Wednesday night's matchup against Penn State was not pretty, but the UW men's basketball team (9-1 Big Ten, 23-2 overall) still pulled out another road victory, defeating the Nittany Lions 71-58.
The usual cast of characters put up the big numbers for the Badgers, as senior forward Alando Tucker, senior guard Kammron Taylor and junior guard Michael Flowers combined for 49 of the team's 71 points. But as Penn State refused to lose quietly midway through the second half, it was the bench play of freshman guard Jason Bohannon and seldom-used sophomore forward Kevin Gullikson that helped Wisconsin pull away.
With the Badgers clinging to a slim lead of 42-41 with only 12 minutes left in the game, Bohannon spotted up from behind the 3-point line and gave Wisconsin a little breathing room. UW barely looked back for the rest of the game, as the four-point lead grew to 12 and the ending was no longer in doubt. Bohannon ended the game with five points and a key offensive rebound, but more importantly, he sparked an anemic Badger offense.
The former walk-on Gullikson was used extensively by head coach Bo Ryan when Greg Stiemsma and Marcus Landry were ruled ineligible last season, and he even earned himself a scholarship. But he has yet to regularly crack the UW lineup this season. However, when Ryan inserted him into the lineup in the second half of Wednesday's game, Gullikson quickly made his presence felt with a block on the defensive end that kept the Badgers ahead. His hustle kept him in for the majority of the second half, and he even hit a jumper that extended UW's lead to 12 with five minutes left.
Tucker milestones
With his 24 points and eight rebounds, Tucker achieved one milestone while nearly eclipsing another. His eight rebounds put him above 700 for his career, and he needs only one more basket to surpass the 2,000 point barrier. Already in second place for career points at Wisconsin, he trails only Michael Finley's 2,147 career points. Tucker has seven more games in the regular season as well as the Big Ten tournament to score 149 points, a doable feat for the star forward.
Trigger-happy
Despite struggling from behind the 3-point line for much of the season, the Badgers have fallen in love with the 3-pointer the past few games. They have hoisted up nearly 18 per game in the past four contests, hitting only 23 of them for an average of only 32 percent. In the loss against Indiana, they made only five of the 20 they took from downtown, one of the reasons they lost the game.
Wisconsin returns to the Kohl Center Saturday to take on Iowa.
