Madison, Wis. — No. 25 Wisconsin showed why its one of the top teams in the Big Ten and the nation, defeating the University of North Dakota men's basketball team, 85-53, at the Kohl Center on Tuesday. The Badgers (2-0) shot better than 59 percent in both halves to knock off the Sioux in the first meeting between the schools in over 40 seasons.
Freshman
Troy Huff (Milwaukee, Wis.) led the Sioux in scoring with 21 points in his return to his home state. Junior
Patrick Mitchell (Des Moines, Iowa) added 11 points for UND, who was playing its first ranked opponent since beginning its transition to Division I.
The Badgers', who had five players reach double figures, hot shooting began early as the home team made 65.2 percent from the floor in the opening half to build a 41-21 advantage at the break. The Sioux, meanwhile, shot only 36.8 percent as they could never find a rhythm against the Badgers' man-to-man defense in the opening 20 minutes.
“I thought (UW) dominated within the paint,” UND head coach
Brian Jones said. “With us and our lack of size, I thought they did a tremendous job of getting the ball in the paint regardless of the position and were real efficient on the offensive end. They got to the foul line and got second shots. That is what good basketball teams do.”
UND did hold Wisconsin scoreless for the opening three minutes of the contest, but the Sioux managed only a layup by freshman
Jamal Webb (Buffalo, N.Y.) during that stretch. Webb scored UND's first four points and finished with seven in the contest. His classmate and fellow point guard
Aaron Anderson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) also had seven points off the bench.
The Badgers eventually got their offense rolling after a 3-pointer by Jon Leuer broke that drought and the home team went on a 15-3 run to create a nice cushion. Senior Keaton Nankivil led UW with 12 first-half points as he went 6-for-7 from the floor.
Leuer, an All-Big Ten preseason pick, led the Wisconsin double-figure scoring quintet with 22 points and also had seven of his team's 20 assists.
Mitchell's second trey of the first half made it a 17-11 deficit at the 11:09 mark, but Wisconsin would answer with a 9-0 run to take its first double-digit lead of the game. Nankivil finished with 17 points as UW continued its hot shooting after the break, connecting on 59.3 percent of its attempts.
UND's deficit would never get back to single digits as the Badgers opened the second half on a 16-2 run to take command of the contest.
Wisconsin held the advantage on the glass at 31-20, but the Sioux did manage to grab 10 offensive rebounds, edging the Badgers by one in that category. Mitchell led all players with seven boards. Huff scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half and all three of his rebounds came on the offensive end.
“I was excited to see how our young guys responded to the size of Wisconsin and the speed of the game,” Jones added. “We never backed down and played all 40 minutes.”
The Sioux will return to action at home on Friday night against Sacramento State of the Big Sky Conference. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
– Go Sioux –
