Schultz: Balanced Badgers proving tough to beat
OMAHA, Neb. -- Brian Butch spent a moment imagining the task Kansas State coach Frank Martin had trying to prepare, in one day, his freshman-laden team to play the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team in an NCAA tournament game.
"I get a lot of attention drawn towards me and that opens up someone like Trevon," said Butch, referring to the Badgers' point guard, Trevon Hughes.
"Now Trevon is going to get a lot of attention and that opens up the next guy. So you try to take away things and you can't because you have too many guys to make plays," he concluded.
Butch shook his head in mock disbelief as he sat in front of his locker Saturday afternoon as he basked in the glory of the Badgers' 72-55 win over Kansas State that sent them to the Sweet 16.
"We just want to win," Butch concluded. "I've been saying it for awhile and I don't think it can be stressed enough. When you want to win you find ways to win. You can take away Marcus Landry and me today and you still have other guys who step up.
"That's why we are so tough."
The Badgers proved that during a second-round tournament game performance that was one of their best of the season and sent them to Detroit to play a Midwest Regional semifinal game Friday night against upstart Davidson (28-6), a No. 10 seed which has won 24 straight.
Fittingly, it also gave the Badgers 31 victories for the season, which broke the record set by last year's team that failed to get out of the second round partly because they were so dependent on leading scorers Alando Tucker and Kammron Taylor.
Butch, the leading scorer for the Badgers (31-4) this year, scored nine points and Landry, the team's second-leading scorer, had two points against Kansas State. But just as Butch claimed, they were overshadowed by sophomore point guard Trevon Hughes' career-high tying 25 points, Michael Flowers' 15 points and reserve center Greg Stiemsma's career-high 14 points and seven rebounds.
What must also be noted was the stellar performance of the Badgers' man-to-man defense that held the high-flying Wildcats to a season-low point total. Freshman Michael Beasley, a first-team All-American and probable No. 1 pick in this June's NBA draft, scored 23 points and had 13 rebounds. But the 6-10 forward was limited to just six points in the second half when the Badgers limited his touches.
Another star freshman, Bill Walker, had 18 points but was never allowed to get in the rhythm that makes him such a dominant scorer.
Landry proudly pointed out that the Badgers did nothing different defensively to slow down the Wildcats. It was just another great help-based man-to-man defensive performance by the team leading the nation in scoring defense.
As for defending Beasley, Landry said, "We treated him just like we treat any other player in the Big Ten. Like a D.J. White. We just fronted him and made it hard for him to get the ball. Make him take tough jump shots and tough shots."
They also took advantage of the Wildcats' lack of experience on the floor and among the coaches. The Wildcats are such an impatient bunch on offense that Ryan told the Badgers to pay particular attention to denying the ball to Beasley and Walker on the guards' first look in the half-court.
The ploy worked and first-year Wildcats coach Frank Martin never appeared to tell his players to make sure to touch the post, or get the ball to their stars on every possession.
"I think after they passed him up the first time, a shot was going up," said Landry. "They looked at him the first time and then it was kind of done. So I think the fact that we made it tough to find him worked."
Meantime, the Badgers' energy was so addicting and they reacted to it on defense the same way they do on offense. Junior swingman Joe Krabbenhoft was so fired up watching Hughes, Flowers and Stiemsma working so hard that nothing was going to get in his way while defending Beasley and Walker.
"My shot wasn't falling, so defensively I had to keep plugging away, keep forcing them to shoot tough shots and do whatever I can to keep my teammates happy because they obviously weren't happy when I wasn't getting them their assists," said Krabbenhoft. "I had to get some stops to prove I belonged out there."
That's the next part, or the X factor, of the Badgers' equation that is so difficult for opposing coaches to prepare their teams to overcome.
"It's the little plays," said Butch.
Little plays like how Hughes and Flowers kept flashing their high basketball IQs by exploiting the defensive liabilities of the Wildcats' guards, who looked at the Badgers' ball screens like they were projects for a physics lab.
When the Wildcats went under screens, Hughes and Flowers were wide open for 3-pointers. When they went over, they drove hard to the rim. When they ambushed the guards and the screeners, they passed to teammates like Stiemsma, who is perhaps the best story on a team full of good stories during this postseason.
"Greg contributed great. Greg got in there and really played his butt off. I'm really proud of Greg Stiemsma. That says a lot of Greg Stiemsma," said Landry, who grew close to Stiemsma when they both were declared academically ineligible for the spring semester two years ago. Landry was overcoming a learning disability at the time while Stiemsma was battling depression.
"All the things we went through my freshman year, his sophomore year, and for this being his last year and to come into a game like this and just dominate and really take over the game in the aspect he did, that was terrific," said Landry.
So the Badgers are in the Sweet 16 and Krabbenhoft said it feels like Cloud Nine.
"I'm ready to go," he said. "I wish spring break was this week because I don't how I'm going to concentrate in class. It's going to be tough because I'm just going to be thinking about who we're playing and getting to Detroit and being in the Sweet 16."
Davidson's players and coaches are going to be thinking all week about who they're playing, too. By now they are fully aware of the difficult task ahead of them.
Nati Harnik/Associated Press
Wisconsin guard Trevon Hughes (3) shoots over Kansas State's Dominique Sutton in a second round of a NCAA Midwest Regional basketball game in Omaha, Neb., Saturday.
