What. A. Game. The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Purdue Boilermakers 97-93 in the final game of the regular season on Saturday, spoiling the home crowd’s Senior Day with their fourth straight win over a ranked opponent.
It was a back-and-forth battle throughout the game, but Wisconsin found a way to respond to every Purdue counter, and shot exceptionally well to finish the job and move up in the Big Ten standings.
With the win, Wisconsin improved to 22-9 on the year and finish with a 14-6 record in Big
Ten play. That moved them up to fifth in the Big Ten, surpassing Purdue, and they have a chance to move up to No. 4 if Illinois loses to Maryland on Sunday.
Here are three quick takeaways from Wisconsin’s big win over Purdue on Saturday.
Threes come at the right time
To beat Purdue and its offense without Nolan Winter, the Badgers were going to have to come out ready and shoot the ball at a very high rate on Saturday. And they had one of their best performances of the season.
Wisconsin shot 18 of 34 from three, hitting 52.9 percent of their attempts, and they made it rain from the jump. The Badgers got out to a quick start, thanks to early threes from Aleksas Bieliauskas, and ultimately saw six of their eight rotational players hit threes.
Wisconsin has seen some cold stretches, and they did have one or two on Saturday, but the threes came at a timely manner, and the stars came to play.
Purdue shot quite well from three as well, hitting 11 of their 25 attempts, but Wisconsin looked for the three at a higher rate and connected at a higher rate.
Wisconsin’s elite three-point shooting is exactly why they’re such a dangerous threat heading into March. And that was seen on Saturday.
Bigs step up without Winter
Nolan Winter’s absence was a big factor going into Saturday’s game against a Purdue team that is predicated on size and physicality down low. Trey Kauffman-Renn, Oscar Cluff, and Daniel Jacobsen have been problems for teams, so Wisconsin was going to have to be physical and play well with their depth.
Well, Austin Rapp and Aleksas Bieliauskas came to play. Offensively, they brought the scoring punch. Rapp poured in 17 points, hitting four threes, while Bieliauskas had 16 points, shooting 4 of 5 from three. Both players were instrumental off catch and shoot opportunities, and looked to be aggressive offensively.
While Trey Kauffman-Renn had 17 points and a couple of key shots, the Badgers made him work for it, as he was only 7 of 14 on twos. Purdue had 16 offensive rebounds, which definitely helped them with the 20 second-chance points, but I thought Wisconsin’s bigs did as well as they could with the challenge presented.
In a game where the Badgers needed the bigs to play heavy minutes, both Rapp and Bieliauskas saw career highs and did their jobs.
Resiliency
In the first matchup between the two teams, Wisconsin kept things competitive throughout the first half, but completely collapsed in the second half.
In this one, Wisconsin responded whenever Purdue had a big run, which showed the resiliency of a team on the road in one of the toughest environments in the country.
In the first half, Wisconsin took an early 13-9 lead, getting off to a fast start. But Purdue flipped that into a 13-0 run, taking a 22-13 lead, as the Badgers looked overwhelmed with four turnovers in a three-minute stretch.
But, rather than speeding things up, the Badgers figured out their offensive pace and got back into the game, quickly erasing the deficit and bringing things to within one at 26-25. Then, a few moments later, they went on a 9-0 run of their own with three consecutive triples, taking control of the game. They held the lead from the 6:32 mark of the first half to the 14:59 mark of the second half.
Purdue wouldn’t give up, however. After Wisconsin got out to a nine-point lead (61-52), the Boilermakers went on a 10-0 run of their own, taking the lead after the first five minutes of the second half. Once again, though, Wisconsin didn’t fold, firing back with an 8-0 run of their own to get back on top.
Then, after Purdue took the lead at 73-72 once again, John Blackwell answered with a three, Andrew Rohde had a go-ahead three, and Nick Boyd contributed with an and-1 to give Wisconsin an 81-75 boost with 8:29 left.
The final minutes proved to be a back-and-forth battle between the two sides. So, it came down to whose stars would ultimately shine more. And that edge went to Wisconsin.
Nick Boyd was huge in the stretch run, putting together a couple of incredible finishes at the rim to keep Wisconsin ahead. Blackwell, on the other hand, was instrumental in getting the Badgers there. He had 25 points on just 7 of 13 from the field, hitting five threes and putting together one of his best performances in the last month.
Wisconsin needed everything from its two star guards, and they got 48 points on just 26 shots in a spectacular day from the duo.
