Where did Wisconsin go wrong against High Point? Sure, we can point to lucky shots and aggressive play by High Point. Or maybe we say the Badgers weren't connected towards the end. However, the entire game revealed a huge hole in the roster. One that Badger fans were worried about before the season, and it reared its ugly head against High Point. Wisconsin doesn't have a real rim protector/elite rebounder on the roster.
Wisconsin has big men with one of the tallest rosters in college basketball. What they don't have is a big man who blocks shots and digs up rebounds. High Point made this abundantly clear. The Panthers didn't have a single player over 6'8. Wisconsin has five. Yet, you wouldn't believe those two stats if you only looked at the box score.
Wisconsin was outworked in the paint by a shorter team and that needs to be fixed
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High Point had 40 rebounds, including 13 offensive rebounds. Wisconsin had 37 but only six offensive rebounds. The Badgers were out-rebounded by a team with no one above 6'8. To make matters worse, Wisconsin's leading rebounder was John Blackwell, who had 10. Blackwell is 6'4 with shoes on.
Only three players on the Badger roster had an offensive rebound. Aleksas Bieliauskas had three to lead the team. No one else even had two. Yikes.
Playing a shorter team, you'd think they'd have a bunch of blocks, but you'd be wrong. The Badgers had four total blocks, with two coming from Nolan Winter. High Point had five. The shorter team out-rebounded the Badgers and out-blocked them. This shouldn't happen.
The Badgers must look to the portal to find a rim-protecter, a beast in the paint. The biggest problem with this strategy is that Greg Gard loves to play a five-out offense, and these types of rim protectors often don't play that way. The ones that can slide out often usually lose some of the rebounding because they are caught outside.
It's a tough ask, but there has to be at least one addition to the offense that can help in this capacity. Wisconsin shouldn't be out-rebounded and out-blocked by a shorter team that plays a similar style of offense.