BadgerBlitz – Takeaways from Wisconsin's 74-70 Victory Over Maryland

MADISON, Wis. – 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.

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 Wisconsin’s 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 – 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 Maryland’s 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.

UW held Maryland to 23 attempts, over half of which came in the final 5:30.

“We did a pretty good job of playing clean but still playing physical,” Wahl said. “I 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.”

It wasn’t 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 admitted it was hard to replicate Maryland’s physicality early, evidenced by Wisconsin having eight first-half turnovers, including three by him in the first eight-plus minutes. That didn’t 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.

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 wasn’t nearly as pretty, but Wahl followed up Storr’s 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, Klesmit’s points per game dipped over the last three contests as he’s 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.

Klesmit’s 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.

“The thing with Kles, you always know you’re going to get energy out of him,” Wahl said. “When he’s on the court, when he’s locked in and he’s ready to go, he brings a whole other dynamic to our team … When he gets a few baskets to go in, then he’s a whole other problem for the team to worry about and it just opens up the court for us.”

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.

The result was Scott having two points on five shots in the first half and finishing with 12 before fouling out.

“Scott tried to establish the post early, one of the first possessions and Max got a foul on him, but Max wasn’t going to relent to post position,” Gard said. “You need somebody pretty physical on him.”

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.

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)

23.5 – Wisconsin’s three-point shooting percentage (4-for-17)

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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