Five Takeaways from No.13 Wisconsin's 78-68 Win Over No.16 Ohio State

MADISON, Wis. – If there’s any question about who the face of the Wisconsin basketball team is, page five of Wisconsin official game notes should tell the story.

Under the headline “Here’s Johnny!” in bold, the UW athletic communications department lays out the case why sophomore Johnny Davis is a legit national player of the year candidate. On Thursday night, his teammates laid out why the Badgers should be taken seriously as one of the best teams in the country.

Although their star possibly played his worst game of the season, No.13 Wisconsin was proficient and prolific in several areas on both ends of the court to register a 78-68 victory over No.16 Ohio State, avenging a road loss from less than a month ago.

“It’s a fun locker room to be in,” head coach Greg Gard said. “It’s a fun group of guys to coach because they play hard, and they like each other. Playing hard can cover up many mistakes at times, not that we made mistakes. I always know I’m going to get a tremendous effort. That’s all I can ask for.”

Winners of six in a row, Wisconsin (14-2, 5-1 Big Ten) is now 7-1 in Quad 1 games, three more such wins than any other team in the country entering Thursday. The Badgers also have nine wins over the KenPom 100 (most in the country) and are 3-1 against the AP Top 25.

Here are my five takeaways from Wisconsin’s ninth victory at the Kohl Center this season.

Entering the night averaging 22.3 points, Johnny Davis has scored at least 15 points in all 13 games he’s played this season. He was due for an off night and delivered a clunker with a 4-for-18 night that included 1-for-5 from 3-point range, four turnovers, and some struggles defensively. His dunk in the final seconds finished him with 14 points but a chunk of his damage came from the six fouls he drew, resulting in 5-for-6 from the free-throw line.

While his presence on the floor still demanded attention from Ohio State, it was a statement by his teammates that they don’t always need Davis to carry the burden.

Davis’s teammates shot 57.5 percent from the field and put up 64 points. The Badgers put two players over 20 points for the first time in Big Ten play and led from start to finish, building a lead as big as 17 points in the second half.

“Johnny is obviously real important, he’s a great player, but I thought all along that we had some really good pieces,” Gard said. “Maybe they weren’t household names, but as this team has continued to come together, we’ve seen some of those guys emerge. When you can have him struggle like he did … having other guys step up and do a lot of good things offensively is the sign of a really good team when you can not (be) solely dependent on one guy.”

Brad Davison’s scoring won’t surprise anybody, and the senior scoring a game-high 25 points on 7-for-12 shooting was a big lift. But for the Badgers to get big contributions from Tyler Wahl (more on him below), another solid game from Steven Crowl (9 points, 7 rebounds) and 10 points and no turnovers from the bench makes this group dangerous on the nights where Davis has things clicking.

“It shows you that not one player is the entire team,” Davis said. “If either one of these guys have an off night, the other two will pick them up with this team.”

While Davison was the leading scorer, Wahl was the stat stuffer. The junior followed up his career-high 21 points on Sunday with 20 against the Buckeyes on an efficient 8-for-10 from the field. That doesn’t tell half the story though. Entering the night 0-for-17 from 3-point range on the season, Wahl hit two of UW’s 10 3-pointers. He grabbed seven rebounds, had a team-high three steals, and delivered a career-high six assists. Five of those came in the first half, all on 3-pointers hit by his teammates.

Wahl had eight of his 20 in the second half but delivered some timely buckets. On one possession, he drove to the low post, threw a couple of low-post spin moves on his defender, kept his left pivot foot down as he stretched toward the basket, only to come back square and hit a jumper to give UW a 61-51 lead.

His signature moment came late when he snuck behind forward Justin Ahrens and stole the ball near midcourt. He drove uncontested to the rim for a dunk, only to get fouled from behind by Jamari Wheeler. That 3-point play put UW up 14 with 4:15 to play.

Wahl also responded to another tough defensive draw. After E.J. Liddell torched Wisconsin with 28 points on 11-of-16 shooting in a 73-55 victory on Dec.11, Wahl’s primary defense held the junior to 18 points (14 in the second half).

“He’s playing with a tremendous amount of confidence,” Gard said. “When you cross that threshold from sophomore to junior, when you’re an underclassman and you become an upperclassman, a lot of things come with that, that you hope develop. He’s improved his game in all areas … he knows he’s a really good player.”

