MADISON -- Greg Gard and his staff turned to previous contests against Colgate, Bucknell and American to alert the team of the level of competition making its way from the Patriot League to the Kohl Center.

That reminder was probably necessary after a pair of games against conference foes capped off a string of seven straight games against a ranked opponent or team in a high-major conference.

While Lehigh played well and forced Wisconsin to commit some uncharacteristic mistakes on Thursday evening, few could have seen the Badgers staring at a one-point deficit at halftime or a five-point deficit with 14:19 to go in the game.

It took a little over 25 minutes, but Wisconsin figured things out and outscored Lehigh, 35-13, over the final 14 after the timeout.

"I feel like we were just giving up easy buckets and letting them get whatever they wanted. Then after that timeout, the switch finally flipped and all five of us were playing really good team defense," senior forward Tyler Wahl said after the game.

Some credit must be given to Lehigh. The team was averaging 14.6 turnovers per contest and turned it over 17 or more times in four games thus far. Defensively, the group is allowing 73.6 points per game.

Through 20 minutes of play, the Mountain Hawks looked like they had taken advantage of the 12-day break between games.

At the half, Lehigh held a one-point edge after limiting Wisconsin to 31 points and forcing seven turnovers. Offensively, the team had turned it over just five times.

"I thought they played much better tonight than I’ve seen them play all year," Gard said after the game. "Part of that was our doing but they took advantage of what we weren’t doing well."

Keith Higgins nailed a jumper with 14:19 to play to put Lehigh up five and forced Gard to call a timeout. Out of the timeout, freshman Connor Essegian provided a spark with a three and followed it up with another triple after Wisconsin forced a turnover.

The personal 6-0 run by Essegian was part of a larger 15-2 stint over the next five and a half minutes to create necessary separation to put the game away. A 12-0 run a few minutes later left UW holding an 18-point edge with 4:57 to play. The Badgers cruised to a comfortable win for the first time since a season-opening victory over South Dakota.

The recipe wasn't anything new for the Badgers. After turning it over 10 times in the first 28 minutes, Wisconsin did not turn it over once more. Conversely, UW forced six turnovers on the defensive end.

"A little bit of a tale of two halves," Gard said. "I thought in the second half we were a lot more physical and aggressive defensively and that got us going. Conversely, I thought in the first half we were not and that led to them getting comfortable.

"Too many drives to the rim, too many of everything in the first half."

The straight-line drives and lack of aggression led to 22 points in the paint in the first half for Lehigh. When it clicked in the second half, UW gave up just six points inside.

Gard and his staff always highlight points per possession as a marker of success on either end. In that regard, Lehigh scored at a clip of 1.07 points per possession in the first half. That mark fell to 0.75 points per possession in the second.

"I feel like in that first half we were really just beating ourselves," Wahl said. "We were getting good looks and missing those and just mental lapses on the defensive end, so just halftime speech was we just got to be ourselves.

"We got to go out there, move the ball, play how we know how to play and trust each other. We came out and showed spurts of it, but it wasn’t until that first timeout that we got it figured out and got it clicking."

A contest against Lehigh, which came in ranked 314th in the NET rankings amidst finals, was likely going to be sluggish. Fortunately for the Badgers, these two next weeks offer dates with Grambling State and Western Michigan to figure things out.

"We just got to take it day-by-day and approach practice like it is a game," Wahl said of how the group can avoid slow starts. "We can’t start out slow. I feel like that’s what gets a team get going. A team gets confidence, they start making shots and that forces us to make us to make mistakes, so I feel like we got to be ready when the ball tips."

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