgren asked.
“Yes,” Taylor admitted. “One person who was with the office for quite a long time. She had a key role in this office. Just the stress of it—she’s just like, ‘I’m done.’ And she quit.”
To make sure her staff members feel safe, Taylor has used grants to dramatically increase security at their office and warehouse in Forest Hill.
“This is one thing everyone in the office said we needed to enclose this after all the craziness started happening after January 6th,” Taylor said as she showed WJZ the public entrance area.
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She had bullet- and bomb-deflecting glass installed that will not shatter.
“We have changed the whole look of this office. We used to have an open reception area. We put walls up. We put glass in. It is not bulletproof glass, but it will change the direction of a bullet. We have coating on our windows that if someone were to put a bomb outside, this coating would catch it and it would just drop it so there wouldn’t be shards,” Taylor said.
There are also new cameras and stronger locks.
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“Now, if it’s unlocked, it has a high-powered magnet and you have to be buzzed in,” she said at a secondary door to the board room.
“We have our own FBI contact. I never in my life thought I would say that I have my own FBI contact. It just never even crossed my mind,” Taylor told Hellgren.
“They were being disruptive, calling us names. We got a threat in one of the meetings that we got on tape. I did turn that in to the FBI and the sheriff’s department. It’s just the way the world looks at us now. It’s so different,” she said.
New Law Means Stiffer Penalties
Earlier this year in Annapolis, the General Assembly took action to protect poll workers, election judges and their families from threats which have been on the rise across the country.
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Citing the turnover, Governor Wes Moore’s administration advocated for and and won changes to the law. There are now tougher penalties against those convicted of threatening election workers, with fines increasing from $1,000 to $2,500.
“It is becoming harder to recruit election judges. It is becoming harder to recruit elections administrators, and we need to respond to that,” said Eric Luedtke, the governor’s chief legislative officer at a hearing on February 21st.
Violators could also get up to three years behind bars.
During that hearing about the legislation, Baltimore County’s elections director revealed she, too, had been threatened.
“After receiving a threat firsthand, I was overwhelmingly thankful for the protection from my county, the FBI and homeland security,” Ruie Lavoie, the director of Baltimore County elections, told lawmakers.
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WJZ asked Maryland’s state elections administrator Jared DeMarinis whether the new law does enough to deter people from threatening election workers. “I hope so. I think time will tell on that, but I think you have to have the first step and I think this was a great first step,” DeMarinis said.
State Safeguards the Vote
DeMarinis took over as elections administrator from Linda Lamone last year.
She had served in that position for more than 35 years, but DeMarinis also worked in that office for almost two decades.
“Yes, I’m a new person, but it’s not like I don’t know the electoral process,” DeMarinis told Hellgren.
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On the threats, DeMarinis acknowledged “those types of incidents really shake you to the core.”
He said, “This is really trying to take it to a new level where you’re trying to inflict bodily harm or even death upon you know a person just doing their job and making sure that our democracy works.”
He made it a priority to stamp out misinformation and added a “rumor control” section to the state elections website.
“Before, there was a trust. There was an understanding in the process here, and there’s a segment of the population now that just doesn’t believe in any of that,” DeMarinis said.
DeMarinis is also pushing young people to get involved as election judges and poll workers.
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He is aware that when elections officials leave, so does their experience and knowledge of the process. That is why he is partnering more experienced elections officials with newer ones to lessen the impact of any turnover.
And DeMarinis believes that turnover is not always a negative.
“Turnover brings new blood, new ideas, new points of view to the process. It helps streamline things. But yes, there is a concern about losing a lot of institutional knowledge,” he said.
A Veteran in Charge in Baltimore City
“I just don’t want to believe that people are not interested in an important process as this,” said Armstead Jones, Baltimore City’s election director
Baltimore has one of the longest-serving elections directors in the state.
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Armstead Jones said in the city, the problem is not threats, but getting enough people motivated to staff the polls.
“At one time, we’d have as many as 3,200 election judges working Election Day and those numbers have dropped over the years,” Jones said. “I believe in this last election, we may have had about 1,500 judges to work. Maybe 2,100 trained, 600 did not show so those numbers are getting lower each time.”
The state remains committed to smooth and transparent elections, despite the challenges.
“Having that full confidence in the system is the underpinning of everything that we do with good, solid elections,” DeMarinis said.
Staying Despite Challenges
“I love the job. I love the people I work with,” said Taylor of her Harford County position. “If you’re in a polling location, it’s so much fun to be there and you see people coming in and taking part in democracy.”
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She told Hellgren she has no plans to leave and be part of the turnover despite uncertainty about the future.
“Do you see it getting any better?” Hellgren asked. “I’ll let you know after this election. It depends on what happens after this election,” she said.
Mike Hellgren
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WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren came to WJZ in the spring of 2004. Solid reporting credentials and a reputation for breaking important news stories have characterized Mike’s work. Mike holds a B.S. degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and grew up partly in both Chicago and Louisiana.