The No. 12 Badgers (6-0 overall) continued their Cancun Challenge run with a 76-67 win over Oral Roberts at the Kohl Center Saturday.
It was all Wisconsin immediately after tip-off, with the Badgers scoring nine points before Oral Roberts was on the board. They eventually reached their largest lead of the game, 28-11, with nine minutes left in the first half.
Oral Roberts head coach Scott Sutton blamed his team’s slow start on the absence of its leading scorer, sophomore guard Obi Emegano.
“I think our guys got rattled,” Sutton said. “Obi’s not only our leading scorer, he’s our best defender, he’s our leader, he has a great calming influence over our guys and we missed that.”
The Golden Eagles were gradually able to claw back for the rest of the game, cutting the lead to as small as four with five minutes remaining.
“There were a few minutes where we got a little stagnant offensively and didn’t get stuff going,” redshirt junior guard Josh Gasser said. “But we were able to come out in a resilient way against a pretty darn good team.”
Much of that comeback came from Oral Roberts senior forward Shawn Glover, who finished with a game-leading 24 points on 10-of-16 shooting.
“That is more tough 2s than probably anybody else has had against us,” head coach Bo Ryan said. “[He was] fading left, then we made him change it up a little bit. Made him go right, then he cooled off. You’ve got to make him do something different”
On the Wisconsin side, all five starters finished with double figures in points, once again led by junior center Frank Kaminsky’s 21. The starting five are now all averaging double digits in points for the season.
An unusually low amount of scoring came from the 3-point line. Instead, the Badgers got it done more from close range and at the free-throw line.
“Some nights, [the 3s] are not there, so you have to find other ways to manufacture points. So we definitely shot more free throws,” Ryan said. “I thought we were cutting hard away from the ball in streaks pretty well, which got us to the line.”
Wisconsin outscored Oral Roberts 34-22 in the paint and shot 15-of-18 from the charity stripe.
Leading by five with a minute left, the Badgers were able to put the game away due to perfect free-throw shooting, with Gasser and junior guard Traevon Jackson going 6-of-6 in the final minute.
Redshirt sophomore guard George Marshall was once again absent, still out with a concussion. Freshman guard Bronson Koenig played in his place, scoring no points.
The Badgers’ 6-0 record ties the team’s best start under Ryan. The 2011-’12 team also started 6-0 before losing to No. 5 North Carolina.
This continues a stretch of five games in nine days for the Badgers, who will now travel to Cancun, Mexico, to finish their tournament. They will play St. Louis Tuesday.
