MADISON — When Wisconsin basketball welcomed the No. 9 Tennessee Volunteers into the Kohl Center, it knew what it was getting into.

The Vols, SEC favorites and perennial final four contenders under head coach Rick Barnes, are once again poised to make a lot of noise on a national scale this season. They’re a physical, defensive-minded team that still has scorers everywhere. And yet, the Badgers scrapped and clawed, hanging around until about the 6-minute mark of the second half.

“I’m proud of how we battled,” head coach Greg Gard said after the game. “We were there, and could never get a stop, a rebound, a possession without a foul, when we needed it most.”

Indeed, the Badgers were right there. They never led in the game, but managed to keep it within striking distance until Tennessee opened up a double-digit lead late in the second half. The Vols were clearly the more athletic team, but Wisconsin clawed and scrapped with its fundamentals and execution to give a potential final four team a run for their money.

It’s the second part of Gard’s comments that resonate the most. Just when it looked like Wisconsin had made a key stop, Tennessee would find a driving lane to the rim with four seconds on the shot clock. Just when it looked like the Badgers forced a bad shot, the Vols would crash the glass and produce an offensive rebound. Tennessee’s late shot clock offense killed Wisconsin, especially late in the game.

“It’s not giving up dribble penetration when we do switch in late shot clocks, not letting an offensive player go back to their strong hand. Send them towards the other three guys, not the open lane,” Gard said. “There were many possessions when we guarded for 26 seconds and then give up an offensive rebound. Or guard for 26 seconds and then foul on a baseline drive.”

Tennessee scored 11 crucial second-chance points and edged Wisconsin in the rebound battle, 35-31. The Vols came out of the gates extremely hot — they were shooting at a blistering 61.5 percent clip from the field with 11:38 to go in the first half. The Badgers know they have to tighten up their defense.

“When the other team scores 80 points, it’s gonna be hard to win,” forward Tyler Wahl said dryly.

“We could never get a handle on us, defensively. I think it showed we’ve got a lot of work to do defensively,” Gard said.

Still, defense wasn’t the biggest storyline Friday night. Yes, Tennessee scored 80 points, which obviously made it hard for Wisconsin to go blow for blow with the Vols’ firepower. Ultimately, though, the Badgers held serve for most of the game. It was the little mistakes that cost them.

In addition to the second chance points and late shot clock rebounds, Wisconsin struggled mightily from the free-throw line. The Badgers shot a dismal 61 percent from the charity stripe.

Wahl in particular struggled in that department. He went 2-for-7 from the line, and missed four of his last six attempts down the stretch.

“Yeah, I mean, I just gotta be better. I gotta make those,” he said.

“We’ve gotta make free throws. When you get there, you gotta convert. They did, we didn’t,” Gard said.

Another issue for the Badgers was an inability to get three-pointers to fall in the second half. Wisconsin went 2-for-13 from downtown in the second period. In the opener against Arkansas State, Wisconsin shot 66.7 percent from deep in the second half and 50 percent for the entire game.

“Part of the reason in the second half, we go 2-for-13 from three, the ones we did take were tougher shots because we had broken off (from our) offense,” Gard explained. “We gotta continue to put the ball in Steven and Tyler’s hands, and make sure they finish.”

Gard is right — Wisconsin did get away from its offense somewhat in the second half. Many of those threes came as the Badgers were desperately trying to make a dent in the deficit.

The inability to hit long-range shots hurt the Badgers, but it was more so the finer details that doomed this team. Their downfall was in the minutiae. Late shot clock defense, a failure to rebound at critical moments, a poor showing from the free throw line.

“We kept cutting it, cutting it and making it close, and we couldn’t get over that hump,” forward Steven Crowl said.

Crowl is right. The Badgers were right there. But the devil was in the details, and that was Wisconsin’s undoing in its first big game of the 2023-2024 season.

“It was those little plays. Typically, the game of basketball is never about those wow plays, if you look at the course of an outcome. It’s all those little things added up,” Gard said. “Those little things get exposed, those little things come back to bite you when you’re playing good teams.”

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