Early-season gauntlet paying dividends as Badgers topple unbeaten Maryland

Published Dec 7, 2022

Seamus Rohrer • BadgerBlitz

Staff

MADISON - Wisconsin knocked off undefeated and No.13 Maryland on Tuesday night at the Kohl Center with yet another gritty, inspired late-game performance. In their first Big Ten game of the season, the Badgers traded blows with the Terps all night. It was a battle; nothing came easy.

“That’s what this league is about,” head coach Greg Gard said after the game. “Start of league play, (we’ve got) 19 more that will be very similar.”

If the Badgers last handful of games are any indication, Gard is dead on — Wisconsin basketball will be painstakingly close all season long. Over the last five games, across which Wisconsin has gone 3-2, only 12 total points have separated the Badgers from their opponents. The biggest margin of victory over that stretch? Five points. Their largest margin of defeat? Three.

Gard believes Wisconsin’s toughness down the stretch is born out of this early-season trial-by-fire. The Badgers could easily make their out-of-conference schedule a cakewalk, filled with mid-majors and ramp-up games. Instead, they’ve already played six Power Six teams. They played their rival Marquette in a hostile road environment. They played three games in three days in the Bahamas, one against No.3 Kansas.

“The strength of our schedule, who we’ve played, where we’ve had to play,” Gard said. “These guys have gotten a lot of experience, got their feet to the fire, which is what we needed. It forces growth when you have to really buckle down and play.”

Wisconsin has played great teams, they’ve played in rowdy arenas, and they’ve played a lot of basketball. So when No.13 Maryland Terrapins rolled into town, the Badgers weren’t fazed.

They got off to a hot start, dominating most of the first half. With just over six minutes left to play in the first period, Wisconsin led 27-15. They were firing on all cylinders, and a modest 12-point lead felt much larger at the time. After the game, Maryland head coach Kevin Willard spoke on getting his team to settle down and find their rhythm. His undefeated, ranked team was never comfortable in the Kohl Center.

“Once we got past that first seven, eight minutes, I felt we settled in pretty good,” Willard said.

The Badgers made Maryland uneasy right out of the gate, and much of that can be attributed to their physical playstyle. While Wisconsin’s early-season gauntlet featured blue bloods and back-to-back-to-backs, Maryland was brushing shoulders with teams like Coppin State and SUNY-Binghamton. That doesn’t exactly prepare you for the physicality of the Big Ten.

Yes, the Terps were coming off a win over No.17 Illinois, who will find themselves much higher in the polls after upsetting No.2 Texas on Tuesday night. But there’s something about the physical nature of Wisconsin that’s hard to prepare for.

“We have a lot of guys that are kinda going through this for the first time, that haven’t played the Wisconsin’s,” Willard acknowledged. “You can show them the film, and you can talk to them about it, but until you kinda experience it and go through it a little bit…”

Maryland is an experienced team. Their starting five features two graduates and two seniors. What’s more, they’ve already played Illinois, whose teams have developed quite the physical reputation of their own under Brad Underwood. And yet, there’s no substitute for Wisconsin’s physicality.

Maryland was held to their lowest point total of the season with 59. Their next lowest was 71. They also shot the ball at just 38.2%, also their lowest of the season. They were held to under one on points-per-possession over both halves.

“We talked a lot in the last couple days about their physicality on defense. Especially at home, I think everybody gets away with a little murder at home,” Willard smirked. “They’re excellent defensively, they play physical. They’re on a string…You have to give them a lot of credit for taking us out of our offense.”

Wisconsin did a great job walling up inside the paint, for the most part not allowing the easy buckets at the rim that were commonplace against Wake Forest a week ago. That physicality that stymied Maryland’s offense translated over to the Badgers’ scoring efforts.

“Their physicality, even on the offensive end, caught us by surprise,” Willard said. “They work so well out of the post. That’s the biggest challenge. They remind me a lot of Villanova, the Big Ten version of Villanova. They’re gonna do what they do, they don’t get away from it. I felt like early on, they got some easy back cuts, some things that kinda deflated us a little bit. When you have a guy like Tyler Wahl and a guy like Steven Crowl who are such great passers in the high post and in the post, and then you have guys that are making shots, they’re a tough guard.”

Another big part of Wisconsin’s offensive success Tuesday night was the ball movement and the Badgers’ ability to be a well-rounded scoring team. Every Badger that played, besides Kamari McGee, had at least seven points. Five players made a three. The ball movement was humming — for the most part, Wisconsin simply refused to take a bad shot or rush a decision. There were some nice extra passes that turned good looks into great ones, particularly on entry passes to the post.

“That’s what I love about this team. Nobody cares who’s scoring the ball as long as the ball is going in,” Chucky Hepburn said. “We had a possession in the first half where the three of us, me, Max and Connor all had open threes and we just kicked it one more (time). So that just shows you the kind of team we are.”

Down the stretch, however, Wisconsin and Maryland were neck-and-neck. The two teams were trading buckets, and neither could seem to find any separation. Then, the Terps went ice cold, and the Badgers got red hot.

Carter Gilmore hit a huge three-pointer to put Wisconsin back on top, 45-43, with just over 10 minutes to play. Gilmore has been the second man off the bench behind Connor Essegian, and that big shot was part of a career night for the junior.

“Just my teammates telling me to play more like myself out there,” Gilmore mulled. “I’ve played good in practice, it was just all those reps paying off…just being more instinctive and not thinking as much. Just my teammates and coaches believing in me.”

About three minutes later, the game was all knotted up again. Then, Essegian hit his first shot of the night, another three of enormous magnitude.

“Whatever we needed at the time, and it just fell into place like that,” the freshman said. “And so that sparked a run…but it was the guys that were getting me open. Obviously, Chucky, on that one, he drove and kicked it out, so it’s a team thing.”

A team thing indeed. This team’s early-season experience, playing tough teams in tough environments, is paying off. Essegian, Gilmore and Hepburn hit their big shots in big moments because the pressure of a tight game against a good team is nothing new by now. With Wisconsin’s trek through the Big Ten looking as perilous as ever this season, this experience will be crucial in the thick of conference play.