Let's move away from the ledge here......
First off, Wisconsin is 1-3 in the league on the road. Certainly not world-beaters away from the Kohl Center and with the exception of Northwestern, who simply had one of those crazy shooting nights, we've battled everyone tough at home.
Second of all, in conference games, we are shooting a better % than Wisconsin is and our schedule has been much tougher than theirs has been. Wisconsin is also a terrible offensive rebounding team, which is one of our strengths.
Wisconsin does 4 things very well:
1. Protects the ball.
2. Makes free throws.
3. Makes 3 pointers.
4. Dictates tempo.
Of those 4 strengths however, 3 of them play into our strengths. First, we lead the league in steals, so if we can get them to turn it over more than their average, that will bode well for us. Second, we don't foul and put teams at the line, so if we can keep that up, we will negate that advantage. Third, we can dictate tempo as well, especially at home. What we lack at times, though, is consistently closing out on shooters and limiting opposition 3 pointers. However, the interesting thing to note is that we are smack in the middle in 3pt field goal % defense. I think what we tend to remember are the 2 games (NW and Michigan) where the 3's came raining down on us rather than the other games that we did respectable in.
So if we can manage to close out on their shooters, get some offensive rebound put-backs, and take advantage of our quickness on defense to force some steals, we've got a great chance of pulling this one out. The other thing that will be key is the crowd. We've got to get Carver filled and loud to make it tough on them.
