The No. 7 Wisconsin men's basketball team rebounded from a stunning defeat Friday at the hands of Missouri State to defeat Auburn Saturday afternoon in Texas as part of the South Padre Invitational consolation matchup. The win against Auburn was head coach Bo Ryan's 500th Division I-A victory.
Three Badgers pitched in with double-digit scoring as senior guard Kammron Taylor led the way with 16, followed by senior forward Alando Tucker with 15 and freshman guard Jason Bohannon with 12.
The Badgers jumped out with a 10-0 run to start the game and never looked back. Auburn trimmed the margin to as close as three points, but then junior guard Michael Flowers scored the next six UW points to solidify the lead. The Badgers went up by 10 at halftime and won 77-63.
""Coach challenged us, and we challenged each other to come out and play hard,"" said sophomore forward Joe Krabbenhoft, whose eight points, eight rebounds and four assists in just 21 minutes of play paced UW. ""Play hard with this team, with the talent we've got, [and] we can do some great things.""
Afterward Ryan, now one of 15 active Division I-A coaches with 500 wins, admitted the accolades are nice, but said he's simply focused on the season at hand.
""They know how I am,"" Ryan said. ""[It's] the next game. Now we've got Florida State. But you know what? I'm pretty lucky [with] the players, coaches, point guards that I've had over the years.""
The Badgers wound up in the consolation game after suffering a 66-64 loss to Missouri State Friday in the semifinal matchup. Tucker led the Badgers with 26 points, 17 in the second half, but his baseline buzzer-beater attempt came up short.
MSU senior guard Blake Ahern was almost unstoppable in the first half. He scored 19 points in the first frame, while making every one of his 3-pointers and six of his seven free throws. Ahern has been the country's best free throw shooter his first three years in college.
The Bears stretched the lead to 19 at one point, but a six-point burst, capped off by Flowers' steal and layup at the buzzer to end the first half, turned the tide for Wisconsin.
A three-point play by Tucker actually gave the Badgers a five-point lead, 62-57, but with five poor possessions by the Badgers, Wisconsin fans could feel the game slip away. After Ahern made back-to back baskets, Spencer Laurie and Nathan Biyeu scored, giving MSU a three-point lead.
Though Tucker and Taylor would each miss free throws down the stretch, UW still had a chance to send the game to overtime, but Tucker's shot just did not drop.
The Badgers' leading scorer asserted the reason Wisconsin struggled was because they were playing from behind for the entire game, and were never able to get into a rhythm.
""Their play dictated how we played today,"" Tucker said. ""We didn't show up early.""
Tucker was the only Badger to make a 3-pointer, as Wisconsin shot 2-of-15 from behind the arc and less than 40 percent from the field.
—The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
contributed to this report.
