Five Takeaways from Wisconsin's 54-49 Season-Ending Loss to Iowa State

MILWAUKEE – A season of unexpected achievements finally ran out of stories to tell, a disheartening end to a championship season.

Wisconsin’s second half was full of clangs, clunks, and whiffs, which took away a superb defensive effort in a 54-49 defeat to No.11-seed Iowa State at Fiserv Forum Sunday night.

Instead of making another short drive to Chicago next weekend to compete for the program’s first Elite Eight berth since 2015, Wisconsin (25-8) is done after an ugly offensive performance made worst by freshman point guard Chucky Hepburn badly injuring his left ankle late in the first half.

Here are my takeaways from Wisconsin’s final game of the season.

Named to the conference’s All-Freshman Team, Hepburn delivered much more to Wisconsin than his 8.2 points per game. He was a tenacious defender on the perimeter (36 steals) and a steady presence with the ball in his hands, having a plus-40 assist-to-turnover margin (77-37). Therefore, seeing him down on the court, writhing in pain, left in the first half was a punch to the gut.

Wisconsin’s offense didn’t look the same with Hepburn out, Brad Davison sliding over to the point guard role, and Jahcobi Neath on the floor. The Badgers went 0-for-4 from the field with a pair of turnovers to finish the half, only saved by the fact they hit four free throws in the double bonus.

“He’s a big leader, a big foundation of what we try to do,” Davison said. “When we lost him, we had to kind of make audibles on the run. It was kind of like next-man-up mentality."

Iowa State closed the half on an 8-4 run after Hepburn’s departure, including an uncontested layup off an inbound pass with 1.4 seconds left in the half. The UW offense wasn’t much better after halftime either, committing three turnovers and scoring only two points on their first 10 possessions.

Head coach Greg Gard tried to shift players around at the point guard position, mainly using Davison and Johnny Davis and ever using little-used guard Isaac Lindsey in the second half, but things kept snowballing from bad to worse without the player who had started 31 games at the position.

When Hepburn was on the floor, Wisconsin was 8-for-17. When he was watching from the locker room or on the bench with a boot on, the Badgers were 6-for-30.

“Chucky’s a great player, a great point guard,” forward Tyler Wahl said. “He’s another piece that really holds us together. Seeing him go down hurt us, but we tried to rally together, and you could definitely feel his presence not out there.”

Gard said Hepburn is “in a lot of pain” and is in the need of crutches to get around but couldn’t offer any more of an update beyond that.

Iowa State’s calling card is its defense, ranked No.8 nationally in KenPom’s defensive metric. Wisconsin is not that good – ranked 36th – but held Colgate to 2-for-11 shooting in the final 10:30 of Friday’s win. It was a slugfest.

The shame of it was Wisconsin did a lot of really good things defensively. The Badgers held Iowa State to .783 points per possession, 34.5 percent shooting, and 21.4 percent from 3-point range. UW held Izaiah Brockington – Iowa State’s leading scorer – to 10 points on 4-for-15 shooting and Tyrese Hunter – the Big 12’s Freshman of the Year – to 1-for-10.

As the game wore down, the Badgers held Iowa State to 2-for-11 from the field, including holding them without a field goal over the final 4:16. But while the Cyclones missed their last eight shots after going up 10, the Badgers could not cut the lead to one possession. UW was just 1-for-8 over the final four minutes, a desperation three-pointer from the corner from Jordan Davis.

UW point total was the lowest since scoring 47 in a first-round win over Pittsburgh in 2016 and it's 29.8 shooting percentage was its worst since shooting 25.4 percent in a loss to Ole Miss in 2013.

“Our ball pressure took away the shots they normally get in the flow of their offense,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “They weren’t the same shots. They weren’t in rhythm, so that helped us.

Wisconsin went 19-for-25 from the line but Gard felt the team could have got there a lot more. UW made the 1-and-1 bonus with 11:39 to go in the first half but didn’t hit the bonus in the second half until 6:22 remained.

“They put a really good pressure defense,” Johnny Davis said. “They did a really good job of taking away passing lanes. I just think we straight up missed shots and didn’t share the ball the way we were supposed to.”

