The Badgers got their first win of the season in an unofficial capacity on Wednesday.
The Wisconsin Badgers took care of business on Wednesday, beating the UW-River Falls Falcons 78-62 in an exhibition game in a game where they overcame some adversity to pull off the victory.
It wasn’t the prettiest game for Wisconsin, who had lapses defensively and scoring droughts on multiple occasions offensively, but the Badgers managed to pull away with a comfortable lead in the second half after the Falcons cut the deficit to just three points.
Here’s our recap of Wisconsin’s 78-62 win over UW-River Falls on Wednesday.
1st Half
Starting Five: John Blackwell, Max Klesmit, John Tonje, Nolan Winter, and Steven Crowl
Missouri transfer John Tonje scored the first points for the Badgers, hitting a sweet wing three, but from there, Wisconsin. turned quite sluggish on offense.
They had three missed layups early and only two more points in the first five minutes, leading to a 5-4 lead at the first media timeout. That soon changed with an early substitution of Markus Illver and Kamari McGee. Illver went on to score 8 of the next 10 points for the Badgers, and McGee got an assist on every single one of those four baskets.
The spark from Illver helped the Badgers jump out to an early 12-point lead, but the Falcons would not stay quiet. They continued to attack the Badgers inside, driving to the basket and getting their shots at the rim. The Falcons got 20 of their 29 first-half points in the paint with a two-point shooting percentage of 52 percent.
Considering the fact that the tallest player on UW-River Falls was 6’8, that was an issue for the Badgers defensively entering halftime. Defensively, the Badgers looked slow and out of it. The intensity that we’re used to seeing from the Wisconsin guards wasn’t there early on and it took a while before they really started to settle in.
On the back of Zac Johnson, the Falcons slowly crept back, cutting the lead to six with five minutes to go in the half. Johnson totaled 11 points in the half with all five buckets coming from inside.
The clear size advantage for the Badgers was seen more so near the end of the half, with Steven Crowl able to get multiple sealed cuts to the basket. Tonje and Crowl were the leading scorers for the Badgers as they went into the locker room for the half with seven points each.
Second Half
Wisconsin started off the second half slow, shooting a barrage of three-pointers, but to no avail, as they hit just two of their first eight shots of the half, while shooting only 1/7 from deep.
As a result, the Falcons remained firmly in the mix, even cutting the lead to 45-42 with 14:28 left in the game, thanks to the continued onslaught of Johnson, who hit two more threes, as well as a number of points off turnovers.
From there though, Wisconsin was able to really settle down, attacking the paint more, which in return freed up shots on the outside. As a result, the Badgers went on a commanding 24-5 run over a 7.5-minute stretch, ultimately leading 71-50 with 5:02 left in the game.
Steven Crowl was big in the period, scoring seven points with three baskets on the inside, while John Tonje changed his approach, attacking more after his shot wasn’t falling, leading to three trips to the free-throw line where he hit six all of his attempts.
Elsewhere, Carter Gilmore was a surprise sparkplug, hitting three different catch-and-shoot threes to lead the Badgers in points in the second half. All the factors allowed Wisconsin to pull away to a 20+ point lead, which led to the final score of 78-62.
John Tonje led the way for Wisconsin with 15 points, shooting 3/11 from the field and 1/7 from three, but hitting 8/9 of his free throws.
Steven Crowl wasn’t far behind, scoring 14 points on 6/11 shooting, while Gilmore’s nine off the three three-pointers made him the team’s third-leading scorer.
Personal Thoughts
With two seven-footers in the lineup, the scheme that head coach Greg Gard looked to draw up was very clear, as the Badgers focused on getting mismatches inside for Crowl and Nolan Winter by setting high screens and getting the switch.
The two seven-footers also attracted multiple help defenders inside, leading to easy passes to the guards outside and a high volume of threes.
The Badgers hit 7/18 of their threes in the first half, with six different players scoring from outside. Gard also went with a very deep rotation, with 12 different Badgers seeing the court in the first half.
It will be interesting to see how Gard will use the true point guard skill of Kamari McGee as well as the stretch-four capability of Markus Illver in his rotations as the Badgers get into the season.
Redshirt freshman Jack Janicki also made an immediate impact in the game, coming with intense man-to-man defense and knocking down a three from the right wing. The Badgers shooters came to life in the first half, but could not find their groove early in the second half, which proved quite costly within the first 10 minutes.
Nonetheless, Wisconsin settled in and was able to pull off a comfortable victory, albeit with much to work on heading into the season opener.
The Badgers will begin their year with a home bout against Holy Cross on Monday, with tip-off set for 7:00 p.m.