The Wisconsin Badgers (3-1) came back from down 16 to beat the Texas A&M Aggies (4-1) by a final of 69-58 inside the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada in the first round of the (relocated) Maui Invitational.
Weekday afternoon college basketball is the single most underrated piece of the human experience.
Wisconsin looked awesome today. Daytime hoops are the best. Unless the Badgers lose tomorrow. In which case these kids really need to focus on their education, not on athletics.
Texas A&M couldn’t miss in the first 10 minutes of the game and UW struggled. And just when you thought you got Wisconsin all figured out when they went down 26-10 with 11:56 left in the first half, Badgers go on a 41-12 run to take a 61-45 lead with 8:43 left. Love this team.
This young team grew up a bit today. Big win against a quality opponent. This is one of those impressive wins you can hang your hat on throughout the year.
Johnny Davis was outstanding on both ends of the floor tonight and finished with a career high 21-points on 8-of-18 from the field and also grabbed nine rebounds.
Brad Davison finished with 19 points, but was just 5-of-16 from the field. However, he did hit a few big buckets when the Badgers went down double-digits in the first half to keep some life in the Badgers. Davison also grabbed seven rebounds to go along with three assists.
Steven Crowl finished with 10 points on 4-of-9 from the field, including 2-of-3 from 3-point range, grabbed four rebounds (would like to see that number higher) and two assists.
Tyler Wahl didn’t light up the scoreboard (6 points on 3-of-8 shooting) but his defense was phenomenal today! Wahl had four rebounds, but did all the stuff that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet extremely well.
Wisconsin collectively had a heck of a defensive effort on Texas A&M’s Henry Coleman. Coleman scored just six points on 3-of-3 from the field and he fouled out in just 19 minutes.
UW as a team shot 23-of-58 (39.7%) from the field, 8-of-26 (30.8%) from 3-point range and 15-of-17 (88.2%) from the free throw line. UW committed 11 turnovers, most of which came in the first half, however three of them came in the final two minutes when Texas A&M had their press on.
Heck of a game by the Badgers. There’s still a lot to take away and learn from in the win.
Johnny Davis postgame: “I don’t think we could have matched up with that team athletically, but once we stopped giving them transition opportunities, that’s when we started to play our game.”
Johnny Davis when talking about his twin brother’s (Jordan Davis) performance today: “I thought he contributed a lot. He got in and did what he needed to do.”
Head coach Greg Gard didn’t have a timetable on Jahcobi Neath’s return to the rotation.
Gard postgame said: “We just collected ourselves and got back to doing the things we needed to do to have success. They (Texas A&M) had their barrage early, mostly through a scattered floor. We figured that out fortunately fast enough to get back to what we needed to do.”
Up Next:
The Badgers will play the winner of the No. 12 Houston (3-0) vs Butler (3-1) game which tips off momentarily.
Tipoff for tomorrow’s Wisconsin/Houston or Butler game will be at 4:00 PM (Central Time) and will be nationally televised on ESPN or ESPN2.
Nick Obot 