NFL
By: Melo Williams
The Wisconsin Badgers opened up the Big Ten tournament in a big way knocking off the Maryland Terrapins 87-56 advancing to the quarterfinals to face the Northwestern Wildcats.
Wisconsin came out hot firing deep from the three-point line and jumped out to an early huge lead and Maryland was never able to recover from the barrage of made three-pointers by the Badgers.
With Wisconsin’s hot shooting, the Badger’s 87 points scored is a program record for their highest single-game point total in Big Ten tournament history. Also, Wisconsin’s 31-point win is the third-largest margin of victory in Big Ten tournament history.
The Badgers had four players in double-digit scoring led by 4x Big Ten Freshman of the Week, John Blackwell who finished with 18 points, Steven Crowl 17 points, AJ Storr 16 points, and Chucky Hepburn with 10 points.
Wisconsin knocked down their first six three-pointers and continued shooting extremely well overall in the first half shooting 18-28 (64.3%) from the field and 10-13 (77%) from three-point range to go into halftime up 47-26.
Thanks to Steven Crowl’s 14 of his 17 points and John Blackwell’s hot shooting once he entered the game scoring 14 of his 18 points in the first half along with five rebounds the Badgers were in control of the game going into halftime.
“I thought it was a complete team effort on both sides of the court,” Badgers coach Greg Gard said. “I thought defensively, we set the tone early, and then you start knocking down some shots and get some offense from your defense. Just all the way up and down the lineup, we got great contributions. It’s such an unselfish group when you get 25 assists on 31 made field goals.”
“I think you’re starting to see more of what we were back in January, and I felt that the last week or so, that we were trending back in the right direction and really started to click. Today, that showed again.”
I asked Wisconsin’s men’s basketball head coach Greg Gard about the defense Chucky Hepburn and Max Klesmit’s defense against Maryland’s Jahmir Young.
As Coach Gard said it was a total team effort by Wisconsin. Wisconsin contributions from everyone that entered the game even if the box score doesn’t reflect it like for Tyler Wahl who did a magnificent job on defense, setting hard good screens, and great passes, and his overall leadership was key for Wisconsin.
Chucky Hepburn had himself a great day offensively besides his stout defense. Hepburn scored 10 points (4-4), 3 rebounds, and almost had a career day tying his career-high 8 assists, with 7 of those assists coming in the first half.
Sharpshooter Connor Essegian entered the game and wasted no time having a heat check knocking down his first attempted three-pointer, finishing the game with 9 points 3-5 from the field and 2-4 from three.
Next up for No. 5 Wisconsin is No. 4 Northwestern in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament with a start time around 1:30 PM.
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