The Wisconsin Badgers have had some bad losses in 5-vs-12 matchups in the NCAA tournament, but Thursday’s 83-82 loss to the High Point Panthers might be the worst. The Badgers, a 10.5-point favorite over the Big South regular season champions, held a 70-62 lead with five minutes left in the game but could not land a knockout punch and let the Panthers hang around.
Sure enough, when you play with fire, you’re going to get burned, and the Badgers got burned on a Chase Johnston layup with 11 seconds
left to give the Panthers a lead they would not relinquish.
Last season, the Badgers held a height advantage against BYU in the round of 32, only to get outrebounded 41-31 and give up 13 offensive rebounds. It was the same story against High Point this time. The Panthers, whose three starting forwards stand 6-foot-6 to 6-foot-8, had a 40-37 rebounding advantage, including a 13-6 edge on the offensive boards.
Thursday’s loss extends Wisconsin’s Sweet 16 drought to nine straight seasons under Greg Gard. In addition, Gard’s teams are now 0-3 as a five-seed in the NCAA tournament. I still believe Gard is the right man to lead Wisconsin’s men’s basketball program, but the lack of postseason results under his tenure is alarming.
Here are three standouts from the Wisconsin-High Point game.
Rob Martin
High Point was led by its speedster point guard, Rob Martin. The senior from St. Louis had a double-double in the Panthers’ upset win with 23 points and 10 assists. In addition, Martin connected on 4-of-10 three-point attempts on the day. The Badgers tried different defenders, but Martin was still able to get to the rim or make a tough three-point shot.
Speaking of tough three-point shots…
Chase Johnston
You had a feeling Johnston was about to become a March Madness legend with this incredible shot here.
Coming off the bench, Johnston scored 14 points on 4-of-6 three-point attempts in the game, using an incredibly quick release from long distance. Some of the shots were incredibly well defended by the Badgers, but it was better offense by Johnston. His layup with 11 seconds left was his first successful two-point basketball of this season. Yes, you read that correctly.
Nick Boyd
It stinks that this ended up being his last game, but Boyd did everything he could to keep the Badgers’ season alive. The lefty point guard finished with a Wisconsin team high of 27 points on 10-of-20 shots from the floor.
Boyd will leave Madison as the first Badgers’ player to average over 20 PPG this season since Michael Finley in 1995. His 726 points are the second-most all-time in a single season by a Wisconsin Badger.
After the game, Boyd posted a farewell message on his Instagram account, calling this season “a fun ride.” :
