In the Badgers' 70-62 loss at Mackey Arena Saturday evening, junior forward Alando Tucker played his usual starring role. Shooting 8-for-17, Tucker paced Wisconsin with 22 points and collected four offensive rebounds, while shooting a stunning 6-for-7 from the free throw line. Junior guard Kammron Taylor was not his typical self, but managed to collect 11 points, playing the entire game.
But the story was the same for the Badgers in Big Ten play, as the big two were without a supporting cast. Freshman forward Joe Krabbenhoft scored nine off the bench in 11 minutes, but no other Wisconsin player was able to hit more than two shots from the field.
Coming into Saturday's matchup with the worst of the Big Ten, Tucker and Taylor, averaging 20.5 and 17.5 points per game in conference play, respectively, accounted for more than 55 percent of their team's points during Big Ten play. The trend was not broken over the weekend.
After last Thursday's practice, senior forward Ray Nixon noted it was his time to step into that third scorer role.
'My teammates have been coming to me lately and saying, 'Ray, it's time.'' Nixon said. 'Half of the season is gone already, and we have another half left and we need a third scorer. With Alando and Kammron, they account for over half of our defense, so we need a third scorer to compete in the Big Ten.'
Nixon's line for Saturday's matchup: no points, 0-4 shooting, including 0-2 from the arc, and no free throws attempted.
Tucker attributed the loss to the team's loss of confidence.
'Guys have to step up with confidence right now,' Tucker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 'I think a lot of us are lacking confidence with our shots right now.'
No big men in sight
Leading the Boilermakers past UW were the Purdue big men. Senior forward Matt Kiefer and junior forward Marcus White took shifts, as they punished the Badgers inside. Kiefer scored all 16 of his points in the first half, while White poured in 12 of his 18 in the second frame.
With the Badgers already low on big-men with sophomore center Greg Stiemsma absent for the remainder of the season, sophomore forward Brian Butch hit the deck clutching the same ankle that bothered him in the Badgers' first Big Ten loss to Ohio State.
Freshman forward Kevin Gullikson has been used in the post to defend the Big Ten big men, but the Badgers will now turn to Krabbenhoft to play more of a power forward position that he certainly is not used to playing.
'Battling in the paint in the Big Ten is no joke,' Krabbenhoft said. 'We're not going to back down. We just have to build our bodies like those guys. That takes time and we don't have much.'
