The Wisconsin Badgers were humiliated on Wednesday in a 90-60 loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, marking their worst loss under head coach Greg Gard, as they fell to 7-3 on the season.
Coming into the game, it was known that the Badgers were in for a challenge, facing the 9-0 Cornhuskers, who broke into the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2018 this week at No. 23.
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And Wisconsin started well, even leading 21-19 with less than 10 minutes left in the first half. But then it all fell apart for the Badgers, who had a disastrous finish to the first half and were not competitive in the second half of the blowout.
Here are three quick takeaways from Wisconsin’s 90-60 loss to Nebraska on Wednesday.
Ugly end of the first half
With 10 minutes left in the first half, Wisconsin led 21-19 after a three-pointer by Andrew Rohde.
Nebraska proceeded to go on a quick 8-2 run to completely change the script over the next two minutes, heading into the under-8 media timeout up 27-22. Things stayed pretty competitive until near the under-4 media timeout, when Wisconsin trailed 37-31 with 3:50 left in the half.
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That’s where things got really ugly. Nebraska proceeded to end the half on a 10-0 run and Wisconsin was held scoreless for the rest of the period, trailing 47-31 at halftime. The Badgers were 0/5 from the field during that stretch, including three consecutive misses from deep.
They also committed two offensive fouls and another turnover in the final minute. Meanwhile, the Huskers got to the free throw line to score five points, while also getting a layup off a turnover and a 3-pointer in that stretch.
That was the decisive moment of the game. Nebraska had all the momentum heading into halftime with a 16-point lead and then it felt like Wisconsin just wasn’t competitive.
three point shot
When Wisconsin loses this year, there’s an accompanying trend: poor three-point shooting.
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The Badgers have been one of the highest-volume three-point shooting teams in the Big Ten this season. After Wednesday, they rank third in the conference in three-pointers, while ranking atop the conference in three-point attempts.
The three represent more than 51 percent of vaccinations in Wisconsin. And that’s fair, considering their offensive philosophy is to maximize shots from beyond the arc, at the rim and at the free throw line for efficiency. The only problem? They’ve had a lot of runs from three this year.
When they hit, they look like one of the best teams in the country. But when they fail, like in the losses to TCU, BYU and Wednesday, they fail a lot. Wisconsin shot 24 percent from three in a 98-70 loss to BYU. They shot 25 percent from deep in a 74-63 loss to TCU. On Wednesday they were 7/32 (21.9 percent from three).
In some wins, when the Badgers aren’t hitting 3-pointers, they’ve pivoted well to attack more, freeing up better looks. But that wasn’t the case Wednesday. Wisconsin had just 24 points in the paint and only got to the free throw line 11 times.
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Wisconsin will need to hit threes and are probably a better shooting team than they let on. But they won’t have a successful season until they find more balance because efficiency has been too inconsistent to start the year.
Defense
When you have a group of incoming transfers, defense is usually something that takes some time to understand. Wisconsin is finding out the hard way.
The Badgers were terrible defensively on Wednesday. Yes, Nebraska made some tough shots, but they shot 54.1 percent from the field and 36.7 percent from three-point range. They were the team that looked to attack, finishing with 44 points in the paint. They finished strong at the rim, converting 16 of their 20 layups. And his ball movement was impeccable.
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Wisconsin rotated slowly and looked out of place at times, giving up some easy looks at the rim. It seemed like they had given up at times in the second half. I’m sure Greg Gard will show the film and find areas where the team needs to improve.
But this defense has a lot of work to do, and this isn’t just something that happens in a single game.