Wisconsin (22-12, 11-9 Big Ten) vs. No. 13 Illinois (25-8, 14-6)
Game: Sunday, March 17 at the Target Center in Minneapolis
Time: 2:30 P.M. CT
Watch: CBS
Listen: 1310 WIBA AM and 101.5 FM (Matt Lepay and Brian Butch on the call); stream online on iHeartRadio
Prediction: Illinois 82, Wisconsin 77
Follow Online: The Badgers' Den
Twitter: @Badger_Blitz
Betting line: Illinois -3.5 (according to ESPN BET)
PRE-GAME NOTES
After three wins in as many days, the Wisconsin Badgers will face the No. 13 Illinois Fighting Illini in the championship round of the Big Ten Tournament.
The Badgers have now won three games in a row for the first time since late January.
They’ve finally regained some momentum after such a disappointing finish to the regular season. The Big Ten Tournament has proven instrumental in allowing Wisconsin to ramp up before the real postseason tournament begins.
They’ll now play Illinois for a second time this year. The two-seed Illini narrowly beat Ohio State on Friday, then came back from down 15 in the second half against Nebraska to reach the championship round.
Most of their offense came from Terrence Shannon Jr., who broke a Big Ten Tournament record when he finished with 40 points on a superb 11-for-22 shooting.
Now that the Badgers have beaten Zach Edey, Shannon is the best remaining player in the tournament. He essentially won the game by himself, and is the type of player who could do the same once again.
Marcus Domask also added 16 points and Luke Goode made four 3-pointers to beat the Cornhuskers. The Badgers should be especially wary of Domask this time around, after he scored 31 points and hit 4-of-6 of his 3-pointers during their first meeting in early March.
Illinois ended the regular season as the firm runners-up in the Big Ten, but have stood in Purdue’s shadow to a certain extent. They have every component necessary to make a deep March run — an experienced coach, a clear superstar, multiple capable veterans and a superb offense. But this group of players has never really won anything significant.
Winning the Big Ten Tournament could be the type of confidence boost that can carry a team through March.
Wisconsin seems to be on what feels like a desperately needed resurgence.
The Badgers ended the regular season on a bleak note, having sharply declined since the start of February. But they began the conference tournament with a dominant 87-56 win over Maryland, then came back to beat Northwestern on Saturday, 70-61.
The stage was set for a third matchup this season with Purdue, which could end up going down as the most important win of the season for the Badgers.
They were on the wrong end of almost every call and struggled at times to limit Edey. But Steven Crowl and A.J. Storr, who had struggled in their earlier meetings against Purdue, finally showed up and finished with 10 and 20 points, respectively.
The real driving factor behind Wisconsin winning was the career performance from Chucky Hepburn, who scored a team-high 22 points and came up with a few crucial defensive stops in overtime.
They originally weren’t sure if he would play, after he missed Friday’s game against Northwestern with a lower body injury. But the Badgers might just need another career performance, at least on defense.
Shannon may not be as good as Edey, but he’s far more explosive, and can almost just as easily take over a game.
In fact, they may need career days from just about every other perimeter defender, too — Max Klesmit, Kamari McGee and John Blackwell should all expect to put their bodies on the line the way Wisconsin’s big men did against Edey.
Hepburn’s health could be a concern, as well as Tyler Wahl’s, who also nearly missed Saturday’s game.
Wahl was easily Wisconsin’s best player in their first meeting, finishing with 20 points on 9-for-14 shooting, but has yet to match his production from that day in any game since.
Given that each team will likely enter fatigued after playing multiple games in just a few days, I’d expect a slow start to Sunday’s game, perhaps for most of the first half.
It’ll all likely come down to the team who can make more plays in the second half. Or, in other words, it’ll come down to whether or not the Badgers can compete with Shannon down the stretch.
_________________________________________________
*Chat about this article in The Badgers' Den
*Check out our videos, interviews, and Q&As on our YouTube channel
*Subscribe and listen to the BadgerBlitz.com podcast (as seen on Apple, Google, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts)
*Follow us on Twitter: @McNamaraRivals, @TheBadgerNation, @RaulV45, @seamus_rohrer, @DonnieSlusher_
*Like us on Facebook
