MADISON, Wis. – After exercising its Breslin Center demons on Christmas morning, the worst thing the University of Wisconsin could do was return home and lay an egg against a struggling Maryland program.
As is usually the case, the best team emerged victorious. For the first time this season at the Kohl Center, that wasn’t the Badgers.
Moving up three spots to No.6 in Monday’s AP poll, Wisconsin couldn’t overcome a slow offensive start and Maryland’s hot shooting in the second half in a 70-64 loss to the Terrapins Monday night.
D’Mitrik Trice scored 20 points for the Badgers (8-2, 2-1 Big Ten), which saw their 10-game conference winning streak snapped. Maryland (6-3, 1-2) shot
Here’s a closer look at tonight’s game in BadgerBlitz’s Stat Pack.
-Trice led the Badgers with 25 points, but Aleem Ford was the only other player in double figures with 10. Nate Reuvers (8), Brad Davison (5) and Micah Potter (4) all missed six shots.
- UW’s low-post play was porous. The Badgers struggled to find good shots inside the paint and defend around the rim, getting outscored 38-20 in the lane.
- Wisconsin started slowly on offense for the third consecutive game, going 2-for-10 from the floor over the first nine possessions that covered the first seven minutes. Sticking with the script, however, UW’s defense made sure things didn’t get out of hand. The Terps went 4-for-9 over that stretch and led by no more than four in part because the Badgers forced turnovers on four straight possessions.
- The struggles persisted as the half passed the midpoint. Wisconsin struggled to get clean looks inside the lane and missed some of the easier ones they got, like Potter’s uncontested dunk. The 3-point shot was also inconsistent. A 5-for-17 start wasn’t pretty but the Badgers only trailed by two because the Terps struggled to gain penetration into the lane.
- UW got into the bonus with 7:18 left in the first half, but Davison – a career 82.9 percent free throw shooter – missed the front end of the bonus. It was the same case when he returned at the 1:50 mark, drawing front iron. UW didn’t take advantage of the bonus until 47.6 seconds left when Trice made a pair, but he went 1-for-2 when he returned to the line 12 seconds later. UW went 5-for-10 from the line in the first half.
- The Badgers became shorthanded when Davison came down awkwardly shooting an off-balanced layup with 5:56 remaining in the first half. He attempted a 3-pointer on the following possession but was noticeably laboring that officials whistled a timeout following Trice’s stepback jumper. He returned with 3:10 remaining in the half.
- Maryland went 5-for-7 on layups and dunks but were 2-for-13 on all its other shots, going scoreless the final 3:37 of the first half. That changed after halftime with Maryland ending three consecutive possessions with easy buckets at the rim to tie the score at 34.
- A feel-good bucket from Jonathan Davis stopped the bleeding momentarily, and UW tapped back into its defense. Tyler Wahl got his hand in the passing lane to tip the ball to Reuvers, opened a possession for Trice to hit another jumper, pushing the lead to 38-34. Trevor Anderson’s defense forced a tough baseline shot from Eric Ayala but Wahl missing two free throws on the other end was a killer.
- After the two teams combined for nine buckets in the first 8:28, the two teams had 10 buckets in the next 4:30, including points on eight straight possessions. Reuvers came alive again for UW late in the second half with a bucket on three straight possessions, but Maryland countered with two post buckets and a 3-pointer by Ayala. The streak finally stopped when Davison took a charge and Reuvers slammed home two points following a loose-ball scrum with 6:18 remaining.
- Maryland tried to run away and hide with nine points on three straight possessions, two resulting in 3-point plays off foul calls from Davison. The missteps gave Maryland its biggest lead at 57-52.
- Trice’s 3-pointer with 1:58 remaining cut the deficit to 60-59, but Maryland’s Donta Scott drove right to the rim on Micah Potter and connected with a layup high off the glass. Trice couldn’t answer when his layup wouldn’t drop on the other end and Scott added the punctuation with a dunk in traffic that punctuated the win.
- Eric Ayala (17), Aaron Wiggins (15) and Donta Scott (12) all reached double figures for Maryland, which went 18-for-20 on layups/dunks.