After scoring double figures five times in his first two seasons, Wahl has hit double figures seven times through 16 games and is averaging 19 points and seven rebounds over the last three games.

Unprompted, Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann admitted the difference in the game was the force and physicality that Wisconsin brought in the first half, building a double-digit lead that the Buckeyes couldn’t cut down any further than six points.

“We could never get it to a one-possession game because the first 20 minutes, I thought they imposed themselves,” Holtmann said.

That was music to the ears of Davison, Davis, and Wahl, all of who pointed to the lack of early energy as a downfall to the Buckeyes earlier this year.

“That was one of our goals, to come out and be physical, be assertive, and set the tone for the rest of the game,” Davison said. “Obviously they got the best of us in Columbus. We don’t want anyone to come in here and win on our home floor, especially to a team that has already got us once.”

Wisconsin is at its best when it plays through the post, a point of emphasis that has been shown to the players through some uneven scoring stretches in the previous weeks. That wasn’t the case early with UW making a more concerted effort to get the ball into the lane and let the offense flow from there. The result was started 4-for-6 from the field and building a double-digit lead just 6:29 into the game.

That success stemmed from playing through the post, opening looks inside, at the foul line, and passes to the perimeter, which Wahl exploited, and UW took advantage of with 17 points off his six passes.

“We stayed true to who we need to be and playing through the paint,” Gard said. “We did it early and sustained it for the most part.”

One stat area where Wisconsin was lagging entering Thursday night was in the assist category. Though a misleading stat considering the Badgers offense is averaging 71.7 points per game, Wisconsin was averaging 10.8 assists through Jan.12 – the second-lowest total in the Power-Five conference and ranked 319th (out of 350 nationally).

UW had nine assists in the first half and tied its season-high with 16 assists

The Badgers went 5-for-20 from 3-point range Sunday, continuing a trend of misfires from behind the arc. In six of the previous seven games, UW had shot under 30 percent from the perimeter, making no more than six 3-pointers, and only four games with multiple players making a perimeter shot.

Gard downplayed the 3-point shooting numbers Wednesday, citing the different makeup of this year’s team and that it was too early to draw deep conclusions from the stat line. Thursday showed why.

UW started 3-for-3 from the perimeter, had four different players hit a 3-pointer in the first 5:35, and six different plays hit a perimeter shot by halftime. Davison finished with a team-best four 3-pointers.

“Missing shots is contagious but so is making shots,” Davison said. “When you see a couple go in, that breeds confidence individually and also as a team, so it’s always good to see that first shot go down. It changes your mindset a little bit throughout the game.”

Wisconsin doesn’t have to shoot 43.5 percent from the perimeter per game but if the Badgers can keep it somewhere around 35 percent, look out.

Wisconsin went into halftime with Davis having more turnovers (3) than field goals (1) and the Badgers making only two more shots (14-12). However, the Badgers had a 13-point lead because they fixed the issues that plagued them in Columbus.

After giving up 14 fast-break points in the first meeting, Ohio State had zero for the game. Pummeled 49-28 on the boards last month, UW had a 19-12 overall edge in the first half and finished in a 33-33 tie. But after being outscored 11-2 in second-chance points, UW held the edge in 14-13.

Ohio State operates in a similar way that Wisconsin does, touch the post, and draw attention to give its shooters open looks on the perimeter. The Badgers had a couple of hiccups with some dribble penetration but made good looks from 3-point range few and far between. Ohio State came in averaging 9.3 made 3-pointers a game but finished just 3-for-19.

“I thought we were better defensively, specifically in the paint we were better,” Gard said when comparing meetings between the two schools. “When you’re better there, you don’t have to send as much help. You can close and recover shorter distances on the perimeter. Minimizing the threes were important because they shoot almost 40 percent as a team.”

Arguably the biggest thing that popped out was the free throws. UW attempted a season-low nine with a season-worst five makes in Columbus but went 14-for-20 from the line and fouled out both Liddell and Ahrens.

“Not only do you rack up fouls on their players, but it’s a great way to get your defense set,” Davison said. “It limits their transition, it makes them a little more hesitant on their offensive end because you know they’re in foul trouble, and it changes their defense.”

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