One stat tells the story from Wednesday night’s Big Ten/ACC Challenge match-up between Virginia and Wisconsin. 52.2% shooting. Combined.
The Cavaliers (7-2) shot 23.4% from the floor, while the Badgers (9-0) connected on just 28.8%. Even with two defensive-minded, willing-to-grind teams, those are surprisingly low numbers. So with a boxing match type of game unfolding, the outcome hinged on who could take repeated body blows and still do enough to win. In the end, that proved to be Wisconsin as it made a lot of key plays at key times and pulled out a 48-38 victory.
“It was. We knew it was going to be a low-scoring game. It was just a battle of who could get stops and who could make shots,” UVa guard Malcolm Brogdon said. “Tonight they got stops and made shots. We got stops and didn’t make shots. It’s that simple.”
Virginia coach Tony Bennett said the game seemed like a flipped script from last year’s match-up. In that one, the Hoos prevailed 60-54.
“I thought we lost our composure a little bit. We had some opportunities to finish, but we didn’t,” Bennett said. “I think Wisconsin did to us, in a way, what we did to them last year. Last year we outlasted them a little bit. When it mattered, they were sounder, more poised, and made plays.”
UVa trailed 21-20 when London Perrantes hit the team’s only 3-pointer late in the first half, but Wisconsin closed the half with a 4-0 mini-burst. When the Badgers started the second half on a 5-0 spurt, the lead grew to 30-20.
During the stretch to open the second half, Virginia’s Joe Harris bricked a 3-pointer, Brogdon missed a clean lay-up, and Anthony Gill didn’t convert on a driving shot at the rim. That turned out to emblematic of the whole night for the Hoos. They posted the fourth-lowest field goal percentage in program history (23.4%), their lowet point total in Bennett’s tenure, and the second fewest points in the shot clock era (since 1986). The Cavaliers went without a field goal for 11:10 and went scoreless for 6:50 of that span.
Harris finished 1 of 10, while Brogdon went 1 of 7. Gill made 1 of 3 shots. Perrantes led the way with 8 points on 2-of-5 shooting, but did not have an assist. Mike Tobey added 7 points by making 3 of 7 shots.
“Wisconsin just always seemed to be in the right position defensively. It wasn’t like they overwhelmed us with ball pressure or swarming defense, but they did a nice job of always being in the right position and that forced you to take tough shots,” Harris said. “They were always challenging you when you got to the rim, but at the same time you can look back and there were a number of opportunities where guys were getting in to the lane and had shots they typically finish so I would say it was a combination of both.”
With the offense struggling, Virginia’s defense managed to keep them in the ring. Wisconsin made just 15 of 52 shots and 5 of 23 3-pointers (21.7%). Josh Gasser ended up as the only player in double figures for either team as he posted 11 points. The Badgers also got 9 points and 12 rebounds from Frank Kaminsky. Still, the visitors came up with 13 second-chance points (Virginia had just 4 in the category) on a night when missed shots were there to grab.
Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan was happy to get out of the JPJ with a win with such rough shooting numbers in the boxscore.
“When I first started competing with my sister – we used to play jacks. The first game I ever played was throwing a ball up in the air, letting it hit, grab those jacks, because she’s older than me and that’s what we played. I played it to win and I didn’t care how. So when you say are we glad that we won, we’re on the left side,” Ryan said. “It was so hard to get good looks and even when we did get looks they were hurried. It was two teams just beating people to positions, rotating, making it difficult to get easy baskets. There were not a lot of easy baskets in that game.”
