The Badgers face the Ramblers at the Kohl Center
After a last-minute cancelation of Wisconsin basketball’s only game this week, a home contest against Northern Iowa, the Badgers scrambled to find an opponent.
Wisconsin found another talented Missouri Valley Conference foe in Loyola-Chicago, and the Ramblers will face the Badgers tomorrow evening at the Kohl Center with tip scheduled for 6 PM CT.
Loyola-Chicago comes in at 3-0, although this will be their first true test of the year.
If you follow college basketball, you will remember the name Loyola-Chicago from their miracle 2018 Final Four run that was filled with game winners and clutch moments. Head coach Porter Moser, the man that led them there, is still on the sidelines for the Ramblers in his ninth season with the school.
Speaking of holdovers from the 2018 Sister Jean-led miracle, senior big Cameron Krutwig has come a long way since his true freshman season saw his team end up in the Final Four. The 6-foot-9 bruiser was selected as a preseason-all MVC choice, and has lived up to that billing through three games. The 2019-20 season saw Krutwig lead the Ramblers to 21 wins while putting up over 15 points a game to go along with 8 rebounds and 4 assists. He’s an agile big for his size who has great hands on the interior and on the defensive end.
Krutwig is far and away the most talented post scorer Wisconsin has seen this year, and it will be an excellent battle when the Badgers’ all-time blocks leader Nate Reuvers goes to work with him in the paint.
Fellow senior Lucas Williamson, another player who played a part in the Final Four run, is off to an efficient start. Although the sample size is small, the combo guard is shooting over 60% from three and over 56% from the field as a whole. He has scored in double figures in two of the three Rambler wins so far.
Senior lefty Tate Hall also provides a shooting spark for Moser on the offensive end, and shot over 45% from three a year ago.
Behind Krutwig, the key word with this team is depth. The Ramblers have a bunch of guys who can contribute, and are still in the process of figuring out who plays what minutes. This version of Loyola-Chicago is as deep as they have been since 2018, and if it weren’t for a stacked Northern Iowa team that has failed to live up to expectations early, they would have been picked to win the MVC running away.
Offense, however, is not where the Ramblers beat you. Under Porter Moser, this team has been near the top of every defensive metric you can measure. It was defense that got them to the Final Four, and it is defense that has kept them at the top of the Missouri Valley Conference. This year, the Ramblers are No. 10 in the nation in scoring defense at just 55 points allowed per game, although the sample size is small. Last year, the lead the MVC in scoring defense allowing just over 61 points per contest.
These are two teams that mirror each other in a lot of ways, with a team-first, “we over me,” approach on offense and man-to-man defense that can stifle opponents. Expect a low scoring game and keep an eye on Reuvers and Potter handling Krutwig on the interior.
