Takeaways from Wisconsin's 71-68 Win Over Nicholls

MADISON, Wis. – This won’t be a game that will find a prominent place in the archives of Wisconsin basketball’s greatest performances.

Without their best player, the Badgers were out of sync defensively, struggled from the perimeter, lack energy in spurts, and dug themselves a 12-point deficit against the reigning regular-season champions of the Southland Conference.

In a way, however, Wisconsin’s gritty-not-pretty 71-68 victory over Nicholls Wednesday was the perfect result for a young team still learning how to fight through adversity.

With Johnny Davis out with the flu, Wisconsin (9-2) saw a host of players step up in his absence offensively and defensively, make enough timely shots, grab enough important offensive rebounds, and make key stops late to thwart an ugly blemish on their resume.

Here are my takeaways from the Kohl Center.

Unable to recruit in person because of the COVID pandemic, Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard had to sift through the transfer portal and recruit players he thought were good fits over Zoom. Wednesday night, he joked he should have bought a lottery ticket when he landed guard Jahcobi Neath from Wake Forest and center Chris Vogt from Cincinnati.

Both players were instrumental for Wisconsin in different ways. Neath battled knee and hip injuries earlier in the season only to catch the flu that has been circulating throughout the roster, preventing him from getting consistent minutes on the floor and keeping his conditioning intact. With Davis unavailable because of that flu bug, Neath delivered nine points, seven rebounds, two assists, a steal, a block, and no turnovers in nearly 27 minutes on the court.

“There’s a lot more he can bring us, too,” said Brad Davison, who led UW with 19 points. “Especially on the defensive end in that second half, rebounding. Offensive end, rebounding. Those little plays and playing hard, it’s so valuable to a team, especially when we were struggling a little bit.”

Vogt scored seven of his nine points in the second half, tying Neath for the team lead with seven rebounds while adding an assist, a block, and a steal. His plus/minus ratio was a team-best +13.

After scoring seven combined points in the first eight games, Vogt is averaging 8.3 points over the last three games and is providing valuable production in the post with both Steven Crowl and Ben Carlson struggling on both ends.

“I’ve always felt that he really knows who he is and stays true to what he’s good at,” Gard said of Vogt. “He doesn’t try to force things, for the most part. He’s getting a little more comfortable on how to handle some of the defensive things we talk about. I think the biggest thing is the experience. He has four years of playing already, so he’s been in different situations … There’s a maturity about him that resonates, regardless of what it says in the stat sheet.”

With the boost Vogt has provided off the bench the last three games and Neath giving a snippet of what he can do when he’s healthy, the Badgers are fortunate they found two veteran pieces on the transfer market to help shepherd this inexperienced squad.

Nicholls head coach Austin Claunch admitted that Wisconsin’s size and strength wore his group on as the game pressed into the second half. Up until that point, Wisconsin was battered on the boards in the first half, getting out hustled to 50-50 balls and trailing 20-12 on the glass. One crucial stretch in the second half helped change the narrative.

Trailing by as many as 12, Wisconsin was successful in getting Nicholls into foul trouble and getting into the bonus with 12:59 remaining. Lorne Bowman missed the front end of the bonus, but Vogt outworked Nicholls’ two forwards and finished through contact.

A 46.6 percent career free-throw shooter, Vogt missed the opportunity for a 3-point play, but Neath tracked down the rebound on the baseline. His off-balanced shot missed, but Vogt was there to finish the possession. Scoring four points on the trip, UW tied the score at 46.

On the next trip down the court, Carlson rebounded Bowman’s missed 3-pointer with a layup to push the Badgers’ run to 13-0 and give them their first lead since it was 1-0. It was five offensive rebounds in 70 seconds.

“I felt like we were dead in the water,” Vogt said. “We didn’t have very good energy in the first half. We talked about it at halftime what we needed to fix, we all came together and decided what we needed to do. We needed to tighten up defensively and share the ball offensively. I just wanted to try to give us a spark in the second half any way that I could.”

Wisconsin and Nicholls each had 10 offensive rebounds, but the Badgers scored 13 points to the Colonels’ two. UW’s forwards weren’t the only ones to take advantage. With the Badgers leading by five with 2:26 left, Neath wasn’t boxed out on the low block, allowing him to sneak under Nicholls’ Ty Gordon for the easy finish in the lane.

“Hustle plays, extra effort plays, get rewarded,” Gard said. “Chris was getting in his hands on anything he could. Jahcobi got in the mix, too. Those type of things, those extra effort plays, got us extra possessions. We were able to get in the bonus quickly and get to the free-throw line a lot.”

