Overall: C
The win over Northwestern may not move the needle a ton but what the win did give Wisconsin was its seventh straight win, Greg Gard’s 100th win as Wisconsin’s head coach, and a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament next week.
Although Wisconsin didn’t shoot the basketball effectively for the entire game the Badgers didn’t hurt themselves by turning the basketball over as they finished the game with eight turnovers, which Northwestern only turned into five points.
With Northwestern going into halftime with some momentum as they cut the Badgers first-half lead to as little as four points with less than a minute to go. Made it important that Wisconsin came out with the first run to regain some momentum.
Trevor Andreson was able to score two of his four points right before halftime to help stop a Northwestern run as the Wildcats ended the first half by shooting 5-for-6 from the field. To begin the second half the Badgers missed their first two field goals of the half before making their next four in order to get the lead back to double-digits.
After that point, Wisconsin never surrendered their double-digit lead as the Badgers were able to take care of business against the Wildcats.
One area where Wisconsin was going to need to take advantage against Northwestern was on the glass as they outrebounded the Wildcats 41-to-36 on the glass. The Badgers were able to finish with eight offensive rebounds and finished with eight second chance points.
Game MVP: Brevin Pritzl
Pritzl was able to have a solid all-around game in his final game played inside the Kohl Center. After starting against Minnesota on Sunday he once again was a starter against Northwestern and was able to knock down his first two 3-point attempts. Pritzl’s third made three in the second half also gave Wisconsin a double-digit lead for good over the final 20 minutes. In addition, Pritzl added six rebounds, second-most on the team as five came on the defensive glass and had one block and zero turnovers.