The Badgers struggled at the charity stripe in an uncharacteristic way on Saturday.
The Wisconsin Badgers suffered a tough 91-89 loss to the BYU Cougars on Saturday, ending their season early during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
It was a tough game where the Badgers showed a ton of heart in fighting back, but ultimately couldn’t complete the comeback in a heartbreaking ending against the Cougars.
Looking at the game, there were a lot of issues for the Badgers. They couldn’t string along enough consecutive stops, they didn’t out-shoot BYU, and they fell into too big a hole too early. But, perhaps the biggest blow was the difference in free-throw shooting.
Wisconsin came into the game shooting an NCAA-best 82.7 percent from the line. For reference, Villanova had the best free throw shooting season ever at 83.0 percent in 2021-22.
But, troubles started early for the Badgers, as Wisconsin missed four free throws in the first half, shooting 7/11 in the period. John Tonje uncharacteristically missed two free throws early, while John Blackwell and Carter Gilmore each had misses as well.
They ended up shooting 79.3 percent in the game, which was slightly below their season average, but BYU shot a stellar 15/16 (93.8 percent) from the line, far above their average of 70.4 percent.
Wisconsin had a higher volume of free throws (29) and saw good success in the second half, but the percentage disparity compared to expectations was a big deal when considering how each team shot at the charity stripe entering Saturday.
In games like Saturday’s, it’ll be factors like free throws that keep Wisconsin up at night as they missed out on their goal of a Sweet Sixteen for an eighth straight season.