While much of the Midwest lay under a thick blanket of snow, the Wisconsin defense turned up the heat on the Iowa Hawkeyes, and the Badgers made 12 of their final 14 free throws to earn a 60-54 victory Wednesday night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The victory set up No. 8 Wisconsin for a first-place showdown with the Purdue Boilermakers Saturday at the Kohl Center.
As has often been the case under head coach Bo Ryan, the Badgers (9-1 Big Ten, 19-3 overall) pulled away from the Hawkeyes (4-7, 11-13) by playing tenacious defense and pounding the ball inside to their big men.
Yet UW also took control at the charity strip, an area where Ryan's teams have traditionally struggled from time to time.
Trailing by one with just over six minutes left to play, junior forward Marcus Landry made a pair of free throws to give UW a 45-44 lead. Six free throws by sophomore guard Jason Bohannon, two by junior guard Joe Krabbenhoft and another pair by Landry kept the pressure on the Hawkeyes and helped seal the victory for UW.
A timely 3-pointer by senior forward Brian Butch and an acrobatic layup by senior guard Michael Flowers were the only two Wisconsin field goals over the game's final 10 minutes.
Hawkeye senior guard Justin Johnson trimmed the Badger lead to 48-47 after hitting a 3-pointer on a fastbreak.
The lead was at 54-51 when Landry stuffed Iowa junior guard Tony Freeman to set up more Bohannon free throws.
The Hawkeyes cut the Badger lead to two in the game's final seconds, but Krabbenhoft and Landry were perfect at the line.
With the Big Ten's No. 1 and No. 3 defenses squaring off, the game had all the markings of a traditional conference slug fest.
Both the Hawkeyes and the Badgers sustained lengthy offensive droughts - Iowa went almost nine minutes without a field goal late in the second half.
Neither team had hit double digits by the 10-minute mark of the first half.
Along with the poor offensive production, 34 total fouls were called.
Only after Landry made a turnaround jumper in the lane to give Wisconsin a 10-8 advantage did the two teams come to life, and the lead seesawed back-and-forth for the remainder of the game.
The Hawkeyes led 29-26 at the break but only mustered 25 second-half points.
Freeman paced the Hawkeyes with four first-half 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 18 points. Hawkeye senior center Seth Gorney added eight first-half points of his own, but was held to only two points in the second half.
Landry led Wisconsin with 16 points, Butch recorded 12 and Bohannon added nine in his second game playing in his home state.
Krabbenhoft tallied eight points and eight rebounds.
The Badgers scored 24 points in the paint while the Hawkeyes managed just 10. Wisconsin also shot better than Iowa who made only 35.4 percent of its attempts. Wisconsin shot 43.5 percent from the field.
The game featured 13 lead changes with neither team taking a advantage greater than six points.
Hughes plays through pain
With Wisconsin leading 35-34 with 15:19 to play, sophomore guard Trevon Hughes appeared to injure his left ankle after missing a 3-pointer and landing on the heel of Hawkeye junior forward Cyrus Tate. But Hughes returned to the game and made a three, his only field goal of the game to give UW a 42-40 advantage.
