The No. 10 Wisconsin men's basketball team will look to finish the regular season by clinching its first outright Big Ten title since 2003 against Northwestern Saturday. The Badgers (15-2 Big Ten, 25-4 overall) are on a six-game winning streak and have not lost on the road in over a month.
The Wildcats (1-16 Big Ten, 8-20 overall) have struggled through one of their worst seasons in school and conference history. They have lost 16 of 17 league games and are being outscored by over 13 points per contest.
In the first meeting between these teams, Northwestern forced 15 Wisconsin turnovers, but let the Badgers convert more than 48 percent of their shots. Bo Ryan's squad also hit 24 free throws while only sending the Wildcats to the charity stripe 13 times. Wisconsin came away with a 62-50 win.
The Badgers are 3-3 in their last six visits to Welsh-Ryan Arena.
The Wildcat offense is built around the talents of freshman forward Kevin Coble. He has played well this season, leading the team with 16 points and 5.4 rebounds per game.
Northwestern runs a Princeton offense, which utilizes a lot of backdoor cuts and forces big men to defend away from the paint. The Badgers counter with a defense that held Penn State under 30 percent shooting in their last game.
Wisconsin is first in the league in 3-point shooting defense and second in opponrnt's field goal defense. The Wildcats are in the bottom half of the Big Ten in shooting percent and score 58.4 points per contest.
Northwestern is at a size disadvantage since they have no players taller than 6'8'. Wisconsin has four players taller than that including senior centers Brian Butch and Greg Steimsma, who anchor the middle of the Badgers league-leading scoring defense, which gives up an average of 54.4 points per game.
The last time these teams met, Bo Ryan went small, keeping Steimsma on the bench and only playing Butch for 24 minutes. Marcus Landry starred in the Badger victory, scoring 21 points and making 9-of-10 free throws.
Wisconsin's swing offense will have a tough matchup against Northwestern's 1-3-1 trapping zone. The Badger's four losses this season have all come against teams that pressure the ball on the perimeter, much like Northwestern does.
The Badger's second leading scorer, Trevon Hughes, is having a difficult conference season, shooting under 40 percent. He was held without a field goal when the Wildcats came to the Kohl Center in January.
Should the Wildcats lose, it would set a dubious conference record. No Big Ten team has played 17 conference games in a season before this year, yet Northwestern could finish the season with 17 conference losses.
A win would assure Wisconsin the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. A loss would open the door for Indiana and Purdue to take a share of the conference title with a win.
Tip-off is set for 2:00 p.m. Saturday in Evanston and can be seen on the Big Ten Network.
