Polzin Likes, Dislikes. Wisconsin Basketball At Nebraska

This is the kind of loss that’s going to test the resiliency of the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team.

There’s no shame in losing at Pinnacle Bank Arena. But like this?

3 things that came out of No. 6 Wisconsin men’s basketball’s upset loss to Nebraska

The Badgers played their worst half of the season before going into uninspired overtime. The result, an 80-72 loss to Nebraska on Thursday night, dropped Wisconsin to second place in the Big Ten standings and headed toward a huge matchup with Purdue on Sunday.

Here are some of my thoughts on the game:

which i didn’t like

The Badgers blew a huge lead in Lincoln a year ago, so they shouldn’t have gotten too comfortable despite taking a 16-point lead at halftime Thursday.

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But there was not much momentum in the second half on both ends of the court.

Let’s start on offense, where Wisconsin got 3-point happy. The Badgers finished with 31 attempts from beyond the arc, which is too many for a team that should have played through the post more often.

Steven Krall finished with only two shot attempts, while Tyler Wahl had five.

AJ Storr finished with a game-high 28 points, but his shot selection was shaky at times. As good as he was in the first half, I thought Storr forced too many shots the rest of the way.

The Badgers were almost as bad on the defensive end, where Nebraska scored an average of 1.32 points per possession in the final 25 minutes.

CJ Wilcher (22 points) deserves credit for knocking down some tough shots that came off the screen.

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But Wisconsin didn’t look connected on defense after halftime and was giving up a lot of ground on drives.

• Turnovers have been an issue for this team at times, and it was a big problem against the Huskers.

Wisconsin finished with 16 of them, including some extremely ugly ones that were the result of the Badgers losing their composure. Storr had five turnovers, while Max Kleismit had four.

what i liked

I really liked Wisconsin’s first half, when it followed the blueprint for winning on the road.

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The Badgers did a great job of getting the crowd out almost from the start and two things stood out: Storr, obviously. He scored the first 10 points for Wisconsin and had 18 points at the half. Hitting 3-pointers on the Badgers’ second and third possessions of the game was a great tone-setter by Storr.

Additionally, the Badgers did a great job of limiting the Cornhuskers’ looks from 3-point range and forcing them to take contested 2-point shots. Sure, Nebraska had some looks outside the rim, but they weren’t easy shots as the Badgers were doing a great job of walloping without fouling.

• The bookend of that brilliant first half was a strong finish heading into halftime.

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It looked as if things were starting to slip away for the Badgers, and Nebraska’s deficit was cut to 31–22 on a 3-pointer by Wilcher.

Wisconsin turned it up a notch in the final 3 minutes, and Chucky Hepburn was a big reason why.

Hepburn scored nine points in the final 2:04, including seven in a span of 29 seconds. That burst included two steals that Hepburn converted into layups on the other end, including a steal that resulted in a three-point play.

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Just like that, Wisconsin’s lead was 43-27 at the break.

Easy win, right? Not in that building.