CHICAGO — The No. 4 seed Wisconsin Badgers held off a strong challenge from the No. 13 seed Nebraska Cornhuskers on Friday in Chicago, pulling out a 66-62 win at the United Center. BadgerBlitz.com's 3-point shot is included below, breaking down three big reasons for Wisconsin's win.
1. Offense pulls through down the stretch.
The Badgers got off to a hot start in their game against Nebraska, but they had to slog through some stretches of uneven play in their 66-62 win over the Cornhuskers. UW shot just 40.7 percent from the field in the second half, but they hit the shots that they needed to make (specifically two 3-pointers from D’Mitrik Trice) that ultimately put the game out of reach and sealed up their trip to the semi-finals on Saturday.
2. Inefficiency dogs Wisconsin offense in both halves.
The Badgers pride themselves on not committing many turnovers in games - and try and finish each game under 10 in the unforced-errors column. But Nebraska’s defense gave them a big headache on Friday afternoon and forced 17 turnovers out of the Badgers, tying their season high from their loss to Purdue and their road win over Illinois earlier this season. With UW now on to play Michigan State in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals you can bet the Badgers will need to cut down on those mistakes if they want to knock off the Spartans tomorrow.
3. Nebraska shuts down another big man on campus.
The Cornhuskers advanced to the semifinals by holding Maryland’s Bruno Fernando to just three points in their 69-61 upset win over the Terrapins, and they made life difficult for Ethan Happ on Friday. Happ finished the game with just four points - and attempted only four shots in the game while playing in just 20 minutes for UW. Happ committed seven turnovers in the game, and was not on the floor for the final stretch while the Badgers were looking to hold off a late-game rally from Nebraska.
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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.
