The No. 23 Wisconsin Badgers had their first big test of the season on Friday, taking on the No. 9 BYU Cougars on the road, and it didn’t end well. The Badgers lost 98-70 to fall to 4-1 on the season, showing the gaps the team has and the need for more improvement on both ends.
Wisconsin shot the ball poorly on all fronts, and struggled to contain BYU both inside and outside the arc while giving up way too many free throws. Richie Saunders was the main source of offense, torching the Badgers with 26 points and five threes after scoring 25 against Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament last year.
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Here are three quick takeaways from Wisconsin’s 98-70 loss to BYU on Friday.
Shooting woes
The Badgers are a three-point shooting team, which has usually helped them in games to start the year. On Friday, they were an abysmal 7/29 from three, hitting less than 25 percent of their attempts.
The starters combined to shoot 2/21 from three, as Nick Boyd went 0/4, Andrew Rohde went 1/3, Austin Rapp went 0/5, John Blackwell went 1/5, and Nolan Winter went 0/4.
Wisconsin needed to start hot, but they shot only 3/16 from three in the first half, limiting them to 33 points. Rapp has really struggled to shoot the ball this season as a high-volume player. He’s still learning his spot in the offense, and it feels like he takes good shots, but passes up even better shots with how quickly he puts threes up off the catch.
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Being more selective and in the flow of the offense should help increase his efficiency. But, he wasn’t the only one on Saturday. Without Braeden Carrington going 4/5 from three, the Badgers would’ve been 3/24 as a team. You can’t win games shooting that way.
Wisconsin was also a porous 17/26 at the free-throw line. Did that make or break the game? Not necessarily. But, the Badgers can’t miss that many free throws against good teams with the shooters they have. John Blackwell missed five free throws himself, while Nick Boyd was 2/4 from the line.
Bench
BYU’s bench was key in the game, as they had 29 points and 16 rebounds in comparison to 19 points and six rebounds for Wisconsin.
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Khadim Mboup and Dominique Diomande were the main key players for BYU off the bench, combining for 12 points and 10 rebounds, while being a +12 and +13, respectively, in the box score.
Outside of Braeden Carrington, who had 12 points on 4/5 from three, the Badgers bench was largely ineffective. Jack Janicki had five points, but was a -17 in the box score. Big men Aleksas Bieliauskas and Will Garlock were a -14 and -11 in 13 and eight minutes, respectively.
It wasn’t a pretty night for the starters, but the bench also struggled. Wisconsin will need to get some more production from those last three bench spots. That’s where the learning curve for the freshmen comes from as they play in bigger games to start the season.
Runs
The Badgers have been a team of runs this year, which is a big reason why they averaged over 93 points per game to start the season and were beating opponents by at least 25 points.
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But, on Friday, it was BYU who had the commanding runs that made the difference in the game.
In the first half alone, the Cougars had runs of 13, seven, and seven straight. Wisconsin stayed in it, but trailed 45-33 at the half.
The Badgers did claw back into the game in the second half with an early run of their own, cutting it to seven on two occasions. But, just like that, the Cougars went on a 9-0 run to extend the lead to 16. Minutes later, a 7-0 run made the lead 72-52. Then, in the final minutes, BYU went on another 9-0 run to blow the game open at 87-58 with 4:32 to go.
Wisconsin’s experience has been key in the runs. But, they were on the wrong side of them on Friday on several occasions.
