Badgers try to rely on the three ball against Creighton

The Gavitt Tipoff Games continued with two more games on Tuesday night. After Villanova and Purdue played in a thriller with the defending National Champions finishing on top, Maryland came back and beat Georgetown and the 22nd ranked Creighton Bluejays shocked the 9th ranked Wisconsin Badgers in Nebraska.

The Hoyas had a seven-point lead with a minute left, but the Terrapins battled back thanks to a complete collapse by Georgetown as they ended the game on a 13-5 run.

With the Gavitt Games tied at one a piece between the Big Ten and the Big East, Wisconsin tipped off against Creighton.

The Bluejays jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead over the Badgers. After a pair of Nigel Hayes jump shots, Wisconsin was able to tie the game at 11. Creighton jumped back out to a 14-18 lead and that was the time FS1 switched over to the game after the thriller in Washington D.C.

Viewers quickly noticed Wisconsin had used three timeouts already. So with a little less than halfway through the first half, the Badgers only had two timeouts for the rest of the game.

As soon as we were able to start watching the game, the Badgers started to take control. Three pointers were falling and the defense was locked in. A big reason for the success on the perimeter was due to the fact that the offense was working through Ethan Happ.

The ball would get into Happ in the middle, the double team would come and he would find the open man. An ideal scenario for Wisconsin is a double team on Happ on the block and Nigel Hayes on the wing. Hayes is able to knock down threes when it’s passed to him during a rotation.

Freshman D’Mitrik Trice saw some early playing time halfway through the first half. Trice is the younger brother of former lights out shooter from Michigan State, Travis Trice. D’Mitrik, like Travis, knocked down a key three in the first half after the double team came on Happ. Trice was also able to find Hayes on great passing for a three pointer.

As the Badgers took a six-point lead near the seven-minute mark in the first, Happ picked up his second foul resulting in him taking a seat on the bench.

Wisconsin had to quickly go to the bench and bring in Alex Illikainen and try and work Vitto Brown more in the middle to play alongside Hayes. The double team wasn’t coming for those two and that turned into untimely turnovers and forced shots.

Luckily, during the almost three minutes of no scoring for the Badgers, the Bluejays only scored a layup. The bad part though, Wisconsin didn’t make a single three for the rest of the half and they ended with 21 attempts. Unless a team is up by a ton or someone has the hot hand, they should not be attempting that many threes.

Creighton took a three-point lead into halftime and only trailed by as much as four points in the second half on their way to a 12-point victory over Wisconsin.

The Badgers continued to rely on their three point shooting too much in the second half, accumulating 39 attempts on only 11 made resulting to 28 percent from behind the arc.

Ethan Happ, who averaged almost one block and two steals per game in his freshman year which landed him a spot on the All-Big Ten Defensive Team didn’t record a block. In fact, Trice was the only Badger who blocked a shot.

The first free throws didn’t come until a little over five minutes to go in the game when Bronson Koenig drove the lane and created contact. At that point, the Badgers were down 55-63.

When Happ finally reentered the game, he and Koenig ran a couple pick-and-rolls which resulted in points, but they quickly went back to attempting threes early in the shot clock.

The Badgers did out rebound the Bluejays in all three phases, but not many points came from them. As a result of the numerous three point attempts and only five free throws shows not much production coming from inside and attacking the basket.

Happ tends to get at least two fouls in the first quarter so the Badgers need to find a way to work the inside during his absence. Even when he’s just getting a rest, Charlie Thomas, Illkainen and Brown have to be more of a presence. It’ll be interesting to see if they turn to Andy Van Vliet who did record five rebounds in five minutes against Central Arkansas.

The Badgers are back in action on Thursday against Chicago State. The Cougars are coming off a win against Illinois Tech, but they did finish last season with a 4-28 overall record and winless in the WAC. Wisconsin then travels to Maui to play in the Maui Jim Maui with an opening round game against Tennessee on Monday at 1:30 p.m.