The No. 16 Wisconsin Badgers (11-4 Big Ten, 22-6 overall) have made losing to unranked opponents a habit in the last two weeks. Yet unlike in Wisconsin’s loses to Northwestern and Michigan, it was lackadaisical defense, not sluggish offense that led to the Badgers falling to lowly Ohio State (6-10, 16-13), 83-73.
Senior forward Vitto Brown opened the scoring Thursday night when he knocked down his first of three 3-pointers less than a minute into the game. But the Badgers would only lead for just over one minute on the night, as once the Buckeyes got rolling, UW couldn’t muster any resistance.
The Buckeyes made wide-open 3-pointers, contested three-pointers, 3-pointers as the shot clocked dwindled down and even had a few old-fashioned three-point plays.
OSU shot 63 percent from three for the game and 83 percent in the second half.
C.J. Jackson, who came into Thursday night having made only 14 3-pointers all season, made all four of his attempts, finishing with a career-high and team-high 18 points.
Jae’Sean Tate had a double-double by halftime for the Buckeyes and finished the game with 15 points and 12 rebounds as JaQuan Lyle added 17 in a third-straight solid performance against Wisconsin.
The Badgers, who came in looking to tie Purdue atop the Big Ten standings, seemed disinterested throughout the first half. And in the second half, whenever UW tried to scrape together a run and cut into OSU’s lead, the Buckeyes always answered.
With just over ten minutes to play in the game, redshirt freshman Brevin Pritzl missed a wide-open 3-pointer that would have cut the Buckeye lead to just six. Seconds later, Lyle knocked down a triple to extend OSU’s lead back up to 12. On the very next Buckeye possession, Jackson nailed a triple of his own in semi-transition to extend OSU’s lead to 15.
For UW, senior guard Bronson Koenig was the only Badger to produce on the offensive end. He tied a career-high with 27 points, but received almost no help from senior forward Nigel Hayes or redshirt sophomore Ethan Happ.
Happ played only six minutes in the first half, failing to score a point. In the second half, he made two of his four attempts, but finished with an underwhelming four points and six rebounds in just 22 minutes of action.
Hayes wasn’t much better. The Toledo, Ohio, native tacked on just seven points, four rebounds and four assists.
Redshirt senior Zak Showalter went scoreless, missing all four of his field-goal attempts, and while Brown finished with nine points, he finished the game with a team-worst minus-15 rating.
And while UW’s key offensive contributors struggled, it was the team defense that let them down Thursday night. A late 6-0 run by the Badgers makes the eventual 10-point margin look somewhat respectable, but the Buckeyes led 77-57 with four minutes to play.
After a strong second half against No. 24 Maryland Sunday, the Badgers seemed like they may have had some momentum heading into their first of two road games this week. But instead, the Badgers will leave Columbus again in search of answers to new and unforeseen problems.
