Rutgers men's basketball loses close battle with No. 13 Wisconsin
In a hard-fought battle at Jersey Mike’s Arena on Livingston campus, the Rutgers men’s basketball team fell to Wisconsin 66-61 yesterday. The Scarlet Knights (16-12, 10-8) have now lost three straight games after a four-game win streak against ranked teams.
Rutgers came out of the gates shooting poorly and fell behind early to the No. 13 Badgers (23-5, 14-4), who led 11-4 after 6 minutes of play. In the first half, Wisconsin would lead by as much as 11 points and take a 33-24 lead into the halftime break.
In the first half, the Knights shot 37.5 percent, missed all six of its three-pointers and missed four free-throws. The Badgers had much better percentages, including five made three-pointers on 44.83 percent shooting before halftime.
Rutgers stormed back into the game in the second half thanks to the efforts of senior guard Geo Baker, who scored 8 of the Knights’ first 10 points in the frame. A three-pointer from senior guard Ron Harper Jr. with 12 minutes remaining tied the game up for the first time.
After the brief tie, Wisconsin responded with an 8-2 run to take a 6-point lead into the final 9 minutes. Rutgers then answered with a 7-0 run of its own that culminated in a Baker jumper to take its first lead of the game with 7:28 left.
The lead would swing back and forth until a basket from Johnny Davis with 5:36 left would give the Badgers the lead permanently. After a series of missed free throws and empty offensive possessions from the Knights, Wisconsin would get the lead up to 5 points with 1:13 left in the game.
Rutgers had one last gasp when the team got the ball back down 64-61 with 23 seconds left. The potential game-tying shot was taken by Baker, who missed and the Badgers escaped with another close victory.
“I thought we really fought — I’m proud of these guys,” said head coach Steve Pikiell after the game. “Ball wasn’t going in in the first half ... but we fought back and gave ourselves a chance to win. And I want to thank the crowd, (they were) awesome from start to finish.”
Baker was the leading scorer with 19 points, including 16 second-half points. Harper finished behind Baker with 15 points while sophomore center Clifford Omoruyi had 9 points and a game-high 10 rebounds. Baker led the team with four assists.
Senior guard Caleb McConnell filled up the stat-sheet with 6 points, six rebounds, three blocks and two steals in 37 minutes. The Jacksonville, Florida, native hounded the midseason All-American Davis all night on the defensive end, treating the crowd to a matchup of the Big Ten’s best offensive and defensive talents.
“Whenever you got a guy who’s willing to compete and fight every possession and wants to go head to head with you, that’s always a good thing, and I always respect that,” McConnell said. “Shout out to (Davis). He’s a good player — he loves to compete, and I love guys that can compete.”
Two areas that hurt the Knights were their free throw shooting and three-point shooting. The program missed six free throws in the second half and finished 9-15 from the line while shooting 23.5 percent from deep. Despite this, Rutgers finished shooting 45.3 percent to Wisconsin’s 42.6 percent and won the rebounding battle 37-30.
Davis finished as the Badgers’ leading scorer with 19 points on 6-19 shooting. Three other players for Wisconsin reached double-figures, including Brad Davison and Chucky Hepburn, who finished a combined 6-12 from downtown. Tyler Wahl also finished in double digits and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. As a team, the Badgers shot 45 percent from three.
The Knights will look to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive as they travel to Indiana on Wednesday for the final road game of the regular season. The game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be broadcasted on the Big Ten Network and 88.7 WRSU-FM.
“This has been (this) way the past two years, and we’ve come through,” Harper said. “So I have no doubt with the leadership on this team, with our coaching staff, we’re going to come up with a great game plan to go out next Wednesday in Indiana, and we’re going to go out there, and we’re going to fight.”
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