MADISON, Wis. – Team defense had helped race Wisconsin’s young roster off to a solid start against a tough schedule. Unfortunately, that team that had blanked opponents in The Bahamas last week was nowhere to be found Tuesday, as Wake Forest took advantage of many lapses defensively by Wisconsin in a 78-75 victory.

Wisconsin (5-2) put four players in double figures but allowed Wake Forest (6-1) to shoot 53.7 percent from the field – a season-high for an opponent – and take control of the game over the final three minutes.

Here are my takeaways from the defeat at the Kohl Center.

Greg Gard often says the last few possessions of a game get overanalyzed, and he’s right. Wisconsin will win many games on its schedule if it scores 75 points and averages 1.1 points per outing, but where the Badgers faltered Tuesday was on defense and on both sides of the ball down the stretch.

Although UW failed to separate from Wake Forest, the Badgers had done a good job of responding to made buckets with big shots of their own. But after Chucky Hepburn (team-high 23 points) answered a three-pointer with three of his own, the Badgers’ offense dried up over the final 2:38. UW only attempted four shots over that stretch, Tyler Wahl (17 points) missed a pair of two-point shots and Hepburn missing a pair of three-pointers (one being an off-balanced heave trying to draw a foul in the closing seconds) and managed only four points off free throws. Outrebounded by 10, Wisconsin could not get an offensive rebound.

Wake Forest didn’t have an offensive rebound either but largely because it made 4 of 5 shots over the final 3:03. The Demon Deacons shot 53.7 percent from the floor, 56.0 percent in the second half, and averaged 1.2 points per possession. A chunk of that came early, as the visitors made nine in a row after missing their first shot of the game.

“We’ve had flashes of inconsistency but had always caught ourselves,” Gard said. “Tonight, we didn’t catch our self.”

Wake Forest was balanced during that 9-for-9 stretch: 6-for-6 on layups and dunks and 3-for-3 on three-point field goals. By the time Matthew Marsh threw down a dunk for the ninth straight basket, Wake Forest was averaging an eye-popping 1.75 points per possession.

Defending the lane was problematic. Wake Forest finished 10-for-12 on layups and dunks in the first half and 15-for-19 for the game.

“We had a lot of little (uncharacteristic) things that added up,” Wahl said. “We’ve got to figure that out if we want to be a good team and where we want to go.”

There’s something about ACC guards that don’t mesh well with Wisconsin. A year after Georgia Tech’s Michael Devoe dropped 33 on the Badgers in the Challenge, Tyree Appleby nearly equaled that with 32 points on 11-for-16 shooting.

Sitting at 12 points at halftime, doing more of his damage on drives to the lane and attacking the rim, Appleby delivered 20 in a near-perfect second half (6-for-7 FGs, 3-for-4 3FGs, 5-for-5 FTs). He did a lot of that after the Badgers changed how they were guarding ball screens, as Appleby adjusted by staying in attack mode, and UW was unable to get the ball out of his dominant right hand.

When Wisconsin tried to pull away in the second half, Appleby refused to let them with 11 straight points for the Demon Deacons to keep the deficit at one possession entering the final five minutes.

“Coach told us that we just had to calm down and we’re going to get back in this game,” Appleby said. “The 11 points comes from playing hard, playing with confidence.”

Wisconsin’s defense did improve in the first half (how could it not?) and Wake Forest cooled the remainder of the half (6-for-19), including failing to connect on its final nine three-pointers, but the Badgers were comatose over that same stretch.

From the 12:54 mark to the 2:49 mark, when Wake Forest went 1-for-13 from the field, Wisconsin was just 3-for-11 with six turnovers.

To be fair, the offense performed better than it did in The Bahamas. Wisconsin made Wake Forest pay by doubling the post and went 12-for-28 from three-point range, including 7-for-16 in the second half.

However, Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes believes the reason his team won was that they limited the UW frontcourt to only 22 points in the paint, outscoring them by 14 in part because the Decons had a distinct size advantage in the low block on both ends of the floor. That size proved to be huge when Marsh helped alter Wahl's potential go-ahead shot with 15 seconds left.

“We just tried to keep them off-balanced,” Forbes said. “Kind of like baseball. If you’re a good pitcher, you got to change speeds. You can’t throw a fastball all the time.”

The game was physical, too, which was part of the reason a whopping four Badgers had two fouls at halftime, which was why Jordan Davis and Connor Essegian were limited to nine and five minutes, respectively Even with the fouls adding up, Gard choose to keep his bench rotation small. Only guard Issac Lindsey and forwards Carter Gilmore and Markus Ilver were the reserves who saw the floor.

215 - Wake Forest's strength of schedule, which included just one Power-Five opponent and no true road games.

55 - Combined points from Wisconsin's Big Three (Hepburn - 21, Wahl - 17, Crowl -15), a season-high for the trio.

41 - Points allowed in the second half by Wisconsin, the most allowed by UW in any half this season.

83.3 - Wisconsin's free-throw percentage (15-for-18), which includes the Badgers going 10-for-10 in the second half.

7 - Wisconsin was 7-for-14 on layups

12 - The Badgers committed a season-high 12 turnovers, five coming in a 7:43.

17:03 - UW didn't commit a foul for the first 7:06 of the first half and the first 9:57 of the second half, yet finished the game with 18 fouls.

14 - Wake was +14 on points in the paint (36-22).

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