Wisconsin bigs stretch the floor, hand Michigan its first loss

Share

Tweet

Print

Email

After Wisconsin handed the No. 2 Michigan basketball team its first loss of the season, coach Dusty May candidly credited the Badgers for exposing several of the Wolverines’ weaknesses at once.

“A certain type,” May said when asked if 3-point defense was one of those weaknesses. “Yes, absolutely.”

Wisconsin’s 15 made threes, converting at a 45.5% rate, stood out on the box score. That mark tied a season high for the Badgers, who take more than half their shots from range but shot well above their 33.5% average Saturday. 

Over the first 14 games of the season, Michigan opponents shot 24.5% on catch-and-shoot threes, making just 4.4 per game. On Saturday, Wisconsin made 14-of-26 catch-and-shoot threes.

Where Wisconsin really found Michigan off guard was with its two starting big men — forwards Aleksas Bieliauskas and Nolan Winter — accounting for eight of those 15 threes. 

“It’s our defense, and it’s a combination of our plan and our execution,” May said. “But once again, they played well. I thought, you know, their ability to get wherever they wanted to, off the bounce, and some matchups that we usually don’t have that happen against, it caused us to change our rotations. It caused us to change our coverages.”

Bieliauskas was 8-for-27 on the season from deep before this game and averaged just 4.1 points per game. He had never attempted five 3-pointers in a game before going 5-of-10 against the Wolverines.

Initially, May’s game plan was content with giving Bieliauskas space beyond the arc, rather than the several prolific guards that make up the Badgers’ backcourt. 

At first, the calculated risk paid off. Bieliauskas missed on Wisconsin’s first possession and missed twice more before hitting one to bring the Badgers within four with four minutes to go in the half — foreshadowing how his shooting would come back to hurt the Wolverines.

“Just shooters finding their rhythm,” graduate guard Nimari Burnett said. “Once they found any daylight, they were shooting the ball at elite level. And it was everybody on the floor. They could shoot one through five. And you know, we definitely scouted and gameplanned for that. And it was just their day.”