If you are, you haven't been watching this Badger team, and you may have drank the kool-aid after the Indiana win. This is a young team that will have games like this where too many mistakes cost them a win. Losing the turnover battle 12-7 was the key stat. UW just doesn't lose turnover battles like that very often. Give both UW and Iowa some nice credit in this one. After being down 20 in the first half UW kept battling and got themselves back in the game late in the 2nd half. Iowa, who starts 3 freshman, kept their cool when UW made the charge. Iowa didn't turn the ball over against pressure and the made 17-21 2nd half free throws.
Couldn't help but think back to the UW vs Iowa game Jan 21, 2009 that UW lost in overtime 73-69 when another freshman point guard had a break out game. In that game Jordan Taylor had career highs in points (10) and minutes played (20), and hit a deep 3 with 1 second left to send the game to overtime. That was the game you could see Taylor's potential for stardom. Marshall completely took over this game in the closing minutes scoring 20 points (on 7-10 shooting, 3-4 from 3, 3-3 FT). He also chipped in an assist and 0 turnovers.
I discussed a theory with Bart earlier this week that when judging young players you should look at them when they are at their best. This was a pretty good display by Marshall. Hopefully he continues to grow and earn more minutes.
I was not surprised by the result (I thought it was a tossup). In a pre-game post that I never actually finished, I pointed out that this year's Iowa team is actually surprisingly good on defense—top 25 in the country good. They hold opponents to an eFG% of jut 43.2%, which is very good.
ReplyDeleteMy thought on the game was that it would basically come down to whether Wisconsin had a decent shooting day. If they did, I thought they'd win. If they didn't, I thought they'd lose. The dividing line I chose was 47% for eFG%.
As it turns out, Wisconsin's eFG% was 50%, and Iowa's was only 45.1%. This is the most the Badgers have outshot an opponent and still lost since losing at Marquette in 2009—over four years ago. Pretty weird.
But this doesn't really tell the story of the game. In fact, Wisconsin's terrible shooting in the first half certainly was what put them into the 20 point hole that their second-half hot shooting could not get them out of. The poor first-half shooting was a big reason they lost.
And yet—stats don't lie. I think the turnover margin stat you point is the real difference in the game. Assuming that the Badgers didn't throw away so many possessions, they probably could have come all the way back when the shooting evened out, as it did.