Wisconsin basketball dropped its first game of the young season against #15 Xavier on Thursday evening at the Kohl Center.
Badger hoops are likely still a year away from seriously contending for Big Ten or national honor. Wisconsin basketball’s youth and inexperience showed in the closing stretches of an 80-70 loss to #15 Xavier Musketeers.
The final score line flattered Xavier as they added some rude punctuation marks on its win.
So lets keep things in perspective. An early season loss to a ranked team isn’t grounds for sweeping declarations about the season.
Wisconsin Badgers Basketball
The Badgers missed a chance to bolster its resume come March. But it didn’t really wound its chances either. This one isn’t a bad loss but it could have been a good win.
After all, a D’Mitrik Trice jumper with 2:44 left gave Wisconsin a 66-64 lead. But things fell apart real fast. The Badgers had done a decent job on Xavier star guard Trevon Bluiett all night.
But he ripped off eight straight to give the Musketeers a 72-66 edge. In fact, Bluiett scored 12 of the game’s final 20 points to give the visitors control.
So what should Wisconsin basketball fans take away from this one?
1. Interior defense has to improve
Early in each half, Xavier feasted inside against Wisconsin. The Musketeers looked like it was running layup drills at points. For the game, the visitors shot 50.9 percent. But it was just 6/17 behind the arc. It was 21/36 (58.3 percent) from two-point range. In addition, Xavier out-rebounded the Badgers 37-28. The communication on ball screens has to improve for the Badgers. Bucky was opened up too easily time and again by Xavier movement.
2. The Badgers need some shooters
Wisconsin was 25/61 from the floor (41 percent) and 7/24 from deep (29.2 percent). So that computes out to 18/37 to 48.6 percent from inside the arc. Starting to think its easier to score closer to the basket. But you know teams are going to have to double team Happ and he is a great passer. In fact, the redshirt junior had eight of Wisconsin’s 13 assists. But you want to be able to punish teams who double Happ. He’ll be able to kick out for open looks. In addition, we’ll need to see some better decisions, especially from D’Mitrik Trice early in the shot clock. As in, not hurrying up jumpers.
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3. Make your free throws
Wisconsin basketball was just 13/21 from the foul line. So when you ultimately lose by 10 that matters. But again, they aren’t hurting teams who foul. If you have the depth, play physical, aggressive, and concede fouls. We’ve been here before with Wisconsin. There is limited practice time so you aren’t going to invest a ton of extra time there. It’s on the players to somehow carve out extra reps.
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Up Next:
Life doesn’t get much easier as the Badgers start Thanksgiving week in Kansas City. Wisconsin starts with #25 Baylor and then gets either Creighton or #23 UCLA. The Bluejays knocked off #20 Northwestern this evening.