Sunday was only the fifth time this season Wisconsin was held to seven assists or fewer, but the main problem was turnover. UW led the nation with an 8.3 turnovers-per game average, Wisconsin committed a season-high 17. UW’s previous high was 13 turnovers in its win at Indiana, a number the Badgers equaled with 12:56 remaining. That shouldn’t be a complete shock since Iowa State forced 19 turnovers against LSU, including 15 steals.

“We’re No.1 in the country in fewest turnovers,” Gard said. “Today we were not, and obviously at this time of year, it’s a one-game playoff.”

With Iowa State packing the low post, Wisconsin’s ability to generate any rhythm offensively in the block was spotty at best. It also didn’t help that the Cyclones weren’t discouraged from packing the lane when Wisconsin couldn’t hit any shots from the perimeter.

Wisconsin’s two starting forwards – Wahl and Steven Crowl – battled foul trouble for most of the night, especially Wahl. After scoring 15 points on Friday, Wahl was limited to eight points on six shots in 25 minutes, not playing the final 11 minutes of the first half after picking up a second foul.

“He’s our most versatile and constant post player,” Gard said of Wahl. “I wanted to get to the second half with only two fouls on him, as long as it was close. We had a lead and we messed up the screen on the out-of-bounds play at the end of the half … When you’re trying to find a rhythm, being in foul trouble is not a way to try to get back yourself into an offensive rhythm.”

Crowl was 1-for-4 with two points in 25 minutes, finishing with a team-worst minus-7 in the plus-minus ratio. UW had to play Chris Vogt and Ben Carlson for a combined 25 minutes because of the foul trouble and managed to scratch out six points from them.

“I don’t think either team was in an offensive rhythm,” Gard said. “Two teams that really made it a rock fight in the paint. Baskets were hard to get. We weren’t getting to the rim on either team.”

With Iowa State trapping the post, Wisconsin finished just 9-for-14 around the rim and got caught making decisions off the floor and not on two feet, uncharacteristic for the Badgers that helped contribute to the high turnovers and the low point total.

Johnny Davis was barely off the court when he pulled his white No.1 Wisconsin jersey over his head as he stormed toward the locker room. If this was the end of his UW career (something he declined to speculate on after the game), going 4-for-16 from the floor and 0-for-7 from 3-point range was a tough way to go out.

Davis generally looked frustrated but his demeanor against Iowa State’s top-10 defense showed a new level of anger. Davis had already missed two shots (one it appeared with contact) and lost the handle of another layup out of bounds. So, after his steal and drawn foul on a layup attempt drew no points, Davis went uber-aggressive.

He delivered another steal on the next possession - ripping the ball out of forward George Conditt’s hands in the low block - that led to another coast-to-coast layup, this one he finished. Next trip down the court saw him knife through two defenders for a jump-stop jumper in the lane

Davis’s acrobatics continued when he drew contact in the air yet managed to finish the layup for a 3-point play. His seven-point stretch put the Badgers up 19-15 with 6:09 left in the first half. Davis only made one more basket the rest of the game, going 1-for-10 in the second half and missing his last five shots over the final 4:04.

Asked about his future after the game, Davis said; "Obviously a little hurt from the loss. I didn't want the season to end this way and, you know, for right now I just want to cherish these past two years I've had at Wisconsin and finish school this semester and just -- you know, I just want to stay in the moment for right now."

Listed by Wisconsin as being out with a non-COVID illness, Gard said after the game that freshman point guard Lorne Bowman left the team a month ago and returned to Detroit. However, Bowman is still a part of the basketball program and enrolled in school, taking classes virtually, and the program is hopeful that he’ll return next season.

“He's working with our medical staff and doing all his school stuff right now,” Gard said. “We're talking to him. The staff face-timed with him yesterday. He's in a good place. We're just trying to continue to support him and help him. Him as a person always take precedent over him as a player and we’ll make sure to walk that forward.”

Bowman missed last season while taking care of a personal family problem at home. There’s no word if that instance and this current one is related.

Bowman played 22 games for Wisconsin this season and averaged 3.0 points and 1.1 rebounds in 10.4 minutes per game. He was the team’s leading three-point shooter at 40.0 percent (12-for-30).

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