Badgers falter late in game halted by fire alarm
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – When Wisconsin dispatched Indiana by double digits last month at the Kohl Center, center Kel’el Ware watched from the Hoosiers’ bench while recovering from an ankle injury.
Ware showed UW’s players and coaches how much he means to the Hoosiers on Tuesday night at Assembly Hall.
Ware made his first eight shots to help the Hoosiers build a 15-point lead in the first half and though he cooled offensively after that still finished with 27 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks to help Indiana to a 74-70 victory over a UW team struggling to build any momentum heading into the Big Ten Tournament.
“Kel’el Ware has an All-American type night, with 20 points in the first half,” said UW coach Greg Gard, again frustrated that his team could not defend well enough for 40 minutes to get a road victory. “He was terrific. But we also gave him some easy buckets early where he got some confidence going. He is a really good player, but he just did whatever he wanted in the first half.”
Ware got plenty of help from Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako in the second half.
Reneau scored 11 of his 14 points and grabbed seven of his eight rebounds after halftime. His basket inside with 55.5 seconds left gave the Hoosiers the lead for good, 72-70.
Mgbako scored 10 of his 14 points after halftime. He hit a crucial threepointer to forge a 63-63 tie with 5 minutes 35 seconds left and added two key free throws to close the scoring with 25.1 seconds left.
The Badgers (18-10, 10-7 Big Ten), who went scoreless over the final 2:05 as they missed their final six shots, dropped into a tie for fourth place in the league with Nebraska (20-8, 10-7).
Both teams are one-half game behind Northwestern (19-8, 10-6) and 1 1⁄
2 games behind second-place Illinois (20-7, 11-5).
Northwestern is at Maryland on
Wednesday; Illinois hosts Minnesota on Wednesday.
The Badgers shot 47.6% from threepoint range (10 of 21), 59.6% overall (28 of 47) and 86.2% from the free-throw line (25 of 29) in the teams’ first meeting in a 91-79 victory.
Tuesday was a completely different story early as UW hit just 2 of 9 threepointers and 7 of 22 shots overall in falling behind, 32-17 late in the first half.
“We should have been more aggressive, (getting) downhill right away and looking for the kick-out threes,” Chucky Hepburn said. “But we settled early and that’s why they were able to set the tone...
“We had to climb back, which we did, but it is harder to do when you’re on the road. When you’re on the road, we’ve got to be the team to set the tone and we didn’t do it tonight.”
The Badgers hit 7 of their final 10 shots in the half to pull within five points and in the second half used a 12-4 run to pull into a 54-54 tie with 10:31 remaining.
Just 25 seconds later, the game was stopped and the arena was eventually evacuated after smoke was detected in an elevator. After a brief delay and warm-up for the players, play resumed.
“I thought it was a great timeout for whoever from Indiana pulled the fire alarm while we were making a run,” Gard said sarcastically. “It was kind of like having two halftimes.”
After Tyler Wahl scored to give UW a 56-54 lead, the Badgers held the lead for nearly 3 1/2 minutes.
Mgbako’s three-pointer settled the Hoosiers and forged the 63-63 tie.
The Hoosiers came in shooting just 31.3% from three-point range and 46.1% overall in league play.
They got the ball inside early and often against UW and hit 4 of 9 threepointers and 15 of 25 shots in the opening half. Indiana finished at 42.9% from three-point range (6 of 14) and 61.7% overall (29 of 47). What stood out most to Gard was that the Hoosiers hit 23 of 33 two-point attempts. The Hoosiers hit 12 of 17 lay-ins and both dunks.
“What I am frustrated about is that defensively we’ve come down this road before,” Gard said. “At times we’re really good, and then we’re not. We had really good possessions tonight when we were making our run. But to be consistent, to cross that threshold, has been our Achilles’ heel for most of the year.”
After Wahl scored inside to give UW a 70-68 lead with 2:06 left, Trey Galloway (six points, 12 assists) hit a floater to forge a 70-70 tie, Reneau scored inside and then Mgbako capped the victory with two free throws with 25.1 seconds left.
Only six players scored for UW, which lost despite averaging 1.129 points per possessions. The Hoosiers were better at 1.245.
Hepburn contributed 15 points, seven rebounds and six assists. AJ Storr added 14 points, Max Klesmit and John Blackwell added 11 apiece, Steven Crowl had 10 and Tyler Wahl, limited to 25 minutes because of foul trouble, had nine.
Afterward, Hepburn was blunt in forecasting what might happen if this UW team doesn’t fix its issues.
“Just very disappointed in ourselves,” he said. “It’s the same thing we had to battle last year. We have older players now. You would hope that we’ve got it down by now but we don’t.
“So we’ve got to figure out how to fix this really quick, because it’s going to end fast in March if we don’t.”