Badgers Withstand UC Santa Barbara, 72-61
November 23, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Clayton Hanson scored 16 of his career-high 18 points in the second half as the Wisconsin men's basketball team held off a charge from UC Santa Barbara to post a 72-61 victory at the Kohl Center Tuesday evening.
The Badgers improve to 2-0 overall with the win, while the Gauchos fall to 1-1.
Hanson knocked down 6-of-7 shots after the intermission, including four three-pointers, to withstand a valiant effort by UCSB. Alando Tucker chipped in 16 points and seven rebounds for UW, while Zack Morley added 14 points and seven boards.
The Gauchos were able to hang with the Badgers throughout the majority of the first half, thanks in part to nine turnovers by UW prior to halftime. Leading 26-23 with 3:05 remaining before the half, Wisconsin closed out the opening 20 minutes of play by going on an 8-3 run to take a 34-26 lead in the locker rooms.
The Badgers shot an impressive 60 percent from the field on 12-of-20 shooting in the opening half. Morley had the hot hand for UW, draining each of his first four shots, all from beyond the three-point arc, on his way to notching 12 of his 14 points for the game.
Wisconsin continued its accurate shooting early in the second half. Leading 44-35 with just under 17 minutes remaining, the Badgers went on an 11-3 run over a span of 5:36 to extend their lead to 55-38.
However, the Gauchos would not go away. UCSB answered back with an 18-8 spurt of its own to trim UW's advantage to just seven at 63-56 with 4:29 remaining. But it was Hanson who responded for the Badgers when they needed him, hitting his fourth three-pointer of the half followed by another jumper to squelch the visitors ' late rally.
Wisconsin finished a red-hot 27-of-48 from the field for the game for 56.3 percent. Included in the effort was an 8-for-18 performance from beyond the three-point arc, with Morley and Hanson going a combined 8-of-12.
UCSB was able to keep the game close behind 49 percent field-goal shooting (25-of-51). Casey Cook led all scorers with 21 points on 8-of-11 shooting.
After committing nine turnovers in the first half, UW had just two after the intermission.
Wisconsin returns to action at 9 p.m. Central time Saturday when it travels to Malibu, Calif., to take on Pepperdine.
Game Notes
This was the first-ever meeting between the Badgers and the Gauchos ' tonight's game was the first time Wisconsin hosted a team from the state of California since Dec. 12, 1998 when UW defeated Pepperdine 57-51 ' the Badgers improve to 6-2 all-time against Big West Conference opponents with tonight 's win ' this was the UW's first game against a Big West foe since Nov. 20, 1998 when it lost at New Mexico State 66-52 ' Zach Morley set a career high with four three-pointers made, besting his previous high of three set at Northwestern last season ' the Badgers' .563 shooting percentage tonight is its highest since making 60.7 percent of its shots against Penn State on Feb. 1, 2003 ' Hanson's 18 points tonight bested his previous career high of 17 set at Michigan last season.
Postgame Quotes
UC Santa Barbara Head Coach Bob Williams
Opening Statement:
"The way (Wisconsin) plays is more how we have to play. I thought their patience offensively, their discipline offensively, the way they exploit you defensively is really sound. They're a very well-coached team. They execute. I 'm very impressed with Coach Ryan's ball club, and at the same time, was pretty pleased. We looked out there on the floor at one stage where we cut it to seven and on the floor at that time. We have two freshmen and a walk-on. And, we're within seven of the two-time defending Big Ten Champions, so we're not totally disappointed with our effort, we're disappointed with the fact that several of our guys didn't play the way we think they're capable of."
On their zone defense:
"Basically, we had to go to zone so much because you saw how badly they exploited our man at the start of the second half. You can't guard them one-on-one inside. Tucker's too good inside, big boy's too good inside. They're too much for us to handle, so we were running the doubles at them, and we haven't worked on the doubles much until all these injuries happened in the last couple weeks. We know we can't afford to have one of our post guys in foul trouble, so we start running doubles at people and our doubles were running were running people that were 10 or 12 feet from the basket. Wisconsin did a great job of just facing up and picking us apart on the weak side, and that's where, they come out at the start of the second half and (Hanson) hits the four threes on us, or how many he nailed at the start of the second. They really did that against the man. They got a couple against the zone, but it was against the man. We went to the zone, primarily to get them out of their confidence level ' just posting us and attacking us on the weak side. I thought they did a very good job against the zone. They got great shots and we bought on the same things every drive."
Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan
On Clayton Hanson's three-point shooting:
"Well, he got open. In basketball nowadays you don't get open that often. You've got to take advantage of the times that you do. He 's always identified as a shooter so against zones or anything else, he's going to get a lot of attention. But that was a result of the guys using ball-fakes. Turning the ball either through the post or the top and moving it before the defender could get to him. So the credit goes to the other four jerseys that worked the ball and got it to him where he was wide open. That was the key."
On attacking the zone:
"Well, two guys are going to try to guard three and you've got to move the ball and that was the best thing that we got into. Then when they were cheating on that, we were able to touch the post and get some free throws. We need to shoot a little bit better, but at least we were getting inside and getting fouled or getting inside and getting scores. On the offensive end, that's how you get high percentage shots because we didn't just settle for any wide-open shots. We worked it in the post and moved it around and made them guard us. The easiest thing for a zone to do is to just stand around. You've got to make them work."
