While No. 7 Purdue finds itself just below the Big Ten Conference’s top spot, 16th-ranked Wisconsin is seeking an opportunity to challenge for the league title.
The two collide on Saturday when the Badgers visit the Boilermakers in West Lafayette, Ind., for a matchup that could help determine seeding for next month’s conference tournament as well as the NCAA Tournament.
The Boilermakers (19-6, 11-3 Big Ten) fell out of first place Tuesday night with a 75-73 loss at new leader Michigan, while Wisconsin (19-5, 9-4) owns sole possession of fourth after its 74-63 victory at Iowa on Feb. 8.
Badgers forward John Blackwell had a simple explanation for why the Badgers held the high-scoring Hawkeyes 22 points under their per-game average.
“We just shut their water off,” he said.
While Wisconsin turned the spigots off on one end, it poured John Tonje at the Iowa defense on the other end. Tonje scored seven straight points to start a game-ending 16-4 run and finished with a game-high 22 points, going 9 of 10 at the line.
A graduate student who played just eight games last season at Missouri before suffering a season-ending injury, Tonje is enjoying the best season of his career, averaging 18.6 points per game and converting 46.8 percent of his shots from the field.
“He picked his spots,” Badgers coach Greg Gard said of Tonje’s late outburst. “He was able to attack when the floor was a little more spread and we had a little more balance. We had gotten the defense distorted.”
Blackwell (15.3 ppg), Max Klesmit (10.1) and Nolan Winter (10.0) also average double figures for Wisconsin, which is averaging 81 ppg, the most in Gard’s 10-year tenure. It also leads Division I in foul shooting at 84.1 percent.
Given that number, the Boilermakers would be well advised to play a cleaner brand of defense than they did Tuesday night. Purdue outscored Michigan by 10 points from the field but made just eight trips to the foul line, while it committed 23 fouls and gave the Wolverines 26 attempts at the stripe, getting outscored by 12 points there.
“We needed to get to the free-throw line and we didn’t,” Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said. “It was a very physical game, and we tried to manage it to the best of our ability.”
Trey Kaufman-Renn, who leads the team in scoring at 19 ppg on 60.2 percent shooting, made 11 of 19 shots at Michigan and finished with 22 points. But Painter said that he would have liked to see Kaufman-Renn get to the foul line at some point in that game.
Guard Braden Smith pumped in 24 points, upping his average to 16.4, and is also dishing out 8.7 assists per game. Fletcher Loyer chips in 13.8 ppg and sinks 45.1 percent from the 3-point line. Those three players combined for 61 points at Michigan but the bench didn’t score a point, getting outscored 21-0.
Painter wasn’t that concerned about the lack of scoring off the bench.
“In a game like that, you want your top scorers taking most of the shots and they were efficient,” he said.
This is the only regular-season meeting of the Badgers and Boilermakers.
–Field Level Media
