UW Comes From Behind to Beat Valpo
December 22, 2007 | Men's Basketball
The Wisconsin men's basketball team trailed by as many as nine points and was behind for more than 20 minutes, but closed out the final two minutes of the game on an 11-4 run to beat Valparaiso 68-58. Saturday's win moved the Badgers up to 9-2 on the season, while improving Bo Ryan's record to 99-6 at the Kohl Center.
Fans can also relive the game with Brian Lucas' postid=483"> --> Courtside Blog here postid=483"> --> .
Behind another double-double from Joe Krabbenhoft (11 points, 11 rebounds) Wisconsin was able to overcome poor free throw shooting to grab their ninth win of the season. Krabbenhoft was also three assists away from recording the first triple-double in school history, finishing with seven dimes on the night.
Even after committing 20 turnovers and only shooting 47.2 percent from the free throw line, Wisconsin played tough down the stretch grabbing key rebounds and forcing three Valparaiso turnovers in the final 50 seconds to hold onto the win. The Badgers showed the crowd once again why they lead the Big Ten in scoring defense and field goal percentage defense, holding the Crusaders to only 58 points on 38.5 percent shooting.
Wisconsin did a good job of spreading the ball around as five different players scored at least nine points. Sophomore Trevon Hughes led the team with 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting, while fellow classmate, Jason Bohannon tallied 11. Brian Butch was one point and one rebound away from his third double-double of the season after grabbing nine boards and scoring nine points. Michael Flowers also chipped in nine points.
Marcus Landry was the lone bright spot for Ryan's squad on the free throw line, hitting 5-of-7 from the charity stripe en route to seven points and seven rebounds on the night. Landry has now scored 34 points over his last three games, averaging 11.3 points per contest.
Valparaiso was led by Samuel Haanpaa who recorded a game-high 16 points after shooting 6-of-8 from the floor. Brandon McPherson tallied 14, while Shawn Huff added eight points and eight rebounds. The Crusaders dropped to 10-2 on the season and are off until Dec. 30 when they travel to top-ranked North Carolina to take on the Tarheels.
Wisconsin has a couple days off for the holiday before returning to practice next week in preparation for its game at Texas on Dec. 29. The Badgers and Longhorns tip off at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN2.
Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan
Post-Game Quotes
On the ups and downs of the Badgers' performance: 'We did touch the post, we did get some rebounds. That is the strength of this team. There were some things that we did tonight that I have never seen before. Now we have a couple days at home here to visit with family and friends. Finals are wrapped up so we can come back and go at it again. But when you see the number of rebounds and when you see the hustle opportunities that we made for ourselves in the second half and when you see guys turn around and shut down the three, you know they are still working it. Sometimes things just don't happen in your favor, but the fact that they didn 't get down and didn't get discouraged, I think that will help us later on this year.'
On Hughes' 3-point basket for a 57-54 lead: 'There were some passes and some things that happened that I have not seen, which must mean Valpo was taking some things away and making some things happen. We had some guys make some plays and get some big offensive rebounds down the stretch off of missed free throws. I thought our guys were opportunistic. When things just aren't going right you just have to keep doing things and try to make it happen and I thought that is what we did.'
On the fatigue of the other team: 'If we work people for 40 minutes, you always have the chance to effect shooters. Sometimes you have an effect on them and sometimes guys aren't effected one way or the other. I hope that our guys don't get worn down. I don't think we missed those free throws because of fatigue, maybe some of them did but its just contagious once you start ' everyone go in on the act and everyone got in on the act getting offensive rebounds also.
