By at least one comprehensive statistical measure, the Badgers have the most efficient offense in the country. Tuesday night, they somehow played even better than that.
The No. 5 Badgers (8-1 Big Ten, 20-2 overall) blew the doors off Indiana (6-4, 16-7) by a score of 92-78 in a game much less competitive than the 14-point margin indicates.
Coming into the game, it was clear Wisconsin would enjoy a huge size advantage thanks to their elite frontcourt and Indiana not having a rotation player taller than 6’7”. That’s exactly what happened, with Frank Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and Nigel Hayes combining for 53 points on 19-24 shooting. In total, the Badgers finished with 40 points in the paint and got to the line consistently to earn 29 points from the charity stripe.
“Most of our offense ran through the post tonight, we knew we had a size advantage and we knew we had to take advantage of it,” Kaminsky said in a postgame press conference. “I think we did a good job feeding the post. We went a little away from it for a while, but once we got back into it, it was pretty good.”
The Hoosiers were also hurt by the sudden loss of their star freshman guard James Blackmon Jr., who suffered an ankle injury in the team’s previous game against Rutgers. Blackmon had been averaging 16.5 points and 5.2 rebounds per game while serving as one of Indiana’s primary catalysts on offense, making his loss a rough one for the Hoosiers.
All in all, it was a mismatch every time the Badgers held the ball, even more than you would expect when the No. 1 team in the kenpom.com offensive rankings plays the No. 237 defense. Indiana had as few answers for Wisconsin’s interior game as any team has had all season against the Badgers.
The way head coach Bo Ryan described it? Basically just another day at the office.
“I think our guys made some tough shots inside,” Ryan said. “The game kind of played out the way we thought it would. I don’t know how Coach Crean feels. They were going to do their thing, we did our thing and we just happened to do a little bit better on our possessions.”
In the first half, Wisconsin scored 1.48 points per possession and entered the locker room with a 44-36 lead over an Indiana team that had also played hot, making 8-11 3-point attempts in the first half.
The only way it seemed Indiana was going to be able to hang around was by shooting the Kohl Center’s lights out from 3-point range. For the first 10 minutes of the second half, Indiana was 0-5 from deep, and by the time they made one, Wisconsin held a 76-51 lead.
“We did not change anything we were doing defensively,” Ryan said. “They got into a rhythm where they felt real comfortable with their 3’s. They were hitting guys in spots where we had seen on tape.”
The Badgers had opened the half with a 16-1 run, then saw a stretch where redshirt sophomore Zach Showalter doubled the tape on his highlight reel. In a span of five minutes, the Germantown native registered three and-1 layups, two steals and an assist to seemingly seal a dominant blowout.
“It was fun,” Showalter said. “I’ve been kind of waiting for this. I just tried to bring energy like I always do.”
The Hoosiers at least made it interesting near the end of the game, cutting the UW lead to 12 with three minutes remaining, but it wasn’t enough to make up for Wisconsin’s 30 minutes of brutal efficiency.
