DETROIT -- Davidson brought down another Goliath in the NCAA men 's basketball tournament, though the University of Wisconsin didn 't look much like Goliath Friday night.

Heck, it didn 't even look much like Wisconsin.

Whether it was Davidson 's doing or UW 's fault, the third-seeded Badgers looked nothing like the relentlessly efficient team that had rolled to 12 straight victories, won 26 of its last 28 games and had people believing its season wouldn 't end until the Final Four.

Instead, UW got away from what it had been doing so well over the last three months and suffered a shocking 73-56 loss to 10th-seeded Davidson in a regional semifinal at Ford Field. The smooth-flowing swing offense, the impenetrable defense and the steely resolve -- all the things that gave the Badgers the Big Ten Conference title and a spot in the Sweet 16 -- were surprisingly absent against the Wildcats.

"I 'm shocked at how many points we scored, " Davidson coach Bob McKillop said. "And I 'm equally shocked that we were able to get them to deviate from the swing and all the variations of the swing. "

McKillop wasn 't the only one shocked at how UW 's season ended.

"It 's really hard, especially with the kind of momentum we were trying to build and the way we had been playing the last couple of weeks, " UW senior Greg Stiemsma said. "It 's hard (because) we 've put in this much work and we know we can play better and we know we can do certain things different, but now we 're out of chances. "

There is no shame in losing to Davidson, the little school that could, and guard Stephen Curry, whose tournament scoring binges have caused such a stir that they drew NBA superstar LeBron James to the house Friday. If you don 't believe it, just ask second-seeded Georgetown, which lost to Davidson in the second round.

But for a group of Badgers who have prided themselves on playing Wisconsin basketball every night, it was a painful way to bow out. It 's tough to see your Final Four aspirations die when you 're doing what you do best. It 's even tougher to see your season end because you didn 't play your game.

"You 've got to give them all kinds of credit for forcing us to do it, but we didn 't do some things that we 've been doing well the last couple of weeks, " Stiemsma said. "It 's not individually. Just as a whole team it didn 't seem like we had it tonight and they did, and they buried us. "

The Wildcats buried UW in the second half, but the seeds of defeat were sown in the first half. Although the teams were tied at halftime, the Badgers had foolishly engaged in a H-O-R-S-E contest with the hottest-shooting team in the country. It was the first sign that they were deviating from coach Bo Ryan 's carefully scripted plan.

How badly did UW veer from its style?

The ball seldom touched the post, a staple in Ryan 's offense. In the first half, 17 of UW 's 25 shots were from 3-point range. Meanwhile, the normally careful Badgers had more turnovers than assists.

Davidson 's 73 points were more than any team had scored on UW except Duke and Marquette. The Badgers didn 't get back on defense, giving up a whopping -- for them -- 18 fastbreak points. And UW, which seldom fouls, put Davidson in the bonus with 15 minutes to play in the second half.

Of course, there were reasons UW was virtually unrecognizable on this night.

Davidson 's quick-handed guards pressured the ball, preventing UW from passing it inside. An injury limited UW point guard Trevon Hughes to 12 minutes, which hurt UW 's transition defense and its ability to keep Davidson point guard Jason Richards out of the lane, where he did heavy damage. Mostly, though, UW got out of sorts because Davidson was better than advertised.

"We 'd like to say it was our fault, but that team got us into situations we didn 't want to be in, " UW junior Joe Krabbenhoft said. "You 've got to give credit to them for taking us out of what we do best. But I felt like we could have come in here and gotten a win, and I still do. I still feel like we could have played better and given them a better game and maybe the outcome would have been different, but that 's not the story right now. The story is that they outplayed us. "

Which is something that hasn 't happened to UW lately.