MADISON, Wis. – At some point, Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard hopes to have an entire roster full of healthy players at his disposal for practice, let alone a game. In the meantime, the Badgers will have to keep grinding away with what they have.

Down five players for their first game in two weeks, No.24 Wisconsin built a 20-point early lead but had to hold on for a wire-to-wire 89-85 victory over Illinois State at the Kohl Center Wednesday.

Here are my five takeaways from the Kohl Center.

Finishing with a career-high 21 points to go along with nine rebounds (eight offensive), Steven Crowl is officially out of his shooting slump.

In the three games leading into Wisconsin’s break, Crowl was 4-for-15 with a total of 10 points. The sophomore also was 1-for-6 from 3-point range, a sign that he was struggling with his confidence in the low post.

Crowl said he spent the time off shooting in the gym and having the game approach of taking the good looks presented to him. That was evident early when the Badgers (10-2) led 10-2 at the first media timeout and he had six points, scoring amidst solo coverage in the low post and off offensive rebounds.

“If you don’t shoot, it’s not going to go in,” Crowl said matter-of-factly. “Keep getting shots up in the game, and eventually they’ll drop.”

As big as his scoring total was, some of his buckets were timely. After Illinois State cut the lead to six with just over 10 minutes remaining, Crowl calmly hit a 3-pointer on the ensuing position. Five minutes later, after the Redbirds cut the lead to one, Crowl promptly delivered a low-post bucket, drew the foul, and made the free throw to put the Badgers up 76-72 with 4:38 remaining.

“Steve is a great player, made some big buckets for us tonight,” Tyler Wahl said of Crowl. “that’s just a testament to what he does. Before practice, after practice, he’s always in the gym getting shots up. Although he was in a shooting slump, I think tonight got him out of it.”

Being active and efficient in the low post, getting Crowl confident comes at a critical time considering next up is the big frontcourt of Purdue.

Wisconsin tied its season-high in points despite Johnny Davis going 6-for-23 and Brad Davison going 1-for-9, including 1-for-8 from 3-point range. That’s a huge positive considering the offensive burden that the duo has carried this season.

In addition to Crowl, Wahl scored 16 of his 18 points in the second half, doing a lot of damage from the low post and generating contact in the lane to get to the foul line, where he went 8-for-12 (career-highs in both categories). Chucky Hepburn was 1-for-13 from 3-point range but was a perfect 3-for-3 (a career-high) from the perimeter, something Illinois State coach Dan Muller admitted he wasn’t expecting.

Playing his first game since Dec.11, Davis admitted being winded as the game wore on and was guilty of forcing shots, having three of his attempts blocked. After going 5-for-10 in the first half, Davis was 1-for-13 in the second half. He did finish with a career-high 11 rebounds for his first collegiate double-double and added four assists.

“Offense wasn’t the problem,” Gard said. “We found ways to score. I think that’s the makings of a good team that you hopefully don’t have to consistently rely on one guy. Johnny and Brad have carried us a lot, but it’s good to see Chucky be more aggressive and Steven play well and score like he can. There’s going to be peaks and valleys, specifically with young guys.”

Gard joked that it was a good night if fans liked offense and not so much if they loved defense. Entering the night ranked second in the Big Ten in scoring defense, holding teams to just 61.2 points per game, the Badgers allowed Illinois State to shoot 50 percent from the field, going 9-for-22 from the 3-point line, averaged 1.32 points per possession, and score 49 points in the second half.

Those lapses caused Wisconsin to let a 20-point lead in the first half trimmed to five and an 18-point lead in the second half be cut to one.

“They were doing some good stuff offensively, and we really couldn’t find an answer to it,” Wahl said. “We got to figure out some things defensively and be a little more consistent.”

Illinois State does have a lot of weapons to account for, especially for a UW team shorthanded at the guard position. The Redbirds have had five different players score at least 20 points in a single game through its first 13 games. The most dangerous was junior guard Antonio Reeves and his 20.8 points per game. Last time out against UTSA, he had 21 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, and three 3-pointers.

“We’ve been hard to guard this year,” Muller said. “Our numbers are really good, other than turning the ball over … We got an inside-out combination with size. We just play how we play. We prepare for ball-screen defense … We just have a lot of weapons.”

Reeves led the Redbirds with 23 points but got 20 points from Sy Chatman, and 15 each from Kendall Lewis and Josiah Strong. UW caught a break when both Reeves and Chatman fouled out within 14 seconds of each other, leaving the Redbirds without their two best players for the final 59 seconds trailing by three.

One of the few problems Wisconsin had offensively was getting away from post touches in the first half. After scoring 16 of its first 22 points in the paint, Wisconsin scored just eight of its next 18 in the lane. The inability to convert inside saw the Badgers go 6-for-19 after their initial surge and allowed Illinois State to get out in transition. The Redbirds finished with 13 fast-break points, an issue that has popped up on Wisconsin previously this season.

“They got some confidence going, hit those four threes in a row (in the first half) and then we had a hard time stopping the ball,” Gard said. “We didn’t stop the ball on dribble penetration. There was some miscommunication there. In the second half, we were sporadic. It looked like we had some time off.”

Wisconsin’s committed a turnover on its first possession but did little wrong over the first seven minutes. The Badgers had a 10-2 lead by the first media timeout and a 20-4 run over 6 minutes, 28 seconds. UW shot 71.4 percent from the floor during that opening stretch, doing most of the damage from the low post with a 16-2 edge in points in the paint. There was some flair on the run, too, as Davis’s steal and one-handed slam forced the Redbirds to call their second 30-second timeout in less than three minutes.

Leading by 10 to start the second half, Wahl reestablished the Badgers in the low post. Wahl scored on a hook shot, a layup, and finished through contact to help orchestrate an 11-1 run to boost the lead to 57-39.

Davis attributed both those stretches to Wisconsin’s defense forcing Illinois State. He has a point. During the first half, Wisconsin forced five turnovers while only allowing two offensive rebounds on the first seven minutes. In the second half, the Redbirds were 1-for-4 with no offensive rebounds. Problem was that the Badgers couldn’t sustain that pressure with a limited bench.

“We got relaxed, let them come in, and we had to figure things out,” Wahl said. “Kind of Jekyll and Hyde. We just got to be a little more consistent.”

The last 10 days have been a whirlwind. After Morgan State canceled its Dec.23 game because of COVID concerns, Wisconsin scrambled to add George Mason to the schedule. That game was called off hours before tipoff because the UW medical staff found positive COVID cases in the Badgers program that started popping up the morning of.

After returning to practice on the 27th, Wisconsin played four-on-four with a manager before getting a few more players back on the 28th.

It was the final nonconference tune-up, as Wisconsin heads back into conference play January 3 at No.3 Purdue, but it’s hard to finely tune a rotation that seemingly is missing at least one key piece every game.

Missing three rotational players on Wednesday, making UW somewhat shorthanded in the last 11 games they've played, Gard admitted that he still doesn’t know what he has with his lineup entering the new year.

“I’m still figuring it out,” Gard said. “It’s helped us in a weird way because now you get in a situation (where) we’ve had guys who have had to play. It’s forced us, me, to play more guys. I was trying to figure it out because I knew we’ve had a lot of depth, but then we had a lot of different curveballs you had to deal with the season.

“We’ve talked about all hands-on deck from the beginning. It’s literally become a real thing. We need everybody all the time.”

_________________________________________________

*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, @JakeKoco, @TheBadgerNation, @RaulV45

*Like us on Facebook