The final two minutes of No. 23 Wisconsin’s battle with No. 5 Illinois was one of the wildest scoring outbursts you will ever see on a basketball court. The first 38 were unfortunately reminiscent of the past two months for Wisconsin basketball.
The Badgers trailed the entire afternoon, as they started down 13-2 through the first seven minutes. On his senior day, D’Mitrik Trice turned into Reggie Miller for two glorious minutes as the Badger point guard tried to will Wisconsin back. It was a double digit deficit for much of the second half until Trice scored 19 points in just over two minutes to bring Wisconsin back into it. He finished with 29 points to lead all scorers.
Ultimately, Trice’s heroics were not enough as an Illinois team without leading scorer Ayo Dosunmu went 10-10 from the free throw line to close the door.
Cold shooting, a lack of intensity until the final few minutes, and an inability to string together second half stops ultimately doomed the Badgers. Let’s get into five takeaways from Wisconsin’s third loss in four games: