Rutgers men’s basketball fell to Wisconsin 96-87 on the road on Saturday. Despite the Scarlet Knights’ terrible start to the game and the betting lines predicting Rutgers to lose this game by around 14
points, the Knights were able to use a huge second-half performance to propel themselves back into the game. However, despite their efforts, they fell just short of victory.
Rutgers would hit the first basket of the game to take the first lead, but after both teams traded shots, Wisconsin would start to pull away largely thanks to a few made three pointers. After five minutes of play, the Badgers would hold a 13-7 lead over the Knights. Emmanuel Ogbole would get a nice dunk early in the first half, as Rutgers tried to find a way to attack the paint. Despite the Knights’ best efforts, the Badgers would push their lead to eight with 10 minutes left to go in the half. Over the next few minutes, Wisconsin’s three-point game would start to drown Rutgers in points as the Badgers would take a 15-point lead.
The Knights would be unable to close the gap over the last 10 minutes of the half, as the Badgers would go into the half up 51-29, off a 21-9 run to close the first half.
Rutgers would continue to struggle to defend Wisconsin’s three-point shot coming out of the locker room, as they could not put a significant dent in their deficit over the first five minutes of the second half. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Rutgers would go on a 21-9 scoring run late in the game to cut Wisconsin’s lead to 10. They would not stop there, shrinking Wisconsin’s lead to seven until they hit a two and drew a foul to go back up 10. This would put a stop to the Knights’ comeback, sparking the Badger offense again, and allowing them to seal the win.
Tariq Francis, who has been the offensive power for the Knights in recent games, struggled early on in this one before finishing the game with 13 total points.
Rutgers’ biggest struggle in the game was its ability to score off turnovers. Despite generating 9 positive turnovers, they only translated into four points for the Knights. In contrast, the Badgers generated 10 turnovers and scored 19 points off of them. They also need to play a much cleaner game, as they totaled 24 fouls, five more than Wisconsin. Those fouls translated into 26 total Badger points.
One silver lining from this game is that Harun Zrno was able to get into a groove with his three-point shooting. He hit 5 out of 9 shots from beyond the arc. If he can continue to hit his shots from deep, that would provide the Knights with a much-needed three-point shooter.
Rutgers men’s basketball will be back in action on Tuesday, January 20th, at 8:30 as they are set to head to Iowa City to take on No.20 Iowa. Live coverage for the game will be available on BTN.