Wisconsin went 17-for-27 from the free-throw line, including 15-for-22 in the second half to help neutralize the speed that Nicholls was trying to play at.

With a roster comprised of quick guards, Wisconsin was going to be tested in a way different than what the Badgers experienced against Indiana and Ohio State last week. Early on, it did not go well.

Struggling to get the timing right on the ball screens, Nicholls had free reign to drive the lane and finish at the rim. The Colonels scored 22 points in the paint in the first half, shooting 56.7 percent and averaging 1.121 points per possession because of all those high-percentage looks.

Six of those points came from Gordon, the Colonels’ scoring leader (19.1 ppg) who scored 12 in the first half and finished the game with 26.

The problem, according to Gard, was three parts of why the Badgers weren’t stopping the ball. For starters, the on-ball defender wasn’t getting aggressive enough into the ball handler, allowing freedom of movement. Second, the defender guarding the screen would either chase the ball up and allow the roller to be open or didn’t stop the ball. Lastly, the Badgers were too scattered defensively and didn’t offer defensive support in situations.

The Badgers improved in those three areas in the second half, having a higher pick-up point on the ball-screen defense and move level to prevent the open rolls to the rim. Those adjustments helped kick start their offense and get Nicholls disjointed and speed up, but UW still gave up 40 points in the paint

“One thing we hang our hat on is being resilient and being tough,” Davison said. “That’s a really good team … I think we learned some lessons in the first half. Halftime is a big time for us to make adjustments, communicate, get on the same page, and tighten up a little bit. That’s been a common theme in a lot of our wins, coming from behind … That’s why second halves defensively we’ve been a lot better.”

It’s the second straight home game Wisconsin hasn’t followed its defensive principles in the first half, looking uncharacteristic and digging themselves double-digit deficits. The Badgers have been fortunate to win both games, but they are playing with fire, especially with better competition coming up on the schedule.

Wisconsin found out that Davis wouldn’t be able to play roughly an hour before the start of the game, the latest Badger to have a sickness non-COVID related. Davis’s absence removed the Badgers leading scorer (20.9), rebounder (6.1), assists (21), and steals (14). In the previous game he missed, UW shot 32.8 percent in a 63-58 loss to Providence.

Davis’s presence in the lineup has been the catalyst. Not only has he scored at least 20 points in six of his last seven games, Davis scored 24 of UW’s 55 points in Saturday’s 18-point loss at No.21 Ohio State.

While the start looked ugly, the end result was halfway decent. While the usual suspects in Davison and Tyler Wahl (12) led the Badgers in scoring, Wisconsin got nine points from three players, at least four rebounds from five players, and some other critical moments – like Carter Gilmore’s defense on Gordon’s game-tying 3-pointer – that don’t show up in the box score.

“We can talk about it, we can prepare for it, but you have to perform in the moment,” Gard said. “We benefited from this in a weird way. I’ve tried to take a glass half full approach.”

That approach is the fact that Wisconsin hasn’t had its full roster available and healthy since the season opener either due to injuries or sickness. For UW’s practices, where class schedules have limited some player participation, it’s even worse.

“Hopefully (in) a positive way it’s helped us that we’ve gone through what we’ve gone through,” Gard said.

Gard praised the maturity of Vogt for his on-court abilities, a reason the Badgers recruited him to bridge the gap between the young post players. He also pointed to Vogt’s mental capacity of handling his business on the court despite going through finals in graduate school and processing the aftermath of the devastating tornadoes that leveled his hometown of Mayfield, Kentucky, last weekend.

Vogt started a GoFundMe page over the weekend to try to help raise funds for those affected. Originally starting with a goal of $10,000, Vogt’s fundraising currently sits at $140,091, gaining over $40,000 during the game. When told of the current total, Vogt was visibly stunned.

“(My emotions) have been all over the place,” Vogt said. “I feel like every time I’m not on the court, my mind and heart is with Mayfield, trying to figure out what I can do to promote the GoFundMe, how I am going to allocate the resources, everything. When I’m between the lines (on the court), I feel like it’s been very therapeutic.”

Vogt will fly to Paducah, Kentucky, tomorrow and make the short drive to Mayfield, where he will tour the damage to his hometown. He’s slated to meet with representatives from local rescue organizations and the school district to best figure out how to distribute the money he has raised, as well as assist with the cleanup effort and hand out supplies.

“I can’t say enough about the kid,” Gard said. “He’s a really good player. He’s even a better person.”

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