Illinois (10-5, 2-2 Big Ten) is coming off an impressive home win against Purdue, which they held the Boilermakers to a season low 37 points. Wisconsin (9-5, 2-1) likewise is coming off an impressive performance by beating No. 5 Ohio State on the road as Badgers will welcome in a talented Illinois team to Madison, which boasts the top scoring defense (58.5 points per game) over conference play.
In this Badgers Wire feature, we will look at the three keys or questions for Wisconsin as they prepare to play Illinois on Wednesday night.
LAYUP: WISCONSIN’S ABILITY TO CASH ILLINOIS MISTAKES INTO POINTS
One of the reasons why Wisconsin was able to come away with an upset against Ohio State on the road was the Badgers were able to force Ohio State into 14 turnovers and turned their miscues into 16 points.
Wisconsin through three Big Ten games has done well of forcing their opponents into making a mistake with the basketball as they’re forcing an average of 12.3 turnovers a game.
That’s not good news for Illinois considering in two of their three Big Ten games they have committed double-digit turnovers and on the season are averaging 14.5 turnovers a game.
Wisconsin has done well of turning opponents miscues into points as they’re averaging 14.6 points off of their opponents turnovers during Big Ten play. If Wisconsin’s defense once again is active and is able to force the Illini into a high amount of turnovers the Badgers will give themselves a chance of generating an offensive rhythm throughout the game.
Illinois has three different players averaging at least two turnovers a contest as Ayo Dosunmu leads the way with 40. Dosunmu has 10 total turnovers over Illinois first four Big Ten games and if Kobe King is able to stay active on the defensive end and make sure Dosunmu can’t get comfortable should help disrupt his game on the offensive end as Dosunmu is the Illini leading scorer at 15.1 points per game