Wednesday wasn’t a must-win for the University of Wisconsin, not with a month left of basketball before the postseason begins. It just felt like it, especially after the Badgers had squandered their margin for error over a challenging five weeks of basketball.

While the Badgers' 79-74 overtime victory over Penn State won’t garner many headlines in the Big Ten conference, a matchup between two teams currently nestled near the bottom of the conference standings, Wisconsin (14-9, 6-7 Big Ten) showed hints that they still have some good basketball left to play in 2022-23.

Here are my takeaways from Wisconsin’s fifth Quad-1 victory of the season.

Tyler Wahl finished Sunday’s 54-52 loss to Northwestern with only five shot attempts and one rebound in nearly 30 minutes on the court. That was unacceptable to him.

“That's on me,” Wahl said Monday. “I've got to be a lot more aggressive and get myself going in other ways. If I'm getting doubled in the post, I've got to find my shot a different way.”

The senior found multiple ways to impact Wednesday’s win, and scoring was a big part of it with 16 points on 6-for-10 shooting, the most points he has scored since December 11. He had six rebounds (his most since December 17) and his eight assists were a career-best.

“That’s the Tyler (we know),” head coach Greg Gard said, as Wahl played a career-high 42 minutes. “What we’d seen is he’s really tentative early when he came back and I think that’s affected him in terms of his approach mentally. We’ve tried to help him through it. We can help him, but he still has to go out there and do it and get results. That’s the best step forward for him … He's battling like crazy. It bothers him how he can perform how he wants to perform, capable of performing. He wants to help this team win.”

Wahl registered a layup on UW’s first possession, one of four layups the senior recorded in a first half where the Badgers scored 14 points in the paint and went 7-for-9 on layups. The low-post production spurred success in other areas for Wahl, who went 2-for-2 from the foul line in the first half.

“I haven’t been myself lately,” Wahl said. “The ball hasn’t been going in, but it was good to see the first couple go down. Even if I miss a couple, keep shooting, but it’s good to see the first couple go down. That was fun.”

Wahl had only four points in the second half but had three rebounds and four assists that led to 11 points. He opened the scoring in overtime by backing down forwards Seth Lundy and Kebba Njie on the low block, using a shot fake to get them airborne and go 1-for-2 at the line after drawing a foul. He also blocked leading-scorer Jalen Pickett at the low block in a one-on-one matchup and hit Steven Crowl with a side-scoop pass with 1:29 left in overtime, a low-post bucket to make it a two-possession game.

“Everyone was moving out there, setting screens, the big guys as well,” Wahl said. “Everybody was doing their role, getting each other open, cutting, and I was just finding them. They were open. It was pretty easy on my part.”

Wahl refuses to use his ankle injury as an excuse, so it’s hard to know where he’s at health-wise after twisting it on January 3. We also don’t know if Wahl had mentally hit rock bottom over the last several weeks since his return, unable to have the same burst and aggressiveness that he did pre-injury.

His play against Penn State shows that his fog is starting to lift.

“Tyler’s been pressing,” Gard said. “He’s so competitive and wants to do well and, more importantly, his team that this is good for him … Him getting results is the best therapy for him.”

Wisconsin shot 50 percent in the second half, never missed more than two shots in a row, and still couldn’t win the game in regulation. Penn State – the Big Ten’s best three-point shooting team in terms of percentage and volume – went 6-for-9 in the second half and shot 61.9 percent from the floor, including Seth Lundy’s tying three with 21 seconds left.

A fractured locker room would have likely folded, but the Badgers played an inspired five minutes in the overtime session.

After Wahl’s bucket opened UW’s scoring, Connor Essegian faked a cut to the lane and stepped out to hit a three-point shot from the top of the key. A possession after Crowl’s post bucket, Max Klesmit converted a left-handed layup that barely beat the shot clock with 44 seconds left.

Chucky Hepburn – who was clutch in the second half – didn’t score until there were 11 seconds left and UW was well in control with a five-point lead. UW scored 11 points in overtime with five players scoring two or three points.

Defensively, the Badgers denied most drives to the low block and contested perimeter shots through screens. The Nittany Lions missed all five three-pointers they took in the final session.

“What it says to me is mentally this group hasn’t given in to all the other stuff in terms of going through the losing streak, not playing as well as we can at times,” Gard said. “They wanted to continue to find a way and fight through it. It’s a great testament to their togetherness, to their mindset and where it’s at, their mental toughness. When things are going well, it’s easy to cruise along. When you get in some rough patches, you got to find a way to fight through it.

“This group has stayed right with it. A microcosm is what we saw in overtime … continue to battle back and win the next five minutes.”

It’s unfair to only signal out Wahl because there were many productive performances from a number of players who sorely needed to see some success.

After missing a couple of shots late that would have tied Sunday’s game against Northwestern, shots that Gard said Wisconsin needed to be better and possessions that were criticized from the outside, Hepburn finished with a game-high 19 points, shooting 5-for-9 from 3-point range. He hit one of the biggest shots of the game when he squared up and drilled a step-back three-pointer with 33 seconds left to give UW a three-point lead.

Essegian scored 18 points, one shy of his career high, shot his second-highest percentage from the floor this season (6-for-9), and went 4-for-7 from three-point range. The freshman has scored at least 10 points in 16 games, including six of the last seven games since being put in the starting lineup.

Crowl – limited to a Big Ten-low five shots Sunday – battled foul trouble but went a perfect 5-for-5 from the floor while adding eight rebounds and four assists in 24 minutes.

“He’s got to continue to battle through that and not put himself in precarious situations,” Gard said of Crowl. “You’re going to get some physical contact fouls. You don’t want to curb his aggressiveness, but we need him on the floor. He’s a heck of a player. He’s really made himself into a good player.”

The lack of scoring from the bench has been an issue for Wisconsin over the last six weeks but Jordan Davis scored eight points, had five rebounds, and hampered Pickett during his time on the court.

“We haven’t been winning our games, but we still show up to practice every day and our effort is there,” Wahl said. “That’s all we can ask for. The x’s and o’s and the execution is going to come as long as we keep showing up, and it showed up today.”

52.8 – Wisconsin shot a season-high 52.8 percent from the field (28-for-53)

1.375 – Wisconsin’s points per possession in overtime (eight points on five possessions)

21-5 – Wisconsin’s record when Crowl reaches double figures. The junior had 11 points.

22-7 – Wisconsin’s record when Hepburn reaches double figures.

31 – Wins for Wisconsin against Penn State since 2004 (34 meetings)

34:19 – Amount of game time Wisconsin led

11 – Three-pointers for Wisconsin, only the second time in 2023 the Badgers have had double-digit threes.

5 – Camren Wynter had scored a combined five points in his last four games. He had eight in the first half and finished with 15 for the Nittany Lions.

11:59 – Penn State was in the bonus for the final 11:59 of the second half but went only 2-for-4 from the line during that stretch.

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