UW men's basketball: The duel isn't just Curry vs. Flowers
DETROIT -- Despite the hype, it's not Stephen Curry vs. Michael Flowers.
Much of the focus heading into Friday night's NCAA tournament Midwest Regional Sweet 16 game between the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team and Davidson has been on the Wildcats' offensive star and the Badgers' defensive wizard.
For good reason. Curry, a 6-3 sophomore guard, dropped 70 points during 10th-seeded Davidson's impressive wins over seventh-seeded Gonzaga and second-seeded Georgetown in Raleigh last weekend.
Flowers, a 6-2 senior guard, led the third-seeded Badgers' defensive effort during their impressive wins over 14th-seeded Cal State Fullerton and 11th-seeded Kansas State.
The Badgers (31-4) held Cal State Fullerton, which averaged 82.8 points a game, to a season-low 56 and held Kansas State, which averaged 78 points a game, to a season-low 55.
But while Flowers is the head of the Badgers' defensive monster, he gets tremendous help in his task of trying to slow down their opponent's best perimeter player every game.
It's the same with Curry and the Wildcats (28-6), who work as hard on offense as the Badgers work on defense. Nobody understands that better than Davidson coach Bob McKillop.
"That's what makes Wisconsin so good: It's not a one-man operation. We're not a one-man offensive operation with Steph Curry. Without the other pieces, Steph Curry may not be as efficient. So I think Wisconsin presents that same challenge for us," he said.
Davidson has seen every kind and variation of defense this season as its opponents scheme to slow down Curry. It's doubtful, however, that Curry has been chased as effectively as he will be by Flowers Friday night.
The chase is a major part of the Badgers' defense and every player is required to do it when he is on the floor. "We call it playing tag. Stay on the same route he takes," said UW assistant coach Greg Gard. "It's amazing when we start deviating from those routes and we don't chase, we might take a shortcut over the top or something like that happens, something bad usually happens."
Flowers and teammate Joe Krabbenhoft are expert chasers, as were Clayton Hanson, Boo Wade and Freddie Owens before him. What they all have in common is, or was, the ability to wear down an opponent.
A great example of that was Flowers' defense against Michigan State's Drew Neitzel, who went off for 26 points against Wisconsin during the Big Ten tournament but scored just two of them in the final nine minutes of the game the Badgers won 65-63.
"He makes it look easy," sophomore point guard Trevon Hughes said of Flowers. "I know it's not that easy. I have to give credit where credit is due. He's got the footwork to fly by screeners and avoid them."
"It's footwork and his willingness to get through the screens, too," Hughes added. "He won't let anything slow him up. He takes pride in his defense. He doesn't like letting anybody get open looks."
But Flowers can't do it without his teammates helping him when he gets behind in the chase due to screeners or other factors. "I'm able to recover because there's either pressure on the ball or, you know, one of my 'bigs' has stepped out and now slowed down the person I'm chasing," Flowers said. "So it's a little bit of the individual and team help."
That team help is where the Badgers have made their greatest improvement this season. The team that allowed Duke to average 1.1 points per possession in an 82-58 loss at Cameron Indoor Arena in late November allowed Big Ten Conference opponents to average just .091 points per possession this season -- Wisconsin's best mark in the 17 seasons that statistic has been tracked.
That's a major reason why the Badgers won the Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles and are in the NCAA's Sweet 16.
"It's timing and cohesiveness and being unselfish. People talk about being unselfish on the offensive end; you need to be an unselfish defensive team, too, and know you're going to have all four of your teammates' backs on the floor and you can trust them enough to know they have your back," said Gard.
"So if you make a mistake or something goes awry, you know they can cover up for one another. That's what this group has done as well as any; to cover up blemishes and miscues here and there."
Last but not least is the competitive edge a defender like Flowers has that plays an important role. He mentioned that his mom taught him to understand that players he defends will score on him.
And they have as recently as Neitzel in the Big Ten tournament and Cal State Fullerton's Josh Akognon, who went off for 31 points against Wisconsin in a first-round NCAA tournament game.
What mattered to Flowers was how hard they had to work at getting those points. It will be no different Friday night when he tries to slow down Curry, who is the hottest scorer in the country right now.
"If he's hitting off-balance shots, one-handed floaters through the lane against, you know, four people, then there's nothing much I can do about that. The ball is going to go in if the ball goes in," Flowers explained "But I don't want to give him anything easy, and I definitely don't want to be the one to let my teammates down.
"They're going to pick me up if I get bumped off a screens and what-not, and I'll do the same for them. So just make him work for his points and at the end of the game, I want him to be breathless and remember who and what team he played against and how hard he worked.
"Hopefully," Flowers concluded, "I'll be able to do that."
File photo
Wisconsin's Michael Flowers, left, steals the ball from Michigan's DeShawn Sims during the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament on March 14 in Indianapolis. Flowers will be covering the top scorer, Davidson's Stephen Curry, in the NCAA tournament in Friday's game.
