After a historically impressive display of shooting in a victory over Nebraska earlier in the week, the next test for Wisconsin (12-7) comes in the form of a Friday evening affair in West Lafayette against Purdue (10-9).
Matt Painter’s Boilermakers are in the midst of a slump, having dropped four of their last five games and two straight, at No. 17 Maryland and at Mackey Arena against No. 21 Illinois on Tuesday. However, there have been some encouraging performances within that stretch: Purdue annihilated No. 8 Michigan State, 71-42, at home on Jan. 12 and gave No. 19 Michigan all it could handle in an 84-78 double-overtime heartbreaker in Ann Arbor three days before that.
Like essentially all of the teams in the Big Ten this season, this is a squad capable of both beating anyone in the conference, especially at home. Make no mistake, the Boilermakers have the personnel in their rotation to make easy work of Wisconsin if the Badgers go out and have one of the trademark abysmal road performances that we have seen from them plenty this year.
With that said, here are the three players on the other side who Badger fans should keep a close eye on throughout Tuesday’s contest.
Trevion Williams – Forward
Current stats: 11.3 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 1.4 apg, 56.8 FG%
Williams has been a revelation for the Boilermakers this season after making a minimal impact as a freshman last year. The 6-9, 270-pound big man out of Chicago has taken a major leap in Year Two in West Lafayette, leading Purdue in both points and rebounds per game despite averaging just 21.2 minutes.
Williams has emerged as one of the top post players in a conference loaded with talent at the position, especially on the glass: he’s pacing the Big Ten in total rebound percentage and is particularly tough to handle on the offensive boards, sitting just behind Rutgers’ Myles Johnson in offensive rebound percentage.
While he’s been solid all season, Williams has really come on strong during the second half, scoring double figures and/or racking up at least seven rebounds in eight of Purdue’s last ten games. He had arguably the top individual performance of Big Ten play to this point in the season on Jan. 9 at Michigan, putting up an absurd stat line of 26 points on 16-28 shooting to go along with a whopping 20 boards in the Boilermakers’ double-overtime loss.