The ugly game.
The unmentionable game.
The horror show game.
Whatever you want to call it, it was unwatchable and hard to talk about. It was a game every Wisconsin fan and player and coach wanted to forget… but it was there, and it was real.
Penn State 36, Wisconsin 33.
The ugliest college basketball game many of us ever watched — college basketball’s equivalent of the 2008 Sun Bowl game in which Oregon State defeated Pittsburgh, 3-0 — scarred our retinas and made us want to soak in a hot tub for an hour to get rid of the stench.
Wisconsin had to carry the memory of that game — in which the Badgers went 2 of 21 on 3-pointers — into the 2011 NCAA Tournament. UW also knew as it entered the 2011 NCAA Tournament that it had failed to make the Sweet 16 its previous two trips, in 2009 and 2010. There was a job to do, and the Badgers had to reset their minds if they wanted to get it done.
Very clearly, they put that nightmarish shooting performance behind them. They turned the page from Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament. That was more than enough for them in a convincing 72-58 win over the Belmont Bruins in Tucson.
Belmont was then — and still is — a sexy underdog pick at the NCAA Tournament. The Bruins run great offensive sets and have a Princeton-like vibe about them. Yet, the Bruins have never been able to pull off their big March upset. Wisconsin was able to turn them back nine years ago.
The foremost story from this win was Wisconsin’s 12-of-22 shooting line on threes. The Badgers went from the Penn State nightmare to a dream game against Belmont. The kicker: Belmont coach Rick Byrd didn’t even think his team flunked on defense.
“I thought we defended in this game about as good as we can defend,” Byrd said. “And I’d like to see how many of those were in the last six seconds of the shot clock and how many were contested.”
Jordan Taylor hit 5 of 9 threes, and five other Badgers hit at least one 3-point shot, to give UW 36 points from long distance. Taylor finished with 21 points while Jon Leuer scored 22. Wisconsin finished 20 of 40, a clean 50 percent, from the field, and hit 20 of 25 free throws in a superb offensive performance. Few teams ever did beat Bo Ryan when his players were shooting at a high percentage. Belmont found this out the hard way in the Big Dance against the Badgers.