This was like watching an intrasquad game, but Saturday’s matinee really featured No. 25 Wisconsin and struggling Iowa.
The match brought together the Badgers’ Bo Ryan and the Hawkeyes’ Todd Lickliter, a pair of cagey fundamentalist coaches who propound distinct yet similar styles. Both preach a defense that depends on positioning. Both practice a motion offense that utilizes screens and ball movement. Both prefer performers with multiple skills and demand that a merely good shot be ignored if an extra pass can deliver one that is better.
There is at root little difference in their philosophies, and that was not the only reason this resembled a meeting of teammates. Wisconsin looked like steely starters, and Iowa resembled shaky second-stringers who just didn’t get it yet.
This is hardly a surprise. The Badgers are experienced in the ways of Ryan, and the Hawkeyes are learning those of Lickliter, who is in his first season after leaving Butler. Nor was the result a shock. The Badgers (12-2, 2-0 Big Ten), as they often do, simply kept grinding away and finally ran off to a 64-51 victory.
Is the way Wisconsin played the way Lickliter would like to see his team play?
“I would think anybody would want their team to play with their poise and unselfishness and skill level,” he said. “They play with great purpose. We did at times also, but [we need] to play our game as consistently as they play their game. If we could ever do that continuously, we could be competitive.”
But that is just the problem now with his Hawkeyes (7-8, 0-2). They do nothing consistently, a shortcoming on full display here. They were tied 7-7 with just four minutes gone. But then, over the next 10, they went 2 of 9 from the field and scored just six points to fall behind by nine.
They rallied back within three points as the half entered its final minute. But in those seconds they threw away an ill-advised half-court pass, surrendered a conventional three-point play to the Badgers’ Joe Krabbenhoft and committed another turnover while setting up for the last shot to trail by six at halftime.
Still, at the start of the second half, they scored the first six points to pull into a 28-28 tie. But then, once more, they unraveled. Over the next nine minutes they committed five turnovers, went 1 of 9 from the field and scored just four points to drop behind by 13.
“Wisconsin’s really good,” Lickliter later said of this drought, which put his team into a hole it never would escape. “But we got anxious and took some shots that, honestly, we can’t make. But we hoped we could make them. You get anxious that way. You know where you’re at, you know who you’re up against. So often, the things that got you there, you slip away from. That’s what happened to us.”
That is what often happens to a team that is learning a new system. When times get tight, they regress and return to old habits. But that fate rarely befalls an experienced group like Wisconsin. It is fully imbued in its system, which it trusts and does not abandon.
So the Badgers, when they found themselves tied, simply kept running their stuff with a consistency the Hawkeyes defenders could not match. Iowa often was a step behind, which is why it committed 27 fouls and Wisconsin ended with 27 free-throw attempts.
Wisconsin’s Brian Butch often befuddled Iowa defenders, which is why the Wisconsin forward ended 7 of 12 from the field and 8 of 11 from the line on his way to game-high 22 points.
“Iowa’s going to win some games,” Ryan insisted after his team finished off this one.
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“I think we’re making progress,” Lickliter agreed. “I don’t know if we can make it fast enough. But we’re making progress. … So much of it is just having an understanding of making winning plays, understanding the game is played a possession at a time and that you can’t hurry up and win a basketball game.
“A game like this emphasizes how important it is to stay committed to those rules. Hopefully what you do is look at it and try to move forward and continue to grow.”
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