Badgers beat UW-Platteville in exhibition, 86-58
The No. 10 Wisconsin Badgers beat UW-Platteville, 86-58, in Sunday’s exhibition game, which served as the Brain Cancer Awareness game - coming one year after UW head coach Greg Gard and his brother, UW-Platteville head coach Jeff Gard, lost their father Glen Gard after a long battle with the disease.
The game was the first time the Badgers had faced a different team since their loss to Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet Sixteen last season, and their final public tune-up before they take on Central Arkansas to open up their regular season on Nov. 11. With that in mind, here are a few things the Badgers did well against the Pioneers, as well as a few things they’ll need to clean up before they officially kick off their season next month.
Signs for optimism
1. Bronson Koenig is off to a fast start
There was a lot of hype surrounding senior point guard Bronson Koenig in the offseason, and UW head coach Greg Gard raved about his floor general in the preseason after Koenig worked hard in the offseason to be more physically prepared for the season. And after a strong showing in Wisconsin’s Red/White scrimmage Koenig had another good game against Platteville, leading the team with 12 points on 5 of 10 shooting from the floor. Koenig also had two assists and no turnovers on Sunday, one week after he was a little too aggressive and turned the ball over more than he should have. Koenig looks locked in, and he can make Wisconsin’s offense pretty dangerous if he lives up to the hype.
2. Khalil Iverson seems to have taken a step forward
We always knew sophomore guard Khalil Iverson was athletic, but it looks like he’s taking a step forward on the offensive side of the ball that could make him even more of a force for opposing teams to reckon with- particularly close to the hoop. Iverson finished the exhibition with nine points on 4-of-4 shooting from the floor, including a 3-pointer. The Badgers have a lot of experienced starters returning this year, but going deeper in to the NCAA tournament this year might depend on how much help they can get from their sophomore bench players.
Things to work on
1. The Badgers need to shoot better from the line
This might be a one-game aberration, but you can bet that Greg Gard will spend a little extra time working on free throws with his team this week after they made just 22 of 39 shots (56 percent) from the line against the Pioneers. Sophomore forward Ethan Happ had a particularly rough game: he made just 2 of 8 free throws in the game, and the Badgers can’t afford for that to become a trend if they’re going to rely on Happ to work in the paint this season (and they will). Again, one game doesn’t mean that the Badgers are going to struggle from the free throw line all season, but it’s definitely something they’ll want to clean up before the season officially gets underway in a few weeks.
2. The Badgers need to take better care of the ball.
When the game was all said and done the Badgers had turned the ball over 15 times against the Pioneers, with Happ and sophomore forward Charles Thomas turning the ball over three times each. The rest of UW’s starting lineup turned the ball over just twice between them, so most of the turnovers came off the bench, but that could get in the way of the Badgers’ efforts to develop their younger players like Brevin Pritzl (2 turnovers), who aren’t going to stay on the court for very long if they keep giving the ball away. This might be a more under-the-radar problem than it seems, but it’s one that Greg Gard and his staff will surely focus on moving forward.
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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.
