Wisconsin picked up some needed momentum before post-season play

Lost in the shuffle of officiating blunders Sunday afternoon was some damn good basketball.

Wisconsin entered Iowa City losers of seven of its previous 11 games and desperately searching for some kind of momentum in its regular season finale. Despite coming up short at the end of 40 minutes, the Badgers head into post-season play with a sense of renewed confidence.

“We played better but, obviously, the result. We’re all competitors. It’s an upset locker room," head coach Greg Gard said following the loss to Iowa. "They’ve given us great effort, they’ve given us great focus. They’ve done what we’ve asked. We haven’t been perfect but they’ve battled and they played better basketball here.

"I’d like to see them get rewarded for it, but we have to continue to do things for longer stretches better and more consistently and clean up some of the mistakes that we make at times that cost us, specifically against these teams that are playing at a high level or are high-level teams."

Wisconsin still made some mistakes and errors, such as failing to corral a rebound off a free throw with the game tied during the final stretch. And the Badgers still opened the contest shooting poorly, but the second half was a sign of what UW fans envisioned heading into the year. Micah Potter was battling with Luka Garza, D'Mitrik Trice was penetrating to find open shooters and Jonathan Davis was making big contributions.

“That’s the little things. It’s the unnecessary fouls, 25-30 feet from the basket. There’s going to be physical contact, there’s going to be those type of fouls - the bang-bang fouls - but the unnecessary ones," Gard said. "That’s the difference in terms of having a happier locker room than we have right now."

In the first meeting against the Hawkeyes, Wisconsin opened 3-of-22 from the field. It climbed back in but could not fully claw its way back during an ugly 77-62 loss. A 9-for-18 start to the second half was followed up with a 3-for-16 finish to the game. This time against Iowa, despite a cold 2-for-11 shooting touch from deep in the first half, the Badgers battled until the final minutes.

"Proud of the way that guys picked each other up. That’s probably the biggest takeaway is that, yes, mistakes were made but guys picked each other up and made up for their mistakes," Potter said. "Whether it be defensively getting tips on the ball or coming back and hitting a shot, different things like that. Guys picked each other up and we moved on no matter what happened. Mistakes are going to happen in a game, so the biggest thing we have to do is make sure we’re learning from our mistakes and having a short memory."

Down seven at the break, Wisconsin opened the second half with a 19-6 run to take its first lead (49-48) since the first media timeout. The run began a back and forth between the two teams, something that seemed to have gotten away from a group that has struggled for much of the season offensively.

"We’ll fix things and there’s little discipline things we can easily fix," Potter said closing out his post-game presser. "We have to continue to drill in practice and we’ve gotten a lot better, clearly. I think it’s been evident just how much better we’ve gotten, specifically our offense. You want to peak at the right time and we are trending in that direction.

"This one obviously really, really stings, but we’re 0-0 now. We have the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, the records don’t matter. All we have to do is focus on what we have ahead of us and make sure we’re coming out on top in the end."