The Wisconsin men's basketball team had already snapped its six-game losing streak, but preparing for a road matchup against Penn State left them little time to celebrate. On Sunday, the Badgers showed that their losing ways are still behind them with a decisive 54-44 victory over the Nittany Lions.
UW senior forward Marcus Landry led Wisconsin with 13 points along with six rebounds. In his second consecutive start, sophomore forward Jon Leuer added 12 points and six rebounds, filling in for injured sophomore center Keaton Nankivil.
The Badgers began the game with an up-and-down first half. Wisconsin took an early 6-2 lead about four minutes into the period, but were then held for more than five minutes without a field goal.
Neither team could pull away before Penn State went on a mini-run and opened up a 20-16 lead with five minutes remaining in the half. The Badgers turned it on late, closing the half on a 12-1 run. UW sophomore swingman Tim Jarmusz had seven first-half points off the bench for the Badgers. Wisconsin looked strong on the boards, out-rebounding Penn State 14-11 and 3-0 on the offensive glass.
The game remained close in the second half, as UW held just a 36-34 advantage with nine minutes left. But then the Badgers broke through with seven unanswered points, and Penn State was not able to recover.
In their second straight win, the story once again for the Badgers was their suffocating defense, which held Penn State to just 37 percent shooting. The Nittany Lions shot just 17-for-46 from the field, and 0-for-14 from beyond the three-point line.
UW junior guard Trévon Hughes struggled offensively in his second consecutive game. He finished with four points and shot just 1-for-10 from the field. But Hughes made up for this subpar performance on the defensive end with his effort on Penn State sophomore guard Talor Battle.
As a team we were just trying to get up into [Battle] and not let him get the open threes,"" Hughes said. ""It was more than a one-player job to make sure that every one of his shots is contested.""
Entering the weekend, Battle led the Big Ten in both scoring and assists per game with 18.5 and 5.3 respectively. But with Hughes in his face all game, Battle never found his stroke offensively. Battle shot just 4-for-15 and managed only two assists due to Wisconsin's defensive pressure.
""If my shot's not falling, I can't say the same thing about my defense,"" Hughes said. ""I need to play good D all the time. It was a team effort though. My guys helped me out on the defensive end when I got beat sometimes.""
This was Wisconsin's 10th consecutive win over Penn State. Prior to the game, the Nittany Lions had lost just two games at home all season.
Next up, the Badgers will host Iowa at home Wednesday night.
- uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
