MILWAUKEE – After draining his third three-pointer of the first half, Chucky Hepburn brought his pointer finger up to his lips and signaled toward the boisterous Marquette student section. When he swished his fourth, beating the shot clock in the waning seconds before halftime, Hepburn didn’t have to do anything. The stunned silence was deafening.
Hepburn delivered a virtuous performance in the first half and a gutty one in the second half and overtime, battling through a lower-body injury to score 19 points and lead Wisconsin to an 80-77 overtime victory over Marquette in Fiserv Forum.
“Him stepping back up tells you his mindset,” head coach Greg Gard said, “and how important him being on the floor to help his team was here.”
Hepburn ignited Wisconsin (6-2) in a hot-shooting first half, dropping 16 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting. The confidence spread throughout the team, as the Badgers’ 69.6 percent shooting percentage was a season-high for any half.
His pull-up three-pointer on the second possession put Wisconsin ahead 5-3, not trailing again for the next 36 minutes, 32 seconds of game time. His shot before the half, a three-pointer from near the logo with forward Olivier-Maxence Prosper’s wingspan in his face, gave Wisconsin an 11-point lead at the break.
Just a week ago the question was what was wrong with Hepburn. Stepping into a bigger scoring role without All-American Johnny Davis at his side, Hepburn was 10-for-46 on a four-game lull that included a one-point overtime loss to No.3 Kansas.
But after scoring 17 points in the third-place win over USC and delivering a career-high 23 points in Tuesday’s loss to Wake Forest, Hepburn has upped his scoring average by 4.3 points and his field goal percentage by another 10.3 points.
“I’ve been preparing for it,” Hepburn said. “Working out every day. Going through that shooting slump, I had to work out and get a lot more shots up. I think it’s just paying off now.”
But somewhere through the course of the half, Hepburn felt a muscle grab in his leg. Trying to get treatment at halftime, Hepburn started the second half but started hobbling immediately. He was subbed out five seconds into the half and promptly headed for the locker room.
UW had experience playing with Hepburn at Fiserv Forum before, all that memory was particularly ugly last March. Twisting his ankle late in the first half and watching from the locker room, the Badgers lacked a sufficient backup point guard because of injuries/transfers and looked like a mess in a 54-49 loss to Iowa State. The final result – just 6-for-30 without Hepburn – spoke to the dysfunction and ended their season in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Saturday was different, somewhat. The Badgers were working with a lead that ballooned to 16 in the early minutes of the half, still struggled in shooting 34.5 percent, and suffered defensive breakdowns that eventually forced overtime, but they still had a pulse.
“It’s just Wisconsin basketball,” senior Tyler Wahl said. “Guys come to this school, they’re tough. They’re going to get the job done. They’re not going to make excuses, and that’s what showed out there.”
Perhaps that’s why Hepburn emerged from the locker room and checked back into the game with 6:53 remaining. His same bounce wasn’t there but his ability to rise to the moment was. After Marquette retook the lead with 1:52 remaining, and a pair of empty possessions, Hepburn hit a contested step-back three-pointer with forward Oso Ighodaro contested to put the Badgers back in front.
Some of his best play came in the overtime session without attempting a shot. He registered a steal on leading scorer Kam Jones and delivered two assists, including the winning one when he drove baseline and passed to guard Max Klesmit. The junior finished inside with 3.5 seconds remaining.
"It hurt when he went down, but when I heard the crowd roar and I saw “2-3” jogging back in, I knew we were going to be all right,” Klesmit said.
UW usually is when Hepburn is hitting his shots, as the Badgers are now 15-2 when the point guard reaches double figures. It’s a good trait to have as they prepare to jump into Big Ten play for a mini-two-game stretch that begins against undefeated Maryland Tuesday.
“He impacts the game for everybody else,” Gard said. “He’s accustomed to playing with those guys (and) they are accustomed to having him on the floor. The way he shot it the first half, he was feeling pretty good with how his day was going.”
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