MADISON, Wis. – It was the kind of game Wisconsin basketball coach Greg Gard will yield dividends to his team in the days, weeks, and months ahead … as long as the Badgers learn from their shortcomings.

And believe me, there were a lot of them.

No.9 Tennessee was a better team than Wisconsin on paper entering Friday’s nonconference tilt and the Volunteers left the Kohl Center the best team on the floor, showing why they were picked to win the SEC after an 80-70 victory in front of a sold-out crowd.

The Volunteers (2-0) have talent that will make them a tough out on any night. The Badgers (1-1) could get there but their performance showed there are a lot of things that need to be patched up, especially when it comes to the program’s calling card.

My takeaways from the Kohl Center.

Wisconsin returns 92 percent of its scoring from last season, the most of any major conference team in the country and a byproduct of that being a lot of players who have played a lot of minutes in the Badgers’ system. Knowing that makes the struggles defensively through the first week of the season a surprise.

UW gave up 76 points in the opener but kept Arkansas State under a point per possession. UW wasn’t nearly as good Friday, as Tennessee averaged 1.19 points per possession to get to its 70 points. Only hitting five three-pointers (all in the first half), the damage was done with the Volunteers relentlessly attacking the low block with a bevy of players.

“They exploited some things consistently throughout the game,” head coach Greg Gard said. “We could never get a handle on ourselves defensively. It showed we have a lot of work to do defensively.”

Gard delivered a shopping list of problems defensively: not defending ball screens properly, poor rotations, missed defensive rebounding, sloppy fouls, losing defensive assignments, not funneling players to the help defense, and failing to stop dribble penetration on straight-line drives. Tennessee finished 17-for-23 at the rim and shot 55.6 percent in the first half with those easy looks.

“Fifteen points on their first 10 possessions gives them a lot of confidence,” Gard said.

Most of those buckets came around the rim, the difference in the night considering Tennessee scored 42 points in the paint and outscored Wisconsin by 10 in the lane (the final margin of victory). Throw in Tennessee going 19-for-23 from the line, generating a lot of fouls on drives to the bucket, and it was a sloppy night for a UW team that has struggled defending players off the dribble through the first two games and the exhibition.

“They’ve got a lot of good guys who can get to the rim, but I just feel like our team defense wasn’t completely there,” Wahl said. “We’d have four out of five guys in one possession or the next time we’ll have three out of five or five out of five, so it was a different person every time. We just need to hammer that on the head.”

The good news is that Gard said everything was correctable.

“One of the benefits of playing this type of team this early is we get shown some things that maybe in some other games wouldn’t get exposed as easily,” Gard said. “We’ll grow from this and be better because of it.”

UW had no answer for Dalton Knecht, who showed why he was one of the more coveted players in the transfer portal. A 6-6 guard, Knecht overmatched guards Max Klesmit and Connor Essegian with strength and blew past the forwards with his speed.

With Wisconsin letting him get going and find a rhythm, he had 14 first-half points on six field-goal attempts. He finished with 24 points on 15 field-goal attempts and was 7-for-9 at the free-throw line. Whenever Tennessee needed a steady hand offensively, the senior was there creating shots for himself and scoring.

Wisconsin was making what ended up being its final push, cutting the deficit to three with 8:03 remaining. That’s when Knecht crossed over to the corner, got forward Carter Gilmore out of position to open an alley on the baseline, and converted the contested layup for a three-point play. UW never got closer than six the rest of the game.

“We were there, and we could never get a stop or a rebound or a possession without a foul when we needed it the most,” Gard said.

At times when the Badgers were guarding him off the dribble, the defense became too stretched out trying to cover all of Tennessee’s threats. That caused open gaps and bigger driving lanes for Knecht’s big body to get through.

“With his ability to get downhill, and the size he is, makes him more of an effective player,” Gard said.

The final point total for post starters Steven Crowl and Wahl show a respectable 24 points and 17 rebounds from the veteran duo. Dig deeper and the flaws start to appear, as both struggled with Tennessee’s length.

Crowl was credited with two missed shots around the rim, but the junior was around the rim a lot with the ball in his hands and couldn’t finish. He admitted that he was looking for contact instead of looking to score, causing his timing to be off, when it should have been the other way around.

“I got to finish all those ones I missed,” Crowl said. “There’s no excuse for that. I’ve just got to finish them.”

Wahl didn’t finish around the rim either in the first half because he hardly shot the ball. The senior has scored more points than anyone else on the roster, but his only shot attempt came with two seconds left in the first half. He was better in the second half, telling me he found his spots better and scored on post looks on UW’s second and fourth possessions. He was more aggressive in the lane in the final 20 minutes, and his production was part of the reason UW’s first 18 points after halftime were in the paint or layups. UW didn’t make a shot outside the lane until Klesmit’s 3-pointer with 4:29 remaining.

Still, the missed shots loomed large. The official stats list Wisconsin as going 9-for-18 on shots around the rim. Gard’s total was 16-for-30, not a high enough percentage for as much as UW was in the paint.

Wisconsin’s succumbed last season when it struggled in the low post, particularly in Big Ten play when Wahl wasn’t 100 percent healthy. With both Crowl and Wahl healthy and another year stronger/more experienced, the Badgers need them to produce more consistently over 40 minutes to be successful against opponents with size and strength.

There were two main goals when it came to Wisconsin’s approach to free throws this season: the Badgers had to get to the line more often and they had to do a better job making them.

Part one of that goal is off to a decent start. The Badgers attempted 30 against Arkansas State and had 23 on Friday. Part two is drawing bad flashbacks to last season. Wisconsin was 14-for-23 from the line, including 9-for-16 in the second half as it was trying to crawl back into the game. One of those misses came on the front end of a bonus. It doesn’t count as a missed free throw in the stat sheet, but it counts in Gard’s book.

UW shot 69.1 percent from the line last season. Through this year’s small sample size, the Badgers are 66.0 percent through two games.

Wahl was one of the players who struggled the most last season from the line, finishing at 63.4 percent. His issues are still prevalent, going 2-for-7 on his attempts.

“I just got to be better at free throws,” Wahl said.

Gard also must go through the tape to confirm that the Badgers didn’t do enough to continue pressuring Tennessee the final 9+ minutes of the first half after reaching the bonus. Tennessee committed its seventh team foul with 9:43 remaining. The Badgers only shot five free throws from that point, including missing the front end of the bonus. It was an opportunity to get some of Tennessee’s players deeper into foul trouble that passed UW by.

UW’s free throw attempts last season were historically low. While making them continues to be an adventure, the Badgers have no shot to make them if they aren’t willing to embrace contact to get there.

3-3 - Wisconsin's record against SEC schools under Greg Gard. Friday's game was the first home game against an SEC opponent since 2013.

20 - Shot attempts by A.J. Storr. He finished with a team-high 17 points

11:28 - Time played by Connor Essegian, who entered the day questionable with a back injury suffered in Monday's opener. He finished with four points and was 0-for-1 from three.

-15 - Wisconsin was outscored by 15 points when freshman Nolan Winter was on the floor, a team-worst.

36:46 - Amount of time Tennessee held a lead. The Volunteers never trailed.

